Isn't it possible, that most, if not all poker sites, have software measures in place to extend the lives of of the fish, and more importantly, isn't it possible, this practice could be the best thing that ever happened to winning players?

Whether the article below is true or not, (it was posted at 2+2) is irrelevant. Would winning on line players, be able to keep the less capable players satisfied enough with their games to stay? I'm sure in live play, part of being a winning player, is leaving the people you expect to take money from next week, a slice of hope pie

To those who are interested:

ABC news is in the process of producing an investigative report on the online gaming industry. More specifically, it will focus on the legitimacy of the recent U.S. legislation.

I'm an intern there, helping on this story as I've been involved with online poker for some time. I got threw college on the backs of party poker's fish. The majority of information the staff have acquired supports online poker's claim that it is as legitimate a business as any, and should be treated as such. However, for those whom are interested, the following was noted about PartyPoker:

"...two programmers have come forth to discuss a tweaking of the RNG since the legislation. While they emphasize that the software generates random hand distribution, they were asked to alter the post-flop results to decrease the rate at which 'underdog' hands lose."

I can no longer play on Party, though I still found this interesting. ABC is hoping that they can uncover proof that software tweaking is currently being utilized to overstate revenue, and reduce the fears of investors in the publicly traded company.

Anyway, I'm curious if any SNG or cash game regulars have noticed any changes since Party banned U.S. players. I have heard the games are incredibly soft, yet ROI's are lower.

All the best,
Taylor

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...;vc=1&nt=2

"I'm an intern there, helping on this story"

"I got threw college on the backs of party poker's fish."

<span>I hope he is researching and not writing the story</span>

Any ideas on these view points from 2+2 ?

It could be hidden. It would be fairly complex but definitely doable. (And before you berate me, I am not saying I believe the OP, but only because he didn't implicate pokerstars...lol)

Step 1 - Identify the players who generate the most rake per unit of currency. The site makes money by having currency continually recylced on the table. 100 becomes 98, becomes 96.04, etc., etc.

When a winning player makes $100, that money is taken out of circulation. When a fish makes money, he will more often than not place it on the table. Hence, discounting the risk of detection and its subsequent consequences, it is clearly in a site's interest to have certain players win pots as opposed to others.

So you create a value that will cause suckouts every so often, and you don't do it that often, but if you do it once every 1,000 to 5,000 hands, you are going to generate a lot more in rake.

But you have to hide it, and that is where you get selective. There has to be zeroing out of suckouts, so for each situation where you cause a fish to win a pot, you need to balance that out somewhere else, (and this will not be a 1 for 1 situation, if a 5% suckout is forced 1 time, than you need to be sure the overall ratio stays at 19-1.)

The trick is to have the balancing occur in situations where the site's rake will not be affected. For instance, give one fish a 5% longshot, and make sure that in 19 hands going on between solid players the winning hands hold up. You could also make up for it in situations where the pot is statistically very likely to be small.

It would take a very sophisticated audit to uncover this, and if done right, it could be impossible to detect. I note that sites publish the numbers of what happened versus what is expected to happen, and if this method were correctly applied, the site could be doing what I said and no one would be the wiser.

I also note that everytime some one says this, they are treated like they are wearing a tinfoil hat. While this may be the case by in large, the fact that no one believes the boy who cries wolf can ultimately serve only to encourage the wolf.

Cheers, I wear a tinfoil hat and Pokerstars is rigged!!!

To all the starry eyed online poker shills who defend the unregulated, software driven, multibillion dollar online poker industry - there is no need for sophisticated mathematical analysis to prove that online poker is most definately rigged. The answer is quite simple and logical.

It's plain and simple,,, if an online poker site was 100% random the site
would lose 50% or more of their customers in 1 to 3 years as the poker boom has most definately flattened out and the new player pool is drying up. Sharks eating the fish and the lake aint gettin restocked brother! Trust me on this... this concept they are well aware. Could an online poker site survive with just half of its customers? Maybe so, but this loss would translate into hundreds of millions of dollars industry wide. Its safe to say nobody aint giving up this kind of dough anytime soon.

Please don't respond with that tired bush league response: "they are not rigged because if the public found out nobody would play". Hundreds of millions are at stake they aint gonna let you find out son! Besides we all know ALL casino pit games and One Armed Bandits are "rigged" in the casinos favor yet the industry is a multibillion dollar money printing machine!!! PT Barnum tell no lies!!!

I don't know what most people do for a living on this site but I own a publishing company. If we lost even 40% of our advertising revenue we'd be laying off a majority of our employees and we would be close to bankruptcy.

This is the real world my starry eyed shill friends - billion dollar corp business cheat all the freakin time!! Enron, Microsoft, almost all the price fixing energy companies... these guys cheat even when they are looked up the ass and "closely regulated". Online poker as we all know isn't even regulated!!

The money printing machine rolls on!! PT Barnum - you the man!!

I doubt the validity of the so-called programmer's statements. First, its not random if they can alter the results. Also, why would a company take a chance on losing all of their customers by asking their programmers to fix the rng, knowing they could rat them out?

i generally just - all jemenz threads.....why did i think this would be different

oh my friggin head!!