an "expert's" comments on online poker

figure this was kinda interesting...he's an "expert" ..i guess i'll take his word for it..gonna clean out my account now.

The Fallacy of Online Poker Gambling

by Stephen Katz

Online poker is rapidly becoming one of the most popular gambling games at gambling websites on the internet. The main reason for this popularity is the belief that it is a game of skill in which money could be won. This belief is a fallacy. Skillful play will never help gamblers to win money at online poker because winning money at online poker is impossible.

Online poker is a game of skill only to the extent that skillful play would allow gamblers to lose their money slower. Money could temporarily be won in the short-run. In the long-run though, the gambling "house" which operates the gambling website, will permanently win all the money from all of the players. With a fast played game such as poker, the short-run quickly becomes the long-run when playing enough hands. Each hand played whether winning or losing any particular hand, slowly disintegrates the bankroll of every gambler. There is not anything that gamblers can do to save their bankrolls except to never play online poker.

The top poker players in the world do not play poker at gambling websites. Some top poker players may say they do only because of getting paid for endorsements. These top poker players know they can beat the other players, but that they cannot beat the house. There is not anybody on the face of this earth who can make money playing online poker. Even the world’s best poker player will never be good enough to overcome the "rake" which is the house cut from each pot.

"It takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master" is a phrase used by some gambling website promoters to describe the poker game of Texas Holdem. This phrase is true when playing against other poker players if there is not any rake. But this phrase is false for online poker because of the rake involved. Gambling house promoters know this phrase is false for their poker. Yet they keep parroting this phrase to fool you into thinking that even though you keep losing money at their website, that one day you could "master" Texas Holdem and then start making money. This phrase for online Texas Holdem should be corrected to truthfully state, "It takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to lose money."

Here is an example of how the gambling house will always win all the money from all of the players. Five players sit-in on an online poker game each with a $20 bankroll for a total at the website table of $100. Let’s say the average pot is $10 and the rake is 5% or 50 cents per hand. Let’s say 200 hands are played which does not take that long. After 200 hands, that 50 cents rake per hand totals $100 which is the entire amount that all of the players started with at the website table. Of course not all of the players go broke at the exact same time and fresh money can come into the game. But sooner or later each gambler will eventually lose their $20 bankroll every time without exception. If bringing in $20 more, that will also eventually be lost. Every amount brought in will eventually be lost through continued play. Those are the facts in a nutshell. Any honest mathematician, statistician, or numbers expert who understands the game of poker, would not dispute the example in this paragraph.

Now knowing that money cannot be won playing online poker, here are three more nails in the online poker coffin so that this complete waste of your money, time and life can be buried:

1. How do you know the other online poker players are real? You could be the only real player at the website table with the rest being software program players which would be programmed so that you could not possibly win even in the short-run.

2. How do you know the cards are a randomly dealt deck? You would eventually lose your money anyway even with a randomly dealt deck. However some gambling houses do not want to wait that long to fleece you out of your money. The cards could be rigged in any which way to assure that you will lose quicker. They can easily rig any hand. For instance you could have four kings on the flop but a software program player gets a fourth ace at the river to beat you.

3. How do you know a gambling website can be trusted with your bank account and credit card information? Without your knowledge, they can easily clean out your bank account and max out your credit card anytime they wanted. After they do this, even if locating them in their country of origin and getting them hauled into court, they could just falsify some computer records and claim that you gambled away the money. It is highly unlikely that a judge from their country is going to rule in your favor.

There are a good number of dishonest gambling websites out there just waiting to steal money from you. But even if you did happen to find the most honest, forthright, respectable gambling house that exists, it still is a money fleecing business which would be most happy to financially destroy you. Do not give them the pleasure no matter how nice their website appears to be. Do not give them the pleasure no matter how friendly their promoters seem to be. Do not give them the pleasure for any reason.

These gambling houses along with their slick marketing campaigns are very clever at trying to influence you into gambling. Do not believe any advertising or information from gambling websites or other sources which state or imply that money can be made playing online poker. Do not let them fool you but if they have, then permanently delete their money fleecing software from your computer.

You have a choice to follow the guidance of this article or play online poker. Playing online poker will cost you money and quite possibly a lot of money. You may get addicted to it even if believing that could not happen. It very well can happen. Unfortunately, getting addicted to online poker has happened to many people. But even if never technically getting addicted to online poker, isn’t it foolish to play a game in which losing your money is a certainty? Losing money is not only true for online poker, but for all other gambling games on the internet. There are not and never will be any exceptions. You are absolutely, positively, guaranteed to lose your money. Those are the facts. Do not allow gambling promoters or anyone else to convince you otherwise.

