Are online sites crooked?

I think I must have answered or replied to this question more times than I can care to remember but I got an e-mail from a guy called Robert today who asked me a series of questions of which this was one of them. Actually Rob please forgive me if I don’t answer them all straight away but time is of the essence at the moment.

Of course we have all seen cheating scandals associated with online poker. These have been the players themselves who have been breaking the rules and not the sites. Now of course the poker sites will not break their neck to divulge such things, why should they……that is just good business practice.

If you owned a large electrical store and one of your range of televisions was faulty then you would just correct the problem. What you wouldn’t do is make a big public statement saying how one of your product range was faulty but there is nothing to worry about as you are correcting the problem

It’s the same thing, Robert went on to ask me about poker sites handicapping winning players or words to that effect. Actually with the invention of tracking software then sophisticated online poker players have the capability these days to test the RNG’s of the respective sites themselves. Also there are industry watchdogs which also look over such things.

So you can rest assured that the poker sites (all the large main ones and main networks anyway) are 100% above board. Then some people say that it is in their interests to handicap winning players so that they earn more rake by having the players all on a par with each other. This is correct and any poker site would want this ideal situation but the fact is that they don’t have to cheat in order to obtain this poker nirvana.

All they have to do is educate the lower level player base. The use of poker schools, free coaching, rakeback, free tracker software etc etc etc all combine to make the average player better and more educated. So you see, poker sites can handicap the better players just by passing knowledge to lesser players and that is 100% legal.

This is purely good business practice but the next logical step for the player who suffers in this scenario is to then work harder on his/her game in order to make themselves better than the average player base on the site and a player who is good enough to not only be better than average but can also offset the effect of the rake.

But one thing that you do need to look out for in online poker is cheating. Let’s not try to sweep this under the carpet by pretending that it doesn’t exist. Cheating happens online for one simple reason, it is a damn site easier to attempt to cheat than it is to attempt to get good at poker.

The amateur cheats get caught and get their accounts frozen or are barred from the site. But do you think that thieves in everyday life who get caught stop trying to steal? In some cases they do but in most cases they don’t. They simply don’t make the same mistakes again and become more educated thieves. Prison’s are full of habitual criminals but the outside world is full of even more who were smart enough not to get caught.

So the fact of the matter is that you need to watch your own back in online poker but that equally applies to live poker as well. When an industry has a yearly turnover of billions then to imagine that this will not attract cheats and crooks who are both sophisticated and naive is rather a head in the sand view of human nature.

This planet is full of scumbags, they don’t just stop at the door when it comes to entering a casino or playing online poker. You need to be your own policeman and help the poker site to help you. Your best defence is for large numbers of honest and above board poker players to watch each others backs and report anything that they suspect is suspicious……do not keep anything quiet.

I know that cheating by players happens online but it doesn’t and shouldn’t stop me or anyone else from playing. You know that people die in road accidents but it doesn’t stop you from driving does it?

see you soon as I have waffled enough, but remember this…… I cannot and will not ever be associated with any poker site or network that I don’t believe in 100%.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson at poker loco