Honest Poker Sites

All you need to do is use some common sense. A bit of careful analysis can help you find the honest poker sites online. So let's figure out what we need to look for. There are two main categories of poker site dishonesty to watch for: money management dishonesty, and gameplay dishonesty.

Money Management Dishonesty

Money management dishonesty covers things like cashouts, deposits, and account balances. Cash is the  lifeblood of online gambling, so you need to make sure your balance is safe at whatever poker site you choose.

A dishonest poker room will take your money without hesitation, but will stall and delay when it comes time to cash out. Thankfully, there are very few poker rooms that intentionally prevent players from withdrawing money. And the ones that do withhold players' money are usually called out very quickly. The online poker economy is self-regulating in this way. If a poker site seems shady, the word spreads like wildfire; and before you know it, the shady cardroom is out of business.

It's possible for an online poker room to outright steal from players' account balances, too. But this rarely, if ever, happens. As long as you're playing on a reputable site, there is virtually a 0% chance of this happening.

Gameplay Dishonesty

Gameplay dishonesty covers things like rigging the deck, 'marking' certain players luckier than others, and allowing poker bots at the tables. These things are less obvious than money management issues, so it's worth knowing a little about how to spot a dishonest game.

Many players post on forums about poker sites being 'rigged'. By this they mean that poker sites apparently program their software to ensure certain players can never win in the long-run. If poker sites actually did this, it would be a good example of gameplay dishonesty.

Theoretically, it would be possible for a site to deal a dishonest or nonrandom deck. But in practice, it doesn't happen. There's simply no reason to program software this way. What's more, all reputable poker sites have their random number generators analyzed by risk-management firms regularly. Players who whine about rigged decks are, generally, just bad players.

Complaints about poker bots, on the other hand, often turn out to be valid. There are groups of players out there who program bots, set up proxies, and skim small profits out of games automatically. This usually has nothing to do with the poker site itself, though. Players use bots, not sites.

Once poker bots are exposed at the tables, they are immediately banned; and often players who have lost to the bots are refunded. Every legitimate poker site strictly prohibits the use of poker bots. So while you should keep an eye out for unorthodox happenings at the tables, you shouldn't worry about botters getting away with what they do.

Do Poker Sites Have an Incentive to be Honest?

Keep the following in mind when choosing an online poker site: gambling companies are in business because they make a profit from your play. A poker site's revenue comes exclusively from raking pots. So if there are no pots, there is no rake; and if there is no rake, there is no profit.

Thus poker sites have an incentive to keep you playing, not to keep you broke. Rigging a poker site to make certain players 'unlucky' would be the dumbest thing a poker site could possibly do. The money an unlucky player would lose would end up in the hands of some other player, not in the coffers of the site's bank account. The unlucky player would then either quit or go play elsewhere, which is counter productive to the site's profit motive.

Every honest poker site knows that its best bet is to ensure non-rigged poker games at all costs, both for the sake of maintaining a good reputation and for keeping the flow of rake high and steady.

How to Tell if a Poker Site is Honest

Honest poker sites are run just like any other company. They provide valuable services and answer to industry regulators.

888 Poker, for example, is a owned by a public company listed on the London Stock Exchange. Party Poker is also listed on the LSE. These companies are answerable to the same laws and regulations as any other corporation. If one of these sites were to cheat its players, they would have some serious legal problems.

There are plenty of honest poker sites out there. The vast majority, in fact, are as safe and as fair as any brick-and-mortar casino. Just stick to a reputable site with a history of happy customers -- like 888 Poker, Party Poker, or Bodog Poker -- and you've got nothing to worry about.