Please make the right choice, the smart choice and the necessary choice to never play the money losing game of online poker or any other online gambling game. Keep your money in your bank account where it belongs. Your money does not belong in the bank account of a gambling house.

Stephen Katz

Stephen Katz is the author of Gambling Facts and Fictions: The Anti-Gambling Handbook to get yourself to stop gambling, quit gambling or never start gambling. If interested, please check out the website for our new book at http://www.gamblingfactsandfictions.com/ which details the realities and consequences of gambling.

Reprinting entire articles is very bad. Don't be surprised if it gets deleted...

...Even if the author is, as they say here, a "moran."

[ QUOTE ]
Reprinting entire articles is very bad. Don't be surprised if it gets deleted...

...Even if the author is, as they say here, a "moran."

[/ QUOTE ]

he posted this article in a poker article of a college newspaper objecting to the students who were making all this money online. this article wasn't from his website or anything like that...in fact he's probably glad i posted this in two plus two

he still doesn't know jack $hit about poker

[ianlippert]

How can he be an expert if he doesnt make money playing online?

Let him post some hand histories, then we might accept his point of view.

[MicroBob]

I think I've seen this guy quoted in a few articles about the horrible evils of online gambling.


It really doesn't matter that this guy is borderline-retarded.
The fact is..he claims to be an 'expert' about online-gambling (even though he is just making stuff up) and his arguments are very convincing for those who don't know any better.


Congressmen who want to prohibit and inhibit online-gambling more can turn to this 'expert' for his ridiculous ideas and use it to push forth legislation.


It strikes me as completely bizarre that there is wide-spread evidence of long-term winners in online-poker...including MANY mathematicians or statisticians or other experts who would tell you "of course it's possible. Are you an idiot?"...but this guy insists that it just isn't possible.


It's really easy to see that it's possible for a good player to beat a bad player if there is no rake.
It's equally easy to see that if they take $0.01 in rake on each hand then the good player will have to be a little bit better to make up for the rake being taken out.
And it's equally easy to see that there is a point at which the rake COULD be so high that poker WOULD be impossible to beat.....but that $0.50 per hand on a 1/2 (or whatever) limit table is NOT to that point.


How anyone can write semi-articulately AND have actually studied and thought through this stuff (much-less claim to be an expert about it) and NOT see the obvious is truly beyond me.

[Equal]

I disagree... his article reads like a 12 year old's class paper.

[reddred]

geez..... makes no sense.....they take a rake in a casino too (plus a tip)....is he trying to say there is no such thing as a professional poker player? Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, D. Negraneau, etc....they "can't possibly win money playing poker b/c of a rake?" Everyone (without exception) who claims to be up at online poker, is lying? What a whackjob....

[MicroBob]

Well...i did say that it was 'semi-articulate'.


Have you ever heard Dr. Phil speak about the evils of online-gambling (or anything else for that matter)?

I think he's a moron. You probably do to.
but his opinions DO influence people because there are SOME people who think he's a freaking genius and that he really IS an expert on EVERYTHING.


I'm happy that this Katz guy isn't able to make a more intelligent argument (if he was...then he would actually be smart enough to realize that it's wrong)...but the fact is, his argument IS convincing to plenty of people who know nothing about gambling or poker or how it works.


I guarantee you that if my Mom saw this article (which she will soon since I posted it my blog) she would immediately get worried.
She knows that I have made my income from poker for the past year and a half.
But this guy is the 'expert' and HE says it can't be beaten. So I would have to tell my mom that HE is the idiot and that I actually do have a clue what I'm doing and I can confirm that this guy is just making stuff up.

Just thinking of how my Mom or a couple other relatives might react to this article is enough to convince me that this guy actually COULD have an impact.
If anything, the spreading of this kind of incorrect info can dissaude a new player from giving online-poker a try and thereby could stunt growth.

[Equal]

Yeah I hear you Bob, and agrre completely with what you are saying.

The problem is that an article that refuted that one above or even just explained the online poker phenomenon would never ever reach the masses.

Whatever, any uproar over online poker will just blow over the minute there is new "evil" fad for the Bible Belt to bitch about.

[Piz0wn0reD!!!!!!]

this guy sure is an expert in jackassery