One of the fastest way to fire up a debate on the internet amongst online poker players is to bring up the subject of whether or not online poker is rigged. On one side you have the people who are absolutely, positively convinced that online poker is rigged and on the other you have the folks who think those people are paranoid freaks making excuses for their inability to beat the game.
Which group is right?
Well, it’s not that easy. First off, what exactly does someone mean when they say a game is rigged? In the strictest definition a rigged game is one in which the online poker room cheats players either for their own benefit or in such a way that normal actions are modified in order to create more rake (revenue) for the online poker room.
For instance, the much rumored doom switch whereby a poker room either rewards or penalizes players based on certain actions. Some players believe that if they withdraw too much money the room throws a doom switch which makes them lose forcing them to deposit more money.
Ultimately, no credible evidence has ever been presented to substantiate the claims that online poker sites are rigged. In fact, all the research done to date seems to indicate quite the opposite.
So why do rumors that online poker is rigged persist? The same reason that some people believe that the moon landing was staged and that a group called the Illuminati secretly runs the world. Essentially because it’s impossible to prove that online poker is not rigged.
For instance, many people who think that online poker is rigged often challenge that if the games were legit then they would allow people to audit their records. Well, many online poker rooms do just that. They audit their hand histories and submit their random number generators to third party testing facilities for certification.
But the person who believes that online poker is rigged will either ignore those facts or expand the scope of his conspiracy theory to include the auditors and testers being in on it.
So essentially, there is no amount of proof that will satisfy someone who is convinced that online poker is rigged.
I’ve write about whether or not online poker is rigged quite frequently and below you will find posts that I’ve put into the “Is Online Poker Rigged?” category. However, you may be interested in my special picks out of the bunch as I consider them to be the most interesting posts I’ve created on the topic.
Crazy Rigtards is an email conversation I had about online poker integrity with someone who was clearly not stable. It's a funny read.
RT Hand Analyzer for Rigged Online Poker Games is a joke tool that people who think online poker is rigged can use to test their hand histories.
Proof That Online Poker is Rigged is a parody post I wrote a long, long time ago. It’s quite popular.
Why Online Poker Is Not Rigged is a look at why it is unlikely that online poker is rigged.
Dear Mr. Online Poker Is Rigged is a post I did in response to someone who claimed to know for a fact that online poker was rigged.
Motivations For Rigging Online Poker discusses the many mistakes in the arguments made by people who believe online poker is rigged. Essentially, there are far easier and legitimate things an online poker room could do to make money money than rigging the games.










Hi, my name is Bill Rini and this is my poker blog. I've been blogging about poker and the poker industry since around 2003-ish. Like most people I started out playing poker as entertainment in home games whenever we wanted to sit around and smoke cigars, drink beer, and eat pizza, and needed a good excuse. I started playing online shortly after the first online card rooms opened and it wasn't long before I was playing 20, 30, or even 40 hours a week or more. One day I received a phone call about a program manager position at Tiltware which was the company that consulted to Full Tilt Poker on software development and marketing. After Tiltware I spent about 2.5 years working at Party Poker where I was the poker room manager.