No More Bad Beats: Finding Non Rigged Poker Sites Online

Let's examine the nature of variance in poker, and consider how poker sites make their money. We'll soon see that really, most of the poker rooms out there fall under the 'non rigged' category.

How Poker Works

Nobody wins all the time in poker. Luck is huge factor in the short-term, to the extent that even the best player in the world will have seemingly endless losing streaks. Downswings are inevitable, and we can't avoid them.

Imagine: you're dealt KK on the button in a hand of Holdem. A player in middle position raises preflop, and everyone folds. Perfect! A big pot for a big hand. Everyone folds to you, and you reraise. Everyone folds to the player in middle position, who pushes all in. You snap-call. Your opponent shows QQ.

This is pretty close to a lock for you. Your opponent is completely dominated. 99% of the time, you should win this hand, right? There's a pretty slim chance that you'll lose... Right?

If we run the hand through an EV simulator, we find that you have 82% equity in the pot. Your opponent has about 18% equity. In terms of trials, you expect to win this hand 4 out of every 5 times you run it. So it's actually far from a lock -- 1 out of every 5 times, you expect your opponent to win.

That's just the theory of it. In practise, you could run this hand 3 times back-to-back and lose every single time. That's certainly an unlikely outcome. But unlikely does not mean impossible, and that's what most players fail to grasp. There's a low probability of your kings losing three times in a row; but that doesn't mean your kings won't lose three times in a row. In fact, the probability that you lose three of these all-ins in a row is 0.008% -- certainly a possible outcome.

That's variance: when the actual outcome of your decisions differs from the outcome you'd expect. And it's a real pain in the butt. But variance happens -- we go on extended cold streaks, and we lose more than we expect to. It's totally normal. Just because we're losing doesn't mean that a site is rigged. It's more likely that we're playing at a non rigged poker site, and we're simply experiencing the natural swings of the game.

How Online Poker Sites Work

The shuffle at an online poker site is powered by something called a Random Number Generator (RNG). The RNG is a snippet of code that -- shocker! -- constantly generates random numbers in the background of a poker site's software client. Each poker site will have an algorithm in place that links certain numbers to certain cards. When the RNG spits out a number, it's fed through this algorithm; and the result is another number that corresponds with the ace of spades, or the two of hearts, or the seven of clubs -- and so on.

Sound pretty complicated? It is. But that's how every non rigged poker site out there is built. The deal isn't controlled by a guy sitting there watching you play -- it's completely automatic. And it's not like poker sites have some built-in artificial intelligence that can figure out whether you're winning or losing. It's just a constant stream of random numbers. Nobody's keeping track of your success but you.

How Could a Poker Site Be Rigged?

Some players claim that a poker site could code its software to deal specific players terrible cards. Is that possible? I'm sure it is. But is it realistic? Heck no. Imagine the complexity of a piece of software that would deal individual players cards based on whether or not they should lose or win. How would it even work? Texas Holdem is a community card-based game; so what if there are two players who are supposed to win at a single table? How would the software rig the deal to make sure that they both come out on top?

The ingenuity and time investment required to code a program that could do this would both be near infinite. Simply put, it's not practical.

Always remember this: poker sites are in the business of raking hands; and all they need to do to rake hands is to keep players playing a fair game! What it comes down to is this: any poker site that likes making money is a non rigged poker site. It just doesn't make sense to rig a game, from a financial standpoint. It's much easier to just give players what they want -- a non rigged game -- and watch the dollars roll in.

How to Find Non Rigged Poker Sites

There are non rigged poker sites all around you. Just look for the ones with a good reputation, some decent software, and a dedicated base of players sitting in at the tables.

888 Poker has long been one of the most legitimate poker sites in online poker. They've been dealing fair games since 2002, and they've shown no signs of stopping any time soon. Any of the bigger names in the industry, really, are proven to be non rigged poker sites. Take your pick: Party Poker, BetOnline Poker, Bovada Poker -- all of them are legit.

While you'll certainly run into bad streaks on any of these sites, the bad streaks won't be because of rigged games. Running bad is just something we have to deal with, no matter where we play.