If poker sites are rigged, let's prove it.

[trader01]

There seems to always be some discussion going on in these forums that various sites are rigged in favor of flush-chasing fish, in order to keep said fish alive (solvent) longer, so that sites can collect more rake.

The standard argument to this is that sites wouldn't risk losing their business and having a huge scandal for a bit of extra money, but this isn't really proof that they're not doing it.

It seems to me that it should be fairly simple to take a few million played hands and do some statistical analysis on them to determine if any site has rigging going on. For reference, some of you may have already seen this link:

poker-sucks.com/poker-sucks/pokerstars-is-robbing-you.html

While this person claims to have done some analysis, the fact that he is making money off a website called poker-sucks.com calls his credibility into question.

Therefore, perhaps a few people from 2+2 who have no financial motivation would care to do some statistical analysis on their hand histories. In order for such a study to have credibility, the following would have to be true:

1) It would have to be a respected/long time poster in the forums (I am no good for that reason)

2) It would have to be over a very large number of played hands (hundreds of thousands at least)

3) The methodology and/or programming code used to do the analysis would have to be published/explained to make sure that there were no errors in the method.

Instead of sitting here and always having a theoretical discussion about whether the sites are rigged or not, it seems that with all the data that has been collected by 2+2 posters over the years, that question should be very easy to answer with a bit of statistical analysis.

What do you think?

[mpslg]

[ QUOTE ]
perhaps a few people from 2+2 who have no financial motivation would care to do some statistical analysis on their hand histories.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you really think any people from 2+2 have no financial motivation?

[excession]

We don't have any discussions as to whether sites are rigged or not.

No serious poster thinks the big sites are rigged - it's like you popped up in a geology forum and asked for proof that the world isn't flat - if fish want to think they are losing coz the sites are rigged then fine..just so long as they blame anyhting other than the fact they are meeting better players..

[trader01]

Saying that "the sites aren't rigged because they wouldn't do that", or "the sites aren't rigged because most 2+2 serious posters don't believe it" hardly constitutes mathematical proof, which was the point of my post. Personally I would THINK that they wouldn't rig their results, but then read the discussion a bit further down where Pokerroom just blatantly didn't give some guy money that he had won. There are other stories too. The only way we will know is if we do some analysis on it...

And yes, I do believe that a group of a few well-respected 2+2 posters would have minimal financial motivation to lie about their results... as long as they weren't too closely affiliated with any one site. At the very least, it would give us some hard data to discuss instead of anecdotal evidence of some guy complaining about bad beats, which is completely useless.

EDIT: One other thing - I am not complainig about personally losing money, because that is not happening to me.

[excession]

It looks like a pointless wild goose chase as you are trying to prove a negative.

So you want to run the numbers on million of hands for every single site/network with any significant number of players? (because just proving say Stars isn't squewed won't be enough will it?)

And if we manage to do it that just removes an excuse from the losing players who then realise why they are really losing so much the faster?

And if we find a dodgy site then that's great press for online poker and really attracts new players, huh?

er right let's summarise - proving no rigging (to the extent this is logically possible) = huge time investment to show something most regulars are perfectly happy is the case on all reputable sites anyway (and removes excuse for losing at a site from fish) ; alternative is proving that one or more sites actually is rigged in some way (more likely has a bad RND or whatever) which frightens off new fish.

Hiow about you go away, run the numbers and come back if you do find anything wrong?

-- good luck..

[Arnfinn Madsen]

I think the community isn't motivated to discuss it anymore, in all these threads the ones who think it is rigged never seem to actually take any argument to the contrary into consideration. I think no proof will change that, if somebody thinks it is rigged due to arrogance wrt personal abilities (and I think the vast majority of the ones who think it is rigged is in that group), extensive psychological councelling would be needed to change it, not stats. Admiting weaknesses is obviously something many people are unable to do, I think you can't change that, just give up.

[trader01]

Look, I am not saying that I personally think that the sites are rigged, and I am not complaining about bad beats that went against me. Having said that, the link I provided in the first post comes from a guy that claims to have done analysis against 1.3 million hands and shows that there is a HUGE statistical discrepancy (to the tune of 10% in some cases) in certain situations that occur at Poker Stars.

So if you don't want us to advertise that sites are rigged because it will discourage fish, then I understand that. However, wouldn't it be good to do our own analysis to prove that they are not (if that is the case), because this guy is advertising that they are anyways - and that isn't helping the fish situation. I don't see how doing our own analysis and publishing it on this site is going to hurt the image of online poker more than what he is doing. Anyone who goes to google and types in "poker sucks" is going to find his site before they find a post on 2+2 anyways.

The strongest practical argument against rigging is simple dissemination of information - in order to rig a site, you have to get a programmer to do it, and that is typically someone who has no real incentive to keep quiet about it after he leaves his job. The fact that we haven't heard of any programmers talking about how they were personally directed to rig a site by this point is the strongest evidence against it, IMHO. But that is still just conjecture, and not proof.

I find it amazing that this guy can publish an article claiming that he analyzed 1.3 million poker stars hands and noted a huge problem there, and nobody here seems to even care enough to try to prove or disprove it.

EDIT: One other thing - even if a site is slightly rigged (even as much as 10% in certain heads up situations), a good player will still be able to make money. Anyone who complains about losing money solely because of rigged sites is obviously just a bad player... but that still isn't proof that it isn't happening.

[mpslg]

[ QUOTE ]
It looks like a pointless wild goose chase as you are trying to prove a negative.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly! It's like trying to prove that god exists.

[MicroBob]

I don't even care about reading his article to be honest.

I might get around to it later if I'm bored I suppose.

I'm sure he just made some errors in his assumptions of what was supposed to happen and perhaps what is a large enough sample for the specific situation he was looking at.


There was a PhD who was supposedly an expert on gambling-theory who said that nobody can beat any poker game because of the rake.
He was quoted in articles about this as a 'gambling expert'.
He said that because of the rake, everybody just passes their money back and forth and loses $3 rake-chunks at a time.

He couldn't even comprehend that some players' skill is so much greater than other players that they can overcome the rake-disadvantage.


Some guy who says he studied 1.3 million hands and has provne that it's all rigged-up doesn't impress me at all.

As somebody noted earlier, it's like some guy arguing that the world is flat.

Some guy comes to me and says that he's proven conclusively with geological evidence that the world is actually flat, therefore there's a big conspiracy around the scientific community where they convinced the rest of the world otherwise.
I say, "Yawn."

[HeavilyArmed]

[ QUOTE ]
Look, I am not saying that I personally think that the sites are rigged, and I am not complaining about bad beats that went against me. Having said that, the link I provided in the first post comes from a guy that claims to have done analysis against 1.3 million hands and shows that there is a HUGE statistical discrepancy (to the tune of 10% in some cases) in certain situations that occur at Poker Stars.

[/ QUOTE ]

Their experimental methodology is flawed. Each hand must be evaluated for its EV and then the total EV is compared to the total wins. They have used many approximations and the errors are likely large.

THere's no automatic way to do this that I know. I'd be a real coding chore for me but likely not too much for someone sharp. Once you had it automated you could more-or-less validate a site to some reasonable certainty.

To do it by hand you need to enter every head's up match into twodimes.com to obtain the EV then sum it up. It really doesn't take too many hands to find a flawed site.


Want more info? PM me.