Online poker V
Online poker, like any type of online gambling, has often come under fire over the policy of integrity and fairness and many people have criticized that the operators of online poker games lack transparency, particularly those gaming sites which do not come under the same legal jurisdiction as the players themselves. Since it is played over the internet a poker player from the United States is more likely to be a victim of fraud for playing in an online poker gaming site owned by a European company. Moreover, online poker players meeting in discussion forums argue that arbitrary card dealing techniques favoring players employed by online casino site or pokerbots, which are software programs playing in a game table disguised as a human opponent, have been used. If card dealing has not been random then several players may end up with having strong hands that would increase betting activity and pot size and rake or sometimes such shady card dealing methodology is used so that rookie players don’t lose easily and get discouraged to play.
However, it is to be noted that most of these allegations have not been proved and as a matter of fact, the rake amount collected by the online poker rooms is sufficiently large that would render the need to use such dishonest means superfluous. Some players claim that in online poker games situations like bad beats occur more frequently than in real life games. This charge might be explained by the fact that the hands of play per hour in online poker cardrooms are higher and so online poker players get to see more hands which in turn increase the chances of formation of huge pots and unlikely bad beats.
To dispel doubts among players, many gaming sites get certificate of integrity and fairness from respectable audit firms to show that their random number generator and payout system are above suspicion.
