Pokerstars Is Fixed

[Gambit1]

In ontario there was something like this with scratch cards. Wasn't rigged as in you weren't able to win but you could determine the winning cards thru the serial numbers on the cards.

My friend had a convience store back when we found about this and what'd we do is look for the winning cards even the small ones and keep em for ourselves and start feeding the customers the non-winning ones.

My point is that it could very well be rigged but the more rigged it is the more they'll hide it.

[MatusowIsBald]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The fact that poker sites readily offer you hand history files to obleviate fears of "rigging"- should demonstrate the importance they place on providing a fair game.

[/ QUOTE ]
i find this more relevant, and i agree.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is such a ridiculous statement. So, dr. Statistics, have you ran an analysis on these hand histories and can say with X percent confidence that everything is on the level?

I am not in the "poker is rigged crowd". I just think the arguments you guys use to dismiss "rigging" are silly.

1) Why would they rig it, they're making a ton of money anyway. because rigging it makes you more money!!

2) They are audited/would get caught you have no idea how thorough the audit is plus it isn't that hard to fool auditors, ever hear of Enron, Worldcom, etc? Those frauds were 100 times less complex than rigging and the most prestigous accounting firms in the world didn't catch on

3) They give you had histories, the numbers don't lie. I have yet to ever see a true statistical analysis from someone who is qualified to do one.

Again, not saying I agree with OP, but these arguments blow hard.

[ QUOTE ]
Thinks of the hug amount of money an employee could make if they could sell their story of "online poker site rigging", or if it is rigged- I am sure some "insider" would have tried to expoliot their finding. But it just hasn't happened.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, another bad point. If this person did exist, they would be very highly compensating and incented to keep their mouth shut. Again, think of Enron and Worldcom and Healthsouth.

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh... you stole my answer. I would also like to say that I have no idea if any online site is "rigging" things, but it never ceases to amaze me how many people act like it's an impossibility. As you noted, companies like Enron and Worldcom kind of shoot down the "their making so much money, why would they risk getting caught" theory, in my opinion. I think people tend to think that the bigger and more successful a company is, the more legit they must be. I'm not sure I believe that. Considering most of these companies are offshore and the regulation process leaves a lot to be desired, I don't think you can assume they are all on the up and up. Like I said, I'm not implying that they are in fact rigged. I just wouldn't be so quick to assume it's an impossibility.

[ZKoeske]

Hello All. I appreciated the responses, particularly from Zetack and Ray of Light, who appear to be the only people not mocking me completely. I posted what I did because I wanted to generate a response. I wanted to see if I could get any explanations that I hadn't heard before, any rebuttals, anyone in agreement, anything, just to see where posters on this site stood on that issue.

My intention was not to prove that Pokerstars, or any other online poker site is fixed, because I obviously don't have the data to attempt that. Neither was my intention to convert people who oppose my position, because I understand that these two camps of thought are quite antagonistic toward one another. Nor was I just trying to whine about bad beats and losing money (Like I explained, I feel like it swings both ways, and I am a winning player, believe it or not some of you)

The point I am trying to get across is that I consider myself a relatively serious poker player. I've been a winning player over a 3 year span, whatever that says, and I'd like to improve even more. The only issue is that I can't seem to get over that I think online poker is not legit. I don't want to believe this at all, but everytime i try to convince myself otherwise, I just see the same patterns, the same beats(either taking them, or inflicting them on others).

If there is anyone on here that once believed that online poker was fixed after playing for more than an inconsequential amount of time and then later started believing it was legit, please respond to my post and tell me what you discovered that changed your mind.

I'd also like to make some sort of statistical attempt to track hands. However, I do not have pokertracker, nor do I even know how to measure such things. Unless I can see everyone's hands at the table, I will never know whether the best hands lose more than they should due to people folding at various times throughout. The only thing I can think of measuring that would be possible and relatively simple are pre flop all-ins. When I did this for about 2 weeks of a few hundred SNG's, the only thing that stood out was that almost all the worst beats were taken by small stacks up against big stacks in SNG's. Obviously this is not a statistically significant sample size, but it did shed light on a particular hypothesis that would be worth investigating further. So if anyone has any idea how to better track such things, or has done it themselves, please let me know.

