[silvershade]

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My point isn't that businesses never break the law or do unethical things to make more money. My point is they wouldn't do it if it COST them money. Running a crooked game makes absolutely no sense in an operation where the site's only reason for existence is to provide a venue for a fair poker game.

Sites do not need to program in suckouts to keep the fish happy, because suckouts are already a part of poker. The luck element in poker keeps the fish coming back all by itself.

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The sites exist to make money, end of story. Even things like customer service are simply about getting your cash in the end.

On the subject of fish, they continue to play live year after year for many reasons, not all of them related to winning. A lot of those reasons ( socialising for instance ) simply dont exist online, online poker is a poor way of meeting that desire. Others such as a desire for competition could equally be served by any number of other online games and once people get tired of losing or just bored of the game probably will be. It's a huge assumption to believe that in a couple of years once the poker boom is dead and gone fish will continue to log on in any numbers to play, not everyone who loses is a compulsive gambler. Sites have a huge incentive to try and keep them playing, if rigging offered a way to help with that then human nature being what it is it wouldnt be a shock to find someone out there succumb to temptation, of course its quite possible no one will succumb but the temptation is out there nevertheless.

As for the assertion that rigging would cost them money, that seems slightly absurd, good players dont really pay the rake even though PT might fool you into believing we do, in fact the fish pay for both our winnings and the rake, the industry needs them more than it needs us, not less. Poker is a zero sum game, if there are no losers there is no game, that's the bottom line. The sites can probably lose some sharks quite happily if it comes to a choice between that and losing too many fish.