Oldest archives of the site I could find (Jan 10, 1998). The design has really changed since then.
Anyway,
here are the first ever posts in the Internet Gambling forum. It's amazing how little has changed.
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Rake</font>
Complaining about...
$3 Rake Is Huge!
Posted by: George M. Rice, Jr. (Yorick@mindspring.com)
Posted on: Tuesday, 1 February 2000, at 7:06 p.m.
The online casino I play at charges $3 maximum rake per hand. While this may be a reasonable rake to charge in a "brick and motar" casino, it's probably very high for an online casino.
Real card rooms have to pay large utility bills, labor costs and real estate expenses. Online casinos have comparitively little in the way of expenses.
As online poker gets more popular, and hence, more revenue is made by the casinos, I'd hope they'd reduce their rake. $2 or even $1 should be more than enough to make good money. Or at least give a good portion back in bad-beat jackpots or other promotions.
I have no problem with these guys making money, but let's not over do it.
What say 'yall?
Hoping for / Predicting change...
Re: $3 Rake Is Huge!
Posted by: Graham Webster (gwebster@sargasso.bbsr.edu)
Posted on: Tuesday, 1 February 2000, at 10:47 p.m.
I agree; $3 is huge for the actual cost to the online casino. But I would imagine that in the future, with more online gambling sites, the competition factor will serve to drive this down somewhat. At least we can hope so. It does irk that they rake that high - comparatively, when you consider what they actually provide for that rake. I see Paradise Poker is coming up towards 2 million hands, so they must be doing ok. But, we shouldn't complain too much right now, I believe. Personally I'm glad the opportunity is there to play. Otherwise I would be stuck with the local house game, which is small stakes and tends to be on the slow side. I'm withholding judgement right now; I don't blame them (yet..)for their rakes - remember, it's still low. How rakes are set in the future may be a function of the level of competition and/or unspoken agreement between online casinos
I'm still playing online tho', and they can carry on raking as long as I'm winning...!
Graham
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Bots</font>
# Internet Poker Cheating
Posted by: George M. Rice, Jr. (Yorick@mindspring.com)
Posted on: Saturday, 29 January 2000, at 6:00 p.m.
Oooo, new forum, let me be the first. ;-)
I'm concerned that as internet poker becomes more popular, the "casinos" will be tempted to cheat. They could do this by having robot players at a table and fix it so that these robots win more than their share of hands. How's one to know if a player really exists? One or two robot players at a table could make quite a bundle for the casino over time, and cost us players a lot. It's probably not hard to right the software to do it.
I do think someone will try something like this eventually. Anywhere where there's money to be made is sure to attract the worst element. And with these casinos off-shore, we would have no redress even if we could prove it, which would be impossible to do if done right.
So what does everyone else think about this?
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Juicing the deck</font>
Re: Some Stats - Some paranoia
Posted by: Scott Horton
Posted on: Wednesday, 9 February 2000, at 7:14 p.m.
In the smaller limit games there is obvious house incentive to maximize the rake. Would this be done through juicing the deck or the board cards? Hard to say. The stakes are really big. Internet poker has the potential to make these industry leaders very rich without any cheating, at least until competetion lowers the rake. It could also make them 20% richer while they juice the cards to stimulate action. Also more players will enjoy the action if they seem to get more playable hands even if they still lose.
On the flip side, there seems to be no end to the dishonesty coupled with greed I encounter in this life. It is everywhere. I'd be very surprised if internet poker avoids this trap completely.
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Government worries</font>
# Prohibition of Internet Gambling
Posted by: DjTj (tjou@caltech.edu)
Posted on: Thursday, 24 February 2000, at 5:21 a.m.
I've been looking into this recently and it seems to me that sometime in the near future, there will be a U.S. Federal Ban on Internet Gambling.
I was wondering how this could legally affect the internet cardrooms like Planet and Paradise Poker. The wording of the current Congressional Bill seems to outlaw providing gambling services to U.S. Citizens - but as the cardrooms are outside the country, it doesn't seem like the United States could really do anything...
Is there anybody a little more knowledgeable on this that could enlighten me as to what the ramifications of this are going to be?
Thanks, ~DjTj
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RGP sucking</font>
# Anyone else making money ?
Posted by: Pierre (ps1@videotron.ca)
Posted on: Sunday, 27 February 2000, at 5:46 p.m.
I've read quite a few messages on RGP from players who have lost and suspect that cheating is involved, but not many from winners.
I've been making money for a few months now, not that much since i play low limit, but i am winning steadily. I'm sure there are several players who make money if i'm making some. I'm not doing anything special, just playing very thight and making the fish pay when i have a great hand.
C'mon winners,lets hear from you !