Online Poker - Almost Certainly Rigged

[KingOtter]

1. You're making a spectacular claim.
2. You're providing absolutely no proof that these events even happened. Not even one hand. Most sites even let you go in and request the last 100 hand histories, so you would at LEAST have this available to you, even if you don't 'keep hand histories'. I bet you could get even more if you e-mailed support. So your excuse for not having the hand histories is poor at best.
3. It is not naive, nor irrational to doubt you. In fact, it is completely rational to completely dismiss your claims based upon both 1 and 2.
4. It is irrational to expect a community of online-poker-players (who see this issue come up weekly) to believe you without any proof or substance.

So stop with the silliness.

KO

[kiddj]

[ QUOTE ]
A good programmer can do anything he/she wants.

What you are describing is the process we all believe exists. I am saying that if you were correct, I would not have experienced a 1 of 100K event 3 times in 7K hands. The possibility is so remote, that anyone that isn't mildly suspicious of these events in combination with a business that is unregulated, unaudited etc... is very naive. I'm sorry if that is insulting, but you are either living in a section of the world where people behave a lot differently than the world I am used to, or you are naive. Heck, I may just be the dumbass that experienced a 1 in a million event(or whatever it is), but given the game and the conditions I'd prefer to err on the side of caution instead of wishful naivety.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your logic/statistics are a little flawed. You said you had 5 hands, where 4 of the 5 hands you lost to 2 outs once, 3 outs twice, and 4 outs once. These hands are independant of each other. If you lose to a 2 outer 20 times in a row, the odds of it happening again is the same. Whether they happen in a row or 5,000 hands apart, it doesn't mean anything. Who won these hands? Who benefited by your bad run? One player? What limit was this at? I've been nailed like that many times. Ever lose to a 1 outer? I'm not saying that you're an idiot. My point is the evidence you have is not conclusive. If you can't prove it, mathematically or otherwise, then you shouldn't be making an argument.

Besides, if these things didn't happen, the Improbability Drive wouldn't be able to operate.

[deception5]

[ QUOTE ]
The reason that could be the key is because it is certainly in the interests of the online sites to keep "regular customers who are large rake contributors" happy at the expense of bonus whores who play for a few days and then disappear for a month to play at competitor sites that are giving out another reload bonus. I have been bonus whoring exclusively.

[/ QUOTE ]

These customers are quite happy when their 29o hits 2 pair on the river and they rake a big pot. They don't mind putting in more money every now and then and don't need someone to tweak the results for them to ensure that they will win an occasional pot. Haven't you ever seen a slot machine suck money out of someone? Every once in a while they win 10 quarters and are happy even though they are putting 3 in at a time.

Even a HINT of a site being rigged by a respected media firm would result in HUGE losses as customers would flock elsewhere or take their money out entirely.

You really think they need to risk that?

[bozlax]

[ QUOTE ]
Besides, if these things didn't happen, the Improbability Drive wouldn't be able to operate.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hate that f-ing thing...I'm still trying to get bits of whale off of the roof of my house.

[btspider]

Your ideas are intriguing to me. I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[MrWookie47]

C'mon guys. We get one of these every one or two weeks. At least half have to be people just looking to start a flame war rather than someone who honestly thinks it's rigged. Even if it's the latter, no one is going to convince any side that they're wrong. Can we, as a forum, just decide that the official response to any and all such posts is S.I.I.H.P. (First person to post it gets a gold star. NH DMBFan.), and make that the only response? I'm guilty of having perpetuated the thread somewhat, too, but posting all these statistical arguments is just feeding the trolls. Let's just get a cheap laugh from the OP, get a cheap laugh because someone said "pooper," and let this and all such threads die a timely death.

I apologize for bumping this thread up to the top again, but hopefully this will be the end of it.

[John Paul]

[ QUOTE ]
Before you write something nasty about me because of the subject of this post, please hear me out and keep an open mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mojobluesman,
Folks have been a little harsher on this thread than you deserve. I did try to keep an open mind, but I think there are some mathematical errors in your post that make this seem less likely than it really is.

[ QUOTE ]
I just played a relatively short session (about 1 hour)where I played 5 hands past the flop. I lost all 5 hands and wound up losing 30BBs for the session. It wasn't fun, but it was no big deal.

The big deal was this.

I had the best hand going to the river in 4 of the 5 hands and lost to 2 outs once, 3 outs twice, and 4 outs once.

The probabilities of losing with "x" outs on the river is:

2 outs - approx. - 4%
3 outs - approx. - 6%
4 outs - approx. - 8.5%

Individually, no big deal.

