Online poker is rigged. I say this as a statement of fact, one that is transparently obvious to anyone that's ever played online.
"Really? Even the major sites like Poker Stars and Full Tilt?", you ask rhetorically.
"Especially," I reply, and for the same reason.
They all have the same business model and largely base their software on the same algorithms. Why am I writing this? Well, I figure I've wasted enough time on online poker to have a conclusive insight into the scam, and I feel that writing this is far more productive and socially beneficial than depositing any more money into some hucksters online Ponzi scheme.
For some reason, any poker forum has aficionados that quickly come to the defence of these offshore commercial entities like they were damsels in distress. Their arguments are largely the same, so I'll rebut them, but first the primary point:
The biggest contention of poker apologists is that poker sites lack the motive to screw their customers. That’s because these people are incredulous (not an uncommon trait), but also lack an understanding of the online poker business model. They think poker sites make their money off of rake, which is a half truth. If that were it, the argument from motive might hold some water. Even then you could never discount human greed and the desire to squeeze out an extra 20% in revenue. But the truth about how poker sites make money will make the rigging and the motivation for it apparent: deposits.
Yup, you can deposit money into your poker account, never play a hand, and poker sites will be thrilled. That’s because you're giving them your money to do with as they will. Online poker is not a physical casino - your money is not sitting in a vault in the basement, its being used for financial investment and generating a return for the company, regardless of whether you play poker or not. So the motivation for online casinos is to keep as much money on deposit as possible, same as any bank. Hence the rigging model of online poker sites is something called "account churning". This means shuffling money between accounts without letting anyone get comfortable enough with their bankroll to cash out.
If the motivation was simply to increase the rake, online poker sites wouldn't care too much about who wins the hand. If some dumbass wanted to ship it with Jack/Six off-suit after flopping middle pair, there'd be no motivation for poker sites not to let your Kings hold up. But any decent player knows that once the storm clouds move in you can do no right. Whatever game you play, you will lose. Consecutively. Until your bankroll is significantly eroded or gone.
How they do this is variable: sometimes you'll be card dead for hours, finally flop top two and get called by a straight draw. Guess who wins. Then you'll flop a monster and get called by a two outer. Guess who wins. Then you'll hit a second nut flush on the turn with three of a suit on the board and get pushed in by the nut flush. Whatever the scenario, it will consistently go one way because the cause of it is account churning software designed to make sure people don't cash out and that new money is being deposited.
When this software kicks in is variable. Without a window into the guts of the algorithm (whistle-blowers anyone?) the exact logic is unknown, but a common story is "I joined a site, made a bunch of money and then got screwed ever since my first cashout." Its plausible that sites use this as a "level" - the point at which a user is likely to cash out and hence the software activates sometime before they reach that mark. There’s no end to the behavioural analysis techniques they could use to maximise the money on deposit, but this article isn't an instruction set on how to beat a rigged system. My central point has been made.
Now to the rebuttals.
"It’s the variance man!/That’s poker!/You just can't handle the swings!/Etc."
Firstly, anyone who uses the word "variance" as intellectual argument for why people get screwed in online poker is math illiterate. Variance is a much bigger problem in live games because you play fewer hands. A number of people will read that and experience an indefinable feeling that something in that sentence is wrong. That's because the common argument by poker site apologists is that variance is higher online.
To be clear, variance is the difference between the expected result and the actual result. The greater the sample size of hands the more likely that the outcomes will conform to a normal distribution, and the variance will be less of a factor in the overall result. For the layman, try this: grab a physical deck and deal out a poker scenario, let's say 9/9 vs A/J rainbow preflop (55.72% vs 43.98% with a 0.3% chop). Now deal out five community cards and record the win/loss result. The first time you do this one of the hands will have a 100% win percentage even though it only had maximum 55.72% win probability. Now shuffle the deck and re-deal the community cards. Now do that a a hundred times. By the time you approach 30 you should have win distribution approaching the expected result. Run it a hundred times and you'll find the variance won't exceed +/-5%.
What this means is that variance is your friend. It’s the statistical rule that tells you something is either conforming to the expected result, or not. If not, it’s rigged. There are no poker gods. There is no black hole of statistical improbability hanging over your head. In this case, sanity is highly statistical.
If you're in the business of getting it all in with 75% or better in an unrigged system, you will be a winning player. In fact, your short term variance is likely to be positive, because if you think of every hand as being discreet, you're more likely to win it than lose. Think back on how often "variance" in online poker gave you a 90% daily win record with your 75% hands. Probably not very often. Now consider how often you win 40% of your 75% hands. Seems almost normal doesn't it? In fact, statistically speaking it so far from "normal" that I can't even bring myself to call this article a hypothesis. Online poker is rigged. Period.
