good Lee Jones article

[silvershade]

I have no reason to believe online poker is rigged, that said it's big business and i wouldnt be at all shocked to wake up one morning to find the headlines exposing an online poker site for having a distorted shiffle.

The arguements that they wouldnt do it because the rake is profitable enough anyway are incredibly naive given the types of things that go on in big business day in day out.

[revots33]

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The arguements that they wouldnt do it because the rake is profitable enough anyway are incredibly naive given the types of things that go on in big business day in day out.

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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.

[gabyyyyy]

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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.

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How does it cost them money when idiots like you come to their defense anytime someone makes an accusation?

[MicroBob]

calling everyone idiots when YOU are the one who is losing is somewhat...well...ironic I suppose.

Everyone has bad-beats...I would be willing to bet that a winning player would turn a profit with the exact hands and cards that you had.


You can post your p-tracker stats if you want to try to convince people that you really are unluckier than everyone else.
Or you can post some hands to try to see if you are playing them correctly.


If you are losing then it is unwise to assume that you are playing your hands correctly.



Also...did I somehow get confused on "I'm leaving the forums" means?
Welcome back again I suppose.

[bpb]

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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.

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How does it cost them money when idiots like you come to their defense anytime someone makes an accusation?

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People who live in glass houses ....

[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.

[revots33]

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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.

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Your logic makes no sense. "The industry needs them more than it needs us?" Who's "them"? Are we talking about some other species? I'm pretty sure what the industry needs is poker players, which is what we all are. A player is only a fish in relation to his skill vs. the skill of his competition - there is no group of players called "fish" that the sites are trying to recruit.

You make it sound like the poker site execs are sitting around a conference table saying, "We've got lots of players - but not enough fish! We need to sign up more fish!!!" The whole thing is ludicrous.

Poker sites need players. Players generate rake. Especially frequent players, and high-limit players. The large majority of these players want to play where they trust the game is fair. The idea that more people would intentionally choose to play at a site because the games are crooked, is ridiculous.

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but why is everyone so sure that a major site wouldn't juice the card flow a little bit? and i underline "a little bit", just to spice things up.

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What does the site gain by messing with things?

[revots33]

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but why is everyone so sure that a major site wouldn't juice the card flow a little bit? and i underline "a little bit", just to spice things up.

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Because the sites are making millions of dollars running honest games. Why would they jeopardize that just to "spice things up"?

Anyway, I think the theory that dealing more bad beats somehow increases the site's earnings is false. The sites don't know or care who's a fish, who's a shark, or who wins a hand. They make their rake either way. Good players are the customers who generate the most rake for them - so why would they intentionally alienate their best customers, to try and entice the fish with a few extra suckouts here and there? It makes no sense at all from a business perspective.

"so why would they intentionally alienate their best customers, to try and entice the fish with a few extra suckouts here and there? It makes no sense at all from a business perspective."
It makes a hell of a lot of sense. I'm not saying that the sites are rigged, all I'm saying is, yes, it would make sense to entice the fish. Why? To keep them coming back for more. Think about it, if they never hit their longshots, they'd become disenchanted and stop playing altogether. However, if you notice, when players like that suck out, the suckout tends to award them a nice-sized pot. That's what they remember. It's like those lemmings that keep popping quarter after quarter into the slot machines. At the end of the trip to Vegas, they're in the red. In fact, they probably lost more money than they brought because they went to the ATM five times to reload. Why do they keep doing it? Why do they keep returning to Vegas to go through that again. Because every now and then they win $1,200 bucks and believe the illusion that they can become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Clank, clank, clank....more quarters into the slot. Fish are the same way. They remember that big pot they won (actually, sucked-out) and believe they know what they're doing and that they can do it again. They don't realize that, in reality, they've lost more money playing poker than they've won.
I'm not saying that online poker is rigged, I agree with you that it doesn't make sense to jeopardized a good thing by juicing the card flow (although greed makes people do stupid things) but to say there would be "no" incentive to do it is wrong IMHO. I belive they don't do it because they believe there will always be fish to replace those that lose heart in donating to intelligent 2+2ers.