However, losing this way in what was essentially 4 of 5 hands taken to the river is a mind boggling statistical oddity. It's about 1 out 100K for 4 consecutive hands. Probably a little less for 4 of 5, but not all that much if you consider that the 5th was pocket TTs that lost heads up.

Now I know you are going to say we've all been through tough beats. 1 out of 100K means it's going to happen and it just happened to happen to you. However, the problem is that this is the 3rd time it has happened to me in about 7K total hands of play.

[/ QUOTE ]

Lets look at that more closely.

Based on the % you give above, the proportion of times you will lose these 4 hands is a row is
.04*.06*.06*.085=0.00001224
Dividing 1 by this gives you a 1:81,698 odds, not 1:100k which is a lot less - but still pretty unlikely.

However, these odds aren't right. I assume what you are dong is dividng the number of outs by the number of cards you dont know so 2/46, 3/46, 4/46 - since you know the 4 up-cards and your 2 hole cards. However, you rounded them, the real numbers here are:
2 outs = .0435
3 outs = .0652
4 outs = .0870
In every case your numbers were a little low. So if you redo the calculation with these numbers, you now have a 1:62156 event. More likely still.

But, that is still wrong. You see, in order to have a 2 or 3 or 4 outer, you have to specify the villian's hole cards. Without the hole cards the outs against you don't make any sense. So it should be 2/44 or 3/44 or 4/44. When you do this you get:
2 outs = .0455
3 outs = .0682
4 outs = .0909

Redoing the numbers again gives you 1:51981 which is a lot less then 1:100k.

You stated in the thread that all the hands were heads up at the river and that you counted the outs right, and I don't have any reason to doubt you. But, there could have been folks on the turn that were drawing to runner-runners that did not hit, which ideally should be worked in.

So - how likely is it to happen in 7k hands. You haven't been keeping track, so I will have to estimate. Based on the stats in the FAQ, in 7000 hands you will have seen the flop about 23% of the time = 1610 hands. Of those around 30% will have gone to showdown = 483. I will guess that you are ahead about 50% of the time on the river = 291 hands.

At this point I'm not positive how to proceed. There are 288 4 hand runs in here where you are ahead at the river. Dividing 288 by 51982 gives us 1 in 180 = again unlikely but hardly proof of rigging. However, the 288 runs of four hands are not independet, so I may be doing this wrong.

Also there are lots of other factors not included here. I looked for exactly four hands that loose to a 2,3,3 and 4 outer. But if you had lost to run of 1,2,2,4 outers that would seem bad too, so the odds of that happening should have been included, etc. And, as DBMFan23 pointed out, even if it was really unlikly that most poker sites have so many runs of 7k hands that all sorts of stuff happens.

Finally, how likely is this to happen 3 times - unlikely but hard to calcuate exactly without knowing:
1) what were the situations the other 2 times
2) how unliklely a beat do you need to notice it
3) how many villians were in the hands on the other runs as well.

So,
I do think you had an unlucky session and 7k run, but I don't think the odds against this are quite as bad as they seem if the cards are being dealt fairly.



John Paul
(who's biggest losing hand at 1/2 is KK over 4.5k hands)

[aK13]

All the math and stats wiz' make my life a lot easier, since I can let others do the calculations for me =).

[droolie]

Mojobluesman- We will not convince you otherwise but think about this...

I am a pure unadulterated whore. Of the 52K hands I've played I'd say 75% of them have come while clearing bonuses. I've been running a winrate that is practically impossible to sustain over the course of that time. If they were to fix the deck against anyone it would be me and yet they seem to be shoveling me money hand over fist.

Your argument is just plain silly. Just because you were the victim of a statistical anomoly does not mean there is any causal effect. I bet if we were all to look at our databases every one of us would find a similar statistical anomoly over the course of a 7K hand stretch.

For instance, last week I hit 2 Royal Flushes in just under 900 hands. Calculate the odds of that happening to whore who is having the deck stacked against him. It must be about 1,000,000,000,000,000:1. And yet I know I was just plain lucky. Just like I know you were just plain unlucky.

Seriously the deals are on the level keep playing your game and get over your paranoia and give up the conspiracy theories. They just don't add up.

[scotty34]

The chances of you getting that exact hand are around 650 000:1 I believe. The chances of you getting the hand you got right after is the same. The chances of getting both of those hands in a row is 650000^2:1 which is very near a statistical impossibility. I'm convinced.