Conspiracy theories – bad beats, action flops, cash-out curse

Despite the poker sites' efforts to demonstrate that they deal a fair game, many people aren't convinced. They accuse the sites of rigging the shuffle. This section is called “conspiracy theories” because the evidence behind these accusations has so far been unconvincing. Nevertheless, they are worth discussing because like all good conspiracy theories they spring from a grain of truth.

Good players get bad beats

The grain of truth: When you play online and flop a strong hand, your opponents call with very weak draws and sometimes they beat you.

The conspiracy theory: The poker site makes more money if the bad players don't lose all their chips to good players in the first ten minutes. The longer a bad player survives, the more rake he will pay. Therefore, it is in the poker site's interest to help the bad players by making their draws get there more often.

The alternate explanation: Online players are indeed weak and passive and call too much. Naturally, good hands hold up less often in such a loose game.

Another explanation: Online poker is very fast paced. A typical online holdem table sees 60-80 hands per hour. This is about twice as fast as real-world dealing. If you play two tables at once, it is four times as fast. Therefore, you should expect that good hands will get sucked out on two (or four) times as often, per hour, as in the offline world.

Action flops

The grain of truth: When you play online, you see a lot of confrontations where two or more people make very strong hands or draws and build up the pot.

The conspiracy theory: The poker site makes more money from rake when the pots are larger. Therefore, it is in the site's interest to deal flops that hit more than one player's hand.

The alternate explanation: Players are loose and the game is fast-paced. Loose play means the flop has a chance to hit more players and the fast pace means you will see many confrontations per hour.

Another (more speculative) explanation: Perhaps it is the real-world shuffle that is not random. A typical card room shuffle is riffle-riffle-strip-riffle, theoretically known to not fully randomize the deck. Could it be that in the offline world we don't see our fair share of action flops?

The cash-out curse

The grain of truth: After you cash out some of your winnings, there is a good chance that you will then experience a run of bad luck and go bust.

The conspiracy theory: The poker site never wants you to withdraw your money. They would prefer that you keep playing until you have lost all your money to the rake. If you cash out some of your money, the site worries that you may cash out the remainder before you donate it to the rake. Therefore, the site decides to redistribute your money to other, more reliable players who will eventually pay it to the house. They do this by setting the “curse” flag on your account and dealing you bad beats.

The alternate explanation: Poker is a volatile game where luck plays a large role. Your balance is always fluctuating. If you reduce your balance, it is a fact that there is a greater chance that you will bust soon thereafter than if you had maintained the extra cushion. In other words, the cash-out curse is real. But it isn't because the site throws a switch, it is just everyday statistics.

See the rec.gambling.poker FAQ article on the cash-out curse.