friend thinks party rigged - help with links/info to show otherwise

[Gildwulf]

If PP isn't rigged then all the [censored] sky-is-falling posts about being hacked aren't helping OP's case.

[crunchy1]

http://www.partypoker.com/itech_popup.html

[Lestat]

I am really relucant to engage in a philosophical debate on this here. Maybe I'll make a seperate post about this on SMP one day. For now, I'll just say that I can make a strong logical counter-argument to each of your 5 points.

Also, I don't need convincing. I play high limit poker online every single day (probably more hands than most here), and am making what I consider sufficient money for my time.

My only point is that I think it is entirely possible for an online gaming site to cheat a player out of a portion of his/her equity for an indefinite period of time without getting caught. I find arguments that the motivation wouldn't be there to be silly. To that, I'll just point to a company called Enron.

[jackjack]

There is one final option.

It is however fraught with danger.

Instruct your friend to sign up with a user name of "eon" (minus the quotes), or "eno" if "eon" is already taken, then phone Party Support and request an audience with "The Architect". Let us know how it goes

[kerowo]

Cheating one person wouldn't be that difficult, you could probably even hide it so it would be impossible to detect. However, cheating everyone would be more problimatic, how do you do it so that people mining hands and doing statistical analysis of hand distributions don't see something weird?

OK, so every hand is going to have a winner and a loser and with enough computing power you could run the hands ahead of time and then just switch who gets the winning hand, which should keep the hand distribution right. But how much computing power do you think Party has?

You are making this a religous argument because you refuse to accept the independent validation that has been done of the site. If you can't be convinced it isn't rigged there isn't any point arguing about it. But just because you won't believe it doesn't mean it isn't true.

[Mike Haven]

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i remember a thread detailing an analysis of expected vs actual hand frequencies at party

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The link is in lorinda's FAQ post.

[thing85]

[ QUOTE ]
My only point is that I think it is entirely possible for an online gaming site to cheat a player out of a portion of his/her equity for an indefinite period of time without getting caught. I find arguments that the motivation wouldn't be there to be silly. To that, I'll just point to a company called Enron.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think anyone is really arguing that it's impossible for a poker site to cheat its players. I think the fact of the matter is that it's extremely unlikely, for previously mentioned reasons. Of course there is incentive for Party or anyone else to cheat its players. There's always an incentive to perform an illegal act - that's why such acts are made illegal. Your example, Enron, points to the very reason why companies now days are less likely to be fraudulent. Party Poker may not be subject to US law, but it is certainly not immune to bad publicity that would bring down its stock value (much like Enron's) and ultimately its business as a whole. Now I've gone off on a tangent, but hopefully I've made my point clear.

[dlk9s]

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[ QUOTE ]
Just tell him hes an idiot to believe that the largest and most profitable poker site in the world would risk everything just so they could rig the cards. Ask him what they would profit by doing this. Then explain to him the risks of them doing this(people finding out and losing your entire business). Then ask him if he thinks any reasonable company would take that risk/reward.

P.S. Why exactly does he believe that it is rigged? Send him on over here so we can berate him a bit

[/ QUOTE ]

This is just silly. What would a poker site have to gain by developing a means that would allow poorer players to last longer in the games? How about MILLIONS of extra dollars!

I fully agree there isn't sufficient evidence to conclude it's rigged. But arguments like yours for why they can't be are just dumb.

[/ QUOTE ]

The point isn't that a poker room COULDN'T make extra money by "rigging" the deck (and this is assuming that it's possible), it's just that they WOULDN'T.

Benefits to rigging: Make extra money.
Risks: THE ENTIRE BUSINESS

The risks are MUCH, MUCH, bigger than the possible rewards. In poker-speak, if it was possible to rig the deck, doing so would be tremendously -EV.

[thing85]

[ QUOTE ]
In poker-speak, if it was possible to rig the deck, doing so would be tremendously -EV.


[/ QUOTE ]

Believe it or not, the concept of expected value is not primarily used for poker.

[dlk9s]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In poker-speak, if it was possible to rig the deck, doing so would be tremendously -EV.


[/ QUOTE ]

Believe it or not, the concept of expected value is not primarily used for poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

True - I went to business school, so believe me, I had my fill of EV calculations. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Figured that since EV is something that people on 2+2 would understand from poker, I'd use it in my post.