Organizing a project to determine which sites are legit or rigged

[Henry17]

The concept of a doomswitch makes me laugh. Anyone who actually thinks a site targets specific players is just unable to face the fact that they are not good poker players.

[nineinchal]

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The concept of a doomswitch makes me laugh. Anyone who actually thinks a site targets specific players is just unable to face the fact that they are not good poker players.

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I agree that your statement has a lot of truth in it. However, just keep in mind that it is also possible that a poker provider may also manipulate outcomes so that the good players don't earn as much.

Please bear in mind that a dollar an account on a million accounts is a million bucks.

All I ask is that everybody be willing to keep an open mind and be able to recognize that there is a lot of dishonesty in the world; maybe in some on-line gaming sites as well.

[Bobo Fett]

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Pardon me if im being stupid but doesnt observational evidence mean anything? I mean all you have to do is play on stars for a few hours to realize something is strange.

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Not really...this is the problem with so many "site x is rigged" posts. It is a starting point, though. For example, maybe you think your opponents are sucking out on you way too often. Well, it's time to go into your PT database, or hand histories, and see for yourself. You might find the figures agree with your observations...now it's time to see if your sample size is large enough - is it just variance? Still worried...NOW you make a post on 2+2, sharing your evidence, and see if anyone else has similar experiences.

If, on the other hand, your numbers disagree with your observations, your mind is probably playing "tricks" on you. For example, maybe you forget that for every time some fish sucks out on you with his 2-outer, there's 20 more times he misses. You wouldn't even know about many of those times, since he folds his hand. It's those major events, like being sucked out on for the third time in a row, that you remember. You don't remember all those times that your hand held up...that's routine. There's nothing wrong with this, it's just the way our minds work.

In summary, statistics >>>> observation. Every time.

[razarcrius]

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Pardon me if im being stupid but doesnt observational evidence mean anything? I mean all you have to do is play on stars for a few hours to realize something is strange.

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Not really...this is the problem with so many "site x is rigged" posts. It is a starting point, though. For example, maybe you think your opponents are sucking out on you way too often. Well, it's time to go into your PT database, or hand histories, and see for yourself. You might find the figures agree with your observations...now it's time to see if your sample size is large enough - is it just variance? Still worried...NOW you make a post on 2+2, sharing your evidence, and see if anyone else has similar experiences.

If, on the other hand, your numbers disagree with your observations, your mind is probably playing "tricks" on you. For example, maybe you forget that for every time some fish sucks out on you with his 2-outer, there's 20 more times he misses. You wouldn't even know about many of those times, since he folds his hand. It's those major events, like being sucked out on for the third time in a row, that you remember. You don't remember all those times that your hand held up...that's routine. There's nothing wrong with this, it's just the way our minds work.

In summary, statistics >>>> observation. Every time.

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Good post.. It's true I get sucked out on a lot at my local poker room too.. It just seems I get sucked out on way more at stars. I realize I play more hands online.. But it's like everytime I get sucked out on at stars is on the river.

[nineinchal]

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Pardon me if im being stupid but doesnt observational evidence mean anything? I mean all you have to do is play on stars for a few hours to realize something is strange.

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Not really...this is the problem with so many "site x is rigged" posts. It is a starting point, though. For example, maybe you think your opponents are sucking out on you way too often. Well, it's time to go into your PT database, or hand histories, and see for yourself. You might find the figures agree with your observations...now it's time to see if your sample size is large enough - is it just variance? Still worried...NOW you make a post on 2+2, sharing your evidence, and see if anyone else has similar experiences.

If, on the other hand, your numbers disagree with your observations, your mind is probably playing "tricks" on you. For example, maybe you forget that for every time some fish sucks out on you with his 2-outer, there's 20 more times he misses. You wouldn't even know about many of those times, since he folds his hand. It's those major events, like being sucked out on for the third time in a row, that you remember. You don't remember all those times that your hand held up...that's routine. There's nothing wrong with this, it's just the way our minds work.

In summary, statistics >>>> observation. Every time.

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Good post.. It's true I get sucked out on a lot at my local poker room too.. It just seems I get sucked out on way more at stars. I realize I play more hands online.. But it's like everytime I get sucked out on at stars is on the river.

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The Legacy of Lee Jones is that he created the "River Doom Switch" on his way out the door...

[Henry17]

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Good post.. It's true I get sucked out on a lot at my local poker room too.. It just seems I get sucked out on way more at stars. I realize I play more hands online.. But it's like everytime I get sucked out on at stars is on the river.

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You do realize that is normal? The percentage of bad players online is much greater then what you'd get at most casinos. If a larger number of players chase they will hit more often.

[Henry17]

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Please bear in mind that a dollar an account on a million accounts is a million bucks.

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You do realize that a site like Stars makes about 2 million a day? A million isn't motivation to a poker site.

That is why I find this increased rake concept so funny. The increased rake would be less then 15M a year. No one risks 400M+ a year in perpetuity to make an extra 15M.

