Is Online Poker Rigged? Can Players Cheat?

Since the birth of poker on the internet, allegations that “online poker is rigged” have been many. These allegations generally come from poor players, or inexperienced players that don’t understand variance. For example, if you go all in with big slick (Ace-King) and are called by Ace-Queen, while you’re a large favorite you’re still going to lose on average 23% of the time. Even when you go all in preflop with pocket aces, someone with a smaller pair is going to beat you about 18% of the time. In addition to this there is another factor called variance which is the statistical measure of how your results will be dispersed. In plain English, because of variance it will often take a large sample size for the odds to truly even out. This is something winning poker players understand (odds and variance) where fish just feel the site is rigged against them.
 
The reason most poker players lose is due to poor bankroll management. Let’s say you had $100 to your name and I offered you to flip a fair coin giving you 120% payout for every heads and taking only a 100% of your wager for every tails? This is a great deal every poker player would jump on, isn’t it? However, what if I told you that you’d have to bet $33.33 on each bet? With only a $100 bankroll despite the large advantage I’ve given you it would be foolish for you to continue. This is because there is a 14.3% chance I’m going to win the first three bets and you’ll be broke. Even if you happen to win the first bet, well there is still a 6.7% chance I’ll win the next four. If you win that bet, there is a 3.2% chance I’ll win the next five, and if you’re up three bets on me, there is still a 1.59% chance I’ll win the next six. This goes on and on and on, and probably isn’t even the best example. Put it this way, if you’re a good poker player who goes bust often, this most likely is not because you’re unlucky, its because you don’t understand odds and variance and are overplaying your bankroll in such a way that it is near guaranteed you’re going to eventually go bust.
 
Now that we’ve covered reasons why there are many false allegations that “online poker is rigged” lets look at reasons it is not. Let’s start with the world’s largest online poker site PokerStars.com. This company is licensed and regulated by the Isle of Man, a British Crown authority, and has also been trusted by the governments of Italy and France to run an online poker site, as these countries also license them. PokerStars also operates a live card room in Macau China, and makes billions of dollars in annual profit without cheating. All regulation aside, which is a hard thing to put aside, why would a company risk these billions of dollars in revenue to set up a rigged game? The answer is pretty simple: they wouldn’t. Now if you want to point to other examples like Pitbull Poker, this was a rinky dink poker site no one should have trusted in the first place. If you’re worried about whether or not games are fair, stick to large online poker sites with a solid reputation such a PokerStars.com and Full Tilt Poker.
 
So what about cheating? Can an online poker player cheat?
 
We’ll, now you’re on to a topic that might have some substance. If you’re not careful with your computer security, while it is highly unlikely, if an advanced hacker can access the data stream from a poker site to your computer and then also manage to crack the poker site’s extremely secure encryption, then this hacker could get access to your hole cards. The chances of this happening are so incredibly slim. However, if I was an advanced hacker I’d imagine that staying at the Rio during the World Series of Poker would be the first place I’d consider targeting online poker players. Again, while this is extremely rare, and most likely far fetched, it is still not a good idea to play on public wireless internet connections. The concern here would probably be more that a hacker could access your password before it streamed to the site, or even get visual access to your monitor (as it’s unlikely anyone capable of cracking SSL is going to bother with poker). So again, play on a secure wired connection and you’re likely safe from all of this.
 
What about players chatting on MSN or the Phone?
 
This is called collusion, and it is the one area cheating in online poker is a moderate concern. First of all, what you need to know is that poker sites take collusion very seriously. If you’re thinking about colluding, don’t, because you won’t get away with it long term. Poker sites such as PokerStars.com have several security methods to prevent collusion. One of these methods is a charting system where they log how many hands you’ve played with the same opponents. If you’re playing with the same opponent more often than the mean, this is the first level of flag. Your hands involving action with this opponent will now be run into anti-collusion software, to see if your plays were logical. If they were not and they deviate from the norm, as well as your style of play when not seated with this opponent too much, then the site will likely lock your account and do a manual review. At most poker sites, if the audit reveals there is a high likelihood you were cheating via collusion, you can more or less kiss your ability to play at that site goodbye.
 
Now, what we’ve covered so far only gives the reason poker sites are not filled with players colluding, in that they are banned regularly. However, there could be cases where players only collude a very small percentage of the time, in which case it wouldn’t be noticed, or there might be new players just getting into collusion. If ever you feel you’re being colluded against, stop playing and email the site telling them you suspect collusion. Do this friendly, and if later it is found (either now or in the future) that these players were colluding and you were the victim, an honest site such as PokerStars.com is likely to refund your money because you had logged a polite inquiry. Of course, this is nothing you should expect, as not all cases where collusion might have occurred are conclusive. You’ll want to be safe and just leave a game once you believe this is occurring, and then know the poker sites will take care of it in the long term, keeping the games safe and free of cheats.
 
If you’re looking for info on which sites are the safest to play at, you can read about that in our article safest US poker sites.