Online Poker Is Rigged!!!

[digital scar]

Helllo BTPr's.

I was recently re-reading some of the articles I wrote last year for my school newspaper and I found a reply to one of my articles that some of you may find interesting to say the least.

I wrote an article about gambling and this guys reply is pretty uhh....well read my article and then check out his reply to my article.

Here is the link to the article and then his reply is at the bottom of the page
http://www.dailynebraskan.com/vnews/dis ... _archive=1

What does anybody else think of this?

[JJSCOTT2]

Lol. That is interesting to say the least. I guess technically he is right, but he's exaggerating by like a billion times over. He completely disregards the influx of new players and fresh money from losing players constantly entering in the game, not to mention the miniscule effect of the rake as compared to the skill level edge achievable by good players. So I'll give him this........yes, if everyone in the world played online poker, and eventually every dollar or yen or euro or whatever in the world were deposited into online poker, and then the players who were not immediately broke played on for the literal eternity it would take for the rake to eat all that money, then yeah, you can't win at online poker in the long run. That's a hell of a long run though, and barring some significant medical advances, I think we're pretty much limited to +/- 100 years.

As to his gambling quitting propaganda spouting hypothetical questions, I will address them each.

1.) Do some research jackass, as of today, I'd love to be the only real player at the table.

2.) Well this one is easy, I could get into it, but I won't; one word will work for now: Pokertracker.

3.) Sure they could. But A.) I'm a pretty trusting guy, and if they want the meager amount of money that I physically keep on their sites that badly in relation to the billions they make each year from running legitimately, more power to them. B.) It's simple economics, how much money do you think in sum is in play on every account total on lets say Party Poker right now? It's probly something astronomical since there are like a million players or something like that. Let's just make up a number, I'll go with $1 Billion dollars just for fun. Ok so they could shut down right now, run off with everyones money and we mostly wouldn't be able to do anything about it (although I bet a million people that pissed off would be a force to be reckoned with regardless of international law, etc.) and they would be ahead a billion dollars on the deal. Or they could simply continue their operations legitimately and as usual, and be entitled to more or less unlimited future money far surpassing a measly billion dollars. Which do they choose?


--The next several paragraphs are more bull crap.

Let me just say this, in response to his final comments, yes; problem gambling exists, there are many people who currently play poker online who SHOULD NOT do so. Compulsive gambling has no doubt ruined many peoples lives and poker is just as much in this category as anything else. With that said, however, I do not respect anyones opinion who will deliberately lie or mislead people to convert people to their way of thinking, so this guy is a jackass.

Jesus, these anti-gambling people are worse than the anti-smoking crowd(yeah, if you're listening, I hate you!)

-JJSCOTT2

[MecosKing]

Well, the guy is clearly an idiot. He admits that there are pros that win and that there is such a thing as a 'winning gambler' (he seems to concede this point, right?) but says that they dont play poker online, and are lying when they say they do.

However, the RAKE has existed for alot longer than online poker has been around, and all these 'winning players' that play live poker are subjected to the same type of rake, and actually its way worse IRL because the rake is often more, and you also gotta tip the dealer! So if his argument is that all the winners we see on TV are winners because they dont play raked games, then he is obviously wrong.

Over and above that, i think that there is most likely much more money going into those sites than there is coming OUT of those sites in the form of rake that the house takes. And whatever the difference is between the money going in over any given time and the money soaked up by the rake in any given time is there for people to win.

As far as dishonesty / rigging, etc., I think JJ is right in saying that its simply not worth the money they would get out of it, when you consider how ruinous it would be for business if they got caught. There are certain circumstances in which chintzing and ripping people off are not worth it - and i think that having a monster of a business like a well established online gambling site is one of those. I mean, Imagine if partypoker got caught maxin people credit cards, the scandal it would be, and how many people would not go near there anymore. Simply not worth it from an economic perspective.

Overall, his argument is bad enough that its not even interesting. However, his little example of the $20 bankrolls actually is sonewhat valid in showing how ridiculously much harder it is to outrun the rake at the lower limits. I think anyone that multi-tables micro-limits would be much better off single tabling one table at a decent limit for this reason...even though 1 tabling can definitely be a grind.

[Nashvegas]

He proposes 5 people with $20 each at the table, for a total of $100 at the table. He also proposes that the average pot is $10, and there's a 5% rake.

At this point he stops with the details and just poofs to the 200th hand, where clearly all the money is gone, because of the 50 cent rake on that hand. However, after the 199th hand, only 50 cents would be left, so the only way that there could be a 50 cent rake is if the rake % had gone up to 100% and all the players had gone all in....

Taking that concept further, lets say that 10% of the chips on the table go into the average pot. This implies that 0.5% of the chips get raked, every hand. If that is true, then after 200 hands there are still 36 of the original 100 dollars still at the table, plus whatever fresh money has entered through new players or rebuys. That's where his math breaks down, and it's mathematically provable that it's possible to win in the long run if the skill gap is large enough.

[briachek]

[Sunbob]

I wonder where I fit into his "equation"? I have never sent my poker site any money, they don't have my credit card information, THEY gave me my $14 stake that I started with and I now have $800 of other people's money that I am playing with online.

Hmmmmm, I wonder where that money came from?

Nash is right with his analogy for the rake. Any 6th grader being introduced to math theory understands that if you take a unit and cut it in half, then cut it in half again, and just keep doing that - the unit may become infinitisimal but never is gone. Or was that 3rd grade? That was a long time ago for me. - Hmmmmm. It just occurred to me - Do they still teach math theory in school?

As far as cheating their customer is concerned - any business that is as profitable as a successful online poker site has no reason to kill the goose that is laying that golden egg. You can make a very good living on a 5% commission if the sales are big enough. I know because I have been doing it for 15 years. In the respondents defense - Can I imagine some idiot trying it? Yes - there are a lot of idiots in the world. That is why I stay on a well established, reputable site.

My read of this guy is he is a zealot. We have all seen them before. Or maybe I should be nice and just say he is a salesman pitching his book. . . . I don't think I'm going to buy it.

[Felonius_Monk]

The most glaring nonsense in the article as far as I can see is the argument that pro poker players who (he concedes) do exist, and do make money, don't play online as "you can't win because of the rake".

B&M games are raked/dropped far more aggressively than most online games.