[NANONUTS]

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Maybe this has been discussed elsewhere in more depth, but

The first thing that comes to mind is to define "rigged".

What is "balancing", how would it be used and why would it be used.

Are we talking about a site identifying individual fish and then helping them in their future sessions by substituting the RNG with a program that analyzes their hand and then gives them a better outcome?

Or vice/verse. Identifying pros and doing the opposite.


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No, balancing would not identify individual fish (or pros). It wouldn't have to. Basically if you skew the cards dealt when people are all in to favor the worst hand, say make it 40% chance to improve instead of 20%, this will automatically favour the fish as he is the one going to be all with the worts of it most often.

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I can see where a site might have motive, but it seems that the whole rigging process would be rather complex.

First, you'd have to have software to identify fish and/or pros.

Then, you'd have to have the "balancing" software.

So you have software developers.
Some group of people have to manage the process.
You'd have to have someone watching those people.
You'd have to have someone watching the watchers.


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You need none of that stuff. It's a simple task for any decent programmer, you'd need probably a couple of hundred lines code that could be done in less than an hour and then you just sit back and let it do it's job. There is nothing to mantain. I can't emphasise how quick and simple this would be to code, this isn't advanced graphics or network programming, if you have robust card dealing code which you would if you're a poker site [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img], this would be a piece of cake.



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A site would have to weigh the consequences of the secret being exposed against some calculated benefit.


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The balancing would be almost impossible to expose as it would require a group effort of analysing alot of stats. It's not good enough to have one person doing it, you need a few respected long time contributors to weigh in and agree with the evidence to give it validation. As you can see from this thread there is plenty of argument about it already and it hasn't even started. I don't see any winning players coming forward with their life stats.
Then, if by some miracle the work was actually done, as Absolute have done, the site could attribute any damning statistical evidence to luck or rather the lack of it.
One thing I have to laugh at is people suggesting if the source code was analysed a conclusion could be drawn. Yes, if you expect a guilty party to willingly hand over evidence of their guilt, with nothing to gain, then yes this would be a good idea. They'd either give nothing or else remove the balancing code from the software before handing it over, why the hell would they hand over rigged code? The day criminals start producing evidence against themselves tho has yet to come.

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Which goes to motive. A site makes money by raking regulars. Unless a site is just assuming that keeping fish happier somehow profits the site, some individual or group of persons must have done a financial analysis to show that. That's even more people that would know the secret.


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Em, in case you haven't realised it yet, most people lose at poker. Eventually they lose enough and decide quit or they go broke and have no choice in the matter. The site does not make most of it's money from regulars. Per capita the regulars are paying the most rake but it is the schools of fish that keep coming to play them that keep the ecosystem going. There alot more losers than winners, and these losers pay the same rake as the winners so it is in the site's interest to keep them playing as long as possible.


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I guess I would like to see some proof in terms of numbers that a site would even have a motive for this type of rigging.


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Here is a simple example of how it would works in theory. Say, there are on average 1000 players playing on a particular site at any given time. This figure is maintained by new fish replacing the ones who've gone broke or can't afford it anymore. Say if the code was made to keep the fish from going broke so quick...then instead of 1000 players playing rake you have 1000 + 600(example number, this number would depend on how severe the software balancing was) = 1600.

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I worry much more about a site being apathetic to cheating and collusion than I worry about the site actively participating in rigging.

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If the site's software is balanced you will be taking an EV hit on every single hand. It'd have a much bigger effect on your bottom line than collusion (which almost pointless in cash games) and cheating.

[Bobo Fett]

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Good post.. It's true I get sucked out on a lot at my local poker room too.. It just seems I get sucked out on way more at stars. I realize I play more hands online.. But it's like everytime I get sucked out on at stars is on the river.

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You do realize that is normal? The percentage of bad players online is much greater then what you'd get at most casinos. If a larger number of players chase they will hit more often.

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Correct in that more fish means more players calling down and being able to suck out. However, it's fairly widely believed around here that live play is MUCH softer than online play at the same stakes.

That being said, you can obviously have much better table selection online...IE you can pick your table based on stats and get the fishiest table possible. That combined with the MUCH larger number of hands played online (especially if you multitable) probably helps create the image of online play being "rigged" at times.

[helter skelter]

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The concept of a doomswitch makes me laugh. Anyone who actually thinks a site targets specific players is just unable to face the fact that they are not good poker players.

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I agree that your statement has a lot of truth in it. However, just keep in mind that it is also possible that a poker provider may also manipulate outcomes so that the good players don't earn as much.



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Unlike other "rigged" posts, I don't think the OP ever implied that individual players were being targeted. I think it was a serious post to see if sites can be monitored for broadbased anomalies. That would serve the interests of all poker players, especially the pros.

If it turns out that a site is "rigged" to help the fish, I'm sure everyone here would want to know about it.

As far as house players are concerned, that would not likely show up in this type of analyses. I don't know how you would even begin to ferret that out unless you had an insider who decided to blow the whistle and presented credible evidence.