Yes, it’s rigged. Totally.
But not in the way where the house wins all the money (as the winnings are distributed between the players).
Here’s how it works :
– the poker website takes a ‘cut’ or ‘rake’ from each pot played and also entry fees to tournaments
– the poker website has to pay for server time/facilities/bandwidth so the quicker the games (tournaments) finish the better
So within poker games, it’s in the poker’s websites interest to ‘juice’ the cards so people enter pots and bet.
In a nutshell, the hole cards your receive in Texas Hold Em as example, will be worth playing typically. You will receive lots of Ace-blah, suited connectors, connectors and pairs.
Then for good measure, you will hit the flop in some way, maybe make a pair/set/flushg draw/straight draw, as will 2-3 other people. This will create ACTION and boost the pot size = bigger rake for the house/website.
To test this theory, note all the hole cards you get online in one game for 50 hands. Then deal 50 sets of hole cards from a live deck (shuffling every set of hole cards). Now compare. You will be amazed at how crap the live/real cards are and how excellent the online hole cards are.
This system is essentially called PARP – where online funds are evenly distributed between players to keep as many players in the game as possible. Otherwise, all the good poker players would tear up the donkeys online constantly. That’s no good for business as everyone has to win a little to stay interested.
I’ll talk further about the poker websites and how to play them for profit later in this blog, and how to get round PARP.
In the meantime, stick to freerolls if you can.