[DING-DONG YO]

[ QUOTE ]
Heh... you stole my answer. I would also like to say that I have no idea if any online site is "rigging" things, but it never ceases to amaze me how many people act like it's an impossibility. As you noted, companies like Enron and Worldcom kind of shoot down the "their making so much money, why would they risk getting caught" theory, in my opinion. I think people tend to think that the bigger and more successful a company is, the more legit they must be. I'm not sure I believe that. Considering most of these companies are offshore and the regulation process leaves a lot to be desired, I don't think you can assume they are all on the up and up. Like I said, I'm not implying that they are in fact rigged. I just wouldn't be so quick to assume it's an impossibility.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup. I once wrote a post about how I couldn't understand how anyone could not even at least acknowledge the possibility of rigging and I got flamed like a mofo.

enjoy

[Gambit1]

After reading this 5 page post seems like alot of posters on twoplustwo seem like kids or idiotic 30 year olds.

[ZKoeske]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Heh... you stole my answer. I would also like to say that I have no idea if any online site is "rigging" things, but it never ceases to amaze me how many people act like it's an impossibility. As you noted, companies like Enron and Worldcom kind of shoot down the "their making so much money, why would they risk getting caught" theory, in my opinion. I think people tend to think that the bigger and more successful a company is, the more legit they must be. I'm not sure I believe that. Considering most of these companies are offshore and the regulation process leaves a lot to be desired, I don't think you can assume they are all on the up and up. Like I said, I'm not implying that they are in fact rigged. I just wouldn't be so quick to assume it's an impossibility.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup. I once wrote a post about how I couldn't understand how anyone could not even at least acknowledge the possibility of rigging and I got flamed like a mofo.

enjoy

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with both of you and everyone else who has made this statement. While I am still up in the air about the legitimacy of online poker, and I obviously wrote a long post explaining why I think it's fixed, I am not at all opposed to listening to the other side, or even changing my opinion if someone gives me something interseting to think about. I think the fact that such a majority of the people on here belittle anyone who questions anything is unfortunate. Regardless of who is right or wrong, it is not as if online poker being rigged is so unbelievable that its worth mocking and berating someone who just so happens to put the idea out there. I definitely believe it is something worth discussing seriously and those that question should not be dismissed as idiotic whiners. While many of those do exist (myself included sometimes, and it even pisses me off) I don't think the answer is so cut and dry. Obviously if such a scandal was being pulled off by poker rooms, absolutely none of the stuff anyone ever said in this forum would be of any consequence for online play. So why not take it more seriously? Get someone with the know-how to do a real analysis

sorry, while I do believe these "no-name" sites are not legit, PS and some of the other big name sites are makeing WAY too much money to have even a hint of 'fix' attached to them. That is why I stay with the big names so I know I will not get the shaft.

[DING-DONG YO]

POST DELETED BY DING-DONG

[MatusowIsBald]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Heh... you stole my answer. I would also like to say that I have no idea if any online site is "rigging" things, but it never ceases to amaze me how many people act like it's an impossibility. As you noted, companies like Enron and Worldcom kind of shoot down the "their making so much money, why would they risk getting caught" theory, in my opinion. I think people tend to think that the bigger and more successful a company is, the more legit they must be. I'm not sure I believe that. Considering most of these companies are offshore and the regulation process leaves a lot to be desired, I don't think you can assume they are all on the up and up. Like I said, I'm not implying that they are in fact rigged. I just wouldn't be so quick to assume it's an impossibility.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup. I once wrote a post about how I couldn't understand how anyone could not even at least acknowledge the possibility of rigging and I got flamed like a mofo.

enjoy

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, I'm not saying it's rigged. I just don't see anything wrong with looking at things with a skeptical eye. As far as I'm concerned, online poker is Big Business. If people want to assume there's no way that online poker sites could be cheating their customers, I have no problem with that. Conversely, I can also understand how someone might look at some of the other big corporations who have been busted for corruption in the past few years alone and be a little wary. The fact that numerous offshore sportsbooks and poker sites have screwed their customers in one form or another at least leaves room for debate in my opinion.

The last thing I will say, and I don't want anyone to take this the wrong way, is that if someone is making a great deal of money playing poker on the Internet, the last thing they want to hear is that it could be rigged. That means their livelihood could be getting screwed with. I think it's human nature to lash out at an accusation like that. Oh, and there's the fact that nobody, up to this point, has been able to prove that rigging has taken place. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[tom10167]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
After reading this 5 page post seems like alot of posters on twoplustwo seem like kids or idiotic 30 year olds.

[/ QUOTE ]

You talking about my post or the OP?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't even know who said it but seriously... who gives a crap.