One thing is certain – many people believe online poker is rigged. This has been a hot topic of debate for the past decade on poker forums. If you look through the different poker forums such as Two Plus Two, you’ll notice many poker players passionate about this topic – one way or the other.
When I first started playing poker online, I was a bit clueless. I wasn’t a particularly good poker player at the time. I started on Party Poker and the bad beats seemed to be endless. I suffered what seemed to be 80 million times as many bad beats on Party Poker as I did when playing in my local casinos. How could this be? My first reaction was, “this crap is so rigged!”
Looking back on things, the site was rigged against bad poker players in the same way live poker is rigged against bad poker players. Meaning, if you suck at poker, you’ll lose no matter what you do over the long run. At the time, I was a bad poker player. Therefore, I wasn’t losing because Party Poker hated me and fixed the hands to ensure I would lose. I was losing because I sucked at poker.
What about winning offline poker players that lose online?
I’ve heard this argument many times by those that think online poker is rigged. The argument is that if someone can consistently win playing live poker, there’s no way they won’t consistently win online. This is a bad assumption to make. Online poker and live poker are different games. Many players that win online don’t win offline, and many winning live poker players don’t win online.
If online poker is rigged, poker site operators make poor business decisions
Think about it. If you started up a poker site, would your business model involve screwing customers over? I don’t know of any successful businesses that screw customers over (except maybe insurance companies, but that’s a topic for another time and place).
Online poker sites don’t need to screw you over to get your money. They get money from you every time you buy into a game. There’s a rake or entrance fee for every game you play online. Just like there is at a brick and mortar poker room. There is absolutely no reason to rig poker sites. So if online poker is rigged, the sites aren’t using a smart business model.
Do I think every poker site is legit? No. I actually do think playing on some sites would be risky. There are shady characters in the online gambling industry. That’s why it is very important to play on the sites we have tried and tested. In conclusion, it is a myth that online poker is rigged.
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