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Myth: Online Poker
Rooms Deal Rigged Decks
I have heard in some forums people complaining that
poker sites deal rigged decks. For example they deal
new players better hands so they stay with the game.
This is a silly rumor. For one, it's highly illegal
and very short sighted on a poker room's part. Two -
to develop the software to even achieve this would take
quite an effort and leave quite a paper trail of intentions
and efforts. It's not something they could just "sneak"
in their software without too many insiders knowing
about it. They would get busted.
In addition, luck has too little to do with who wins
at poker. Even if a beginner was catching better cards
than an expert, the expert could still probably win.
Besides, the poker room makes the same amount regardless
of who wins the pot, so their best interest is in securing
fair play from other potential cheats, not rigging the
system on their own.
Lastly - you know in Vegas how the "eye in the
sky" securely tracks all play, every hand, etc.
Well in terms of being able to track, recall and analyze
play data, the systems used in Vegas are dinosaurs compared
to what an online poker room uses. Every hand dealt,
every pot won, everything is logged. With the millions
of people playing online poker these days there are
lots of people getting their clocks (and bank accounts)
cleaned by expert players. Now you know LOTS of them,
whether they truly believe it or not, swear they were
cheated and file complaints. Trust me - the big poker
rooms like PartyPoker
and PacificPoker
are spending big bucks to make sure and have proof that
no cheating has taken place.
Possible: Team Playing / Collusion
This type of cheating goes back about as far as Poker
itself does, and is certainly not limited to just online
poker. Team playing or collusion is where two are more
players are communicating behind the scenes, such as
msn messenger, ICQ or telephone, and sharing their hands
info. The obvious form of this is simply when players
use each other to increase pots when one has a winning
hand. Just look out for two players commonly betting
up big at the same time, and one player commonly having
a lousy hand or always folding on the last turn.
The more sophisticated for of this, is what I believe
true "collusion" is, is where two or more
players simply share hand info to increase their ability
to set odds on their own hands. If you are able to look
at 2 cards and gauge a degree of winning odds, then
knowing what 2 more cards are really increases your
ability to gauge winning odds. Now imagine if 4 or 5
people at a table were in on it.
While I wish I had a perfect answer for you, I don't.
I can offer some comforting thoughts though..
1. Chances are if you are reading this and are stunned
then you are playing in poker games that are smaller
than where most of these cheats hang out. To cheat like
this and do it successfully, you've still got to be
a pretty good poker player. So - if these cheats are
already good players AND cheating, I imagine they are
in the higher dollar games.
2. Online poker these days is a very competitive and
very lucrative business. If any poker service allows
cheating to run rampant on its virtual tables it's only
a mater of time before that room is labeled (legally
busted or not) as a cheat haven and soon out of business.
Somewhere like PartyPoker probably has 99.9% honest
players (honest for a poker player at least) to perhaps
0.1% cheats. Needless to say it is in their best interest
to do whatever it takes to let their players count on
honest games.
Probably the most common form of cheating:
Deadbeats
In any form of gambling - book making, casinos and poker
deadbeats make up the largest percentage of people who
screw you out of money. But, they don't cheat you and
win - they just lose and can't pay. In online poker,
a deadbeat is someone who is playing on a stolen credit
card or someone who funds an account with their credit
card, loses the money, then issues a chargeback with
their credit card company. It's generally the house,
or the poker room, that loses on these deadbeat deals,
but if you win big in a heads-up online poker game and
the loser turns out to be a deadbeat, it can tie up
your ability to withdraw your winnings. If you have
not noticed, most online poker rooms don't actually
take credit cards directly, it's done through a third
party, such as FirePay, who then allows you to pass
the funds into your online poker account. Protection
from the deadbeats is a large reason why this setup
exists.
In Summary: Unfortunately cheating
will always exist in most anything, especially gambling.
The good news is when it comes to online poker, the
house has little to gain and everything to lose by allowing
or participating in any cheating. While I cannot say
you will never be cheated in an online game, the odds
are much greater that you will be cheated in a live
game, maybe even your regular weekly game. Look out
for yourself, but rest assured, the poker room is looking
out for you too.
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