Theories on how online poker is rigged?

[OrangeHeat]

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The problem is finding a hypothesis

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[TIN HAT ON] [KOOK EXCERCISE ONLY DISCLAIMER]

A hypothesis.

A big site like party is not worried about generating more rake as they have a huge player base playing multiple games.

Also manipulating the flop or any cards would be easily detectable with the advent of data mining.

What they could be worried about is losing their player base. i.e - money leaving the site in the hands of winning players.

Now where is the most money taken? Apparantly from their recent reduction in the number of 30/60 and 200 NL games it is at the higher limits (expected).

So besides reducing the number of big games how can more money be kept in the pool without being obvious in data mining??

Where would this method be applied - the higher limits would be the next most obvious "leak" in player money.

It may be fairly simple:

1.Internal player accounts would be set up for short periods of time so sample size would be "statistically insignificant on a PT database".

2.Internal players would be given the benefit of seeing everyones hands (doable I think) and if they are big winner or big loser (if we can do it they can).

3.The purpose of these internal players would not be to "win" but rather to take from the best and give to the medicore. Giving it to the worst wouldn't make sense as they would just give it back and you would need thousands of these IP's.

4. How to take from the good - Having them see everyone's cards should do the trick if they are skilled themselves. They simply take advantage of this on good players and give to the medicore.

5. As long as they are not on for more than a few thousand hands then they should not raise flags in PT databases.

So the sites would not be "stealing" and keeping your money - just making sure it stays a little longer to keep the player base alive longer. All this without affecting any of the "Randomness of the cards".

Good players would still make a profit as they would not do this constantly. Perhaps a few here and there throughout the month/year or if there is a sudden spike in money leaving they could hammer it hardcore for a week/month.

How to test the theory...good luck. The only thing you might look for is a number of players in a pokertracker mining database who all played for short timespans and ended up breaking even.

This would have to be from an entirley mined database unless your the big loser as the results would be skewed if your the winner or mediocre guy.

The problem on top of that is that the sample size would always be to small.

[TIN HAT OFF] [KOOK EXCERCISE ONLY DISCLAIMER OFF]

So do I win a prize for kooky unproveable theory? Or is there a hole in my tinfoil hat?

Kookie Orange