"These are large, publically traded, reputable companies. Why would they risk screwing their customers."
Firstly, recent news has brought much of the reputability of online poker sites into question. Two of the biggest ones have been indicted on multiple counts of tax fraud and money laundering in the US (their biggest market). I'm no fan of the tax man, but I'll point out this: if online poker sites are willing to risk screwing Uncle Sam, they're not going to be too concerned with screwing an unorganised group of underwear-clad weekend poker warriors (Disclaimer: the author was fully dressed and sober during the writing of this article).
Secondly, if the site you're reading this post on has a comment section, take a quick peak right now. Someone will invariable post a remark to this effect: "Losing poker player bitching about poker sites to excuse his own poor play." Someone else will second that motion; in the end without access to the sites code, it’s a wash. "Maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong, the jury is still out, who knows." In all probability, this system was phased in as some clever financial manager realised that deposits were a much larger gold mine than rake. One site tried it on a minor scale and saw a boost in profits, then upped the account churning and saw a bigger boost. Some people complained, but were quickly shouted down as being sore losers. A few people even left the site, but because their deposit money was still churning through the system, the sites don't consider that a loss, especially since if left alone, these players would have made money and cashed out repeatedly. More likely, because they were likely to be good players, they first focused on self-criticism and hung in there depositing multiple times, building their bankrolls quickly, then suffering the same string of "bad luck" as they approached their expected cashout level.
The practice spread, and now that we have a whole slew of poker sites its easy to think that some of them must not be rigged. But a majority of these sites are part of poker networks that run the same base software. So no, they're all rigged. It’s an industry practice at this point, which is not surprising since they all have the same business model with the same incentives.
"You're not important enough for poker sites to target your measly $100 bankroll. They make millions after all."
Poker sites don't target my measly bankroll. They target 20,000 measly bankrolls. I'm certain that no-one has ever brought up my name in a staff meeting, but they probably bragged about 90% deposit retention among sub-$1000 accounts. High fives all around.
"What about the Pro's and Semi-Pros. There are people that make a living off of online poker, and they can't all be in on the conspiracy."
In some sense online casinos are still casinos. They do have an appreciation for whales and treat them differently - as they should. People with online account over $10,000 will be doing cashouts. All of them. The distribution of fish and sharks is much more narrow, and its impossible to play so far above the rim that a 30% handicap wont quickly funnel your bankroll to the waiting arms of another player - who will then promptly cash out their $50,000 windfall. So the incentive for churning their accounts is substantially less. Plus, with the whales, rake is actually significant. We're not talking about $0.05 a hand anymore.
So I'd be surprised if large accounts get churned the same way that small accounts do. This is a hypothesis, I'll admit. My own account topped out at $2000 at its peak (reached the first time I joined a poker site a week after I made a $40 deposit). I cashed out a $1000 and have been getting the shit end of the stick ever since. That was two years and 5 poker sites ago. The same story repeats itself every time I got fed up and left a site. Thankfully, I almost always come out ahead in live cash games (You know, those things with the high hand variance). Probably just a coincidence though.
"Online players are just better that live players./Online players play a more lose-retarded style and are more likely to get it all in with draws." (Ok, so loose-retarded is a personal pet name for my typical online opponents)
The first statement I generally disagree with, but won't contest too heavily. Suffice it to say that I've never had a problem getting online players to commit their stack with obviously inferior hands, which is generally the mark of a bad player. The second statement rings true. The conclusion that this is in some way a negative is wrong however. If someone wants to commit three quarters of their stack (or all of it as the case may be) drawing to an eight outer, that should be good news. That should mean chips flowing endlessly in your direction with an occasional hiccup and an "aw, shucks" the one time Fishy McFish flops a set of 3's against your pocket aces. I appeal to the good sense of the reader, is this really your experience in online play? If we were talking about 5% variance between expected value and actual results, would anyone really be talking about this issue? If every decent player reading this hasn't experienced the endless strings of coolers and bad beats that define online play (read "account churning") then I stand in utter amazement. Please, share with us what site you play on, they'll get my business.
I'll end it there, before this turns into a book.
What the hell is the use getting up every day and giving your best just to die? Why, because you feel good doing it. Same with poker. I love poker and really don´t care in the end how much money I´ve lost or won or if it´s rigged or filled with dirty players. 
