All poker sites are rigged Sandholm pointed to developments in cybersecurity, military settings and finance. While Quinze allowed the dealer a flexibility of action that is not present in modern day Blackjack again creating a psychological aspect to the game that again compares well with modern day poker, the structure of the game shows clear similarities to that of Blackjack.
How to Make Sure Your Money is Safe When Enjoying Online Poker Allowed online slot games for iowa.
Before you enjoy real money poker, you need to make sure your bankroll will be safe. While most poker sites are reputable – avoiding the rogues should be a top priority for all players. This page covers the key factors involved in making sure you can enjoy online poker safely and securely.
Poker sites have a big reason to treat players fairly, and to ensure that funds are secure. It only takes one scandal or payment issue to make people wary. This applies to the fairness of the deal, implementation of bonus terms and ensuring that players are paid out quickly.
The information on this page will help you enjoy online poker with complete peace of mind. Here is what you will find:
After these factors are explained, you will find a list of the biggest and best poker rooms for US and International players – with an overview of the safety measures in place for each.
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List of the Safest Poker Sites
Safe Poker: Is the Deal Fair?
One of the biggest concerns players have about online poker is whether the deal is fair. When you are on the receiving end of a bad beat, it can feel like the online poker site is rigged against you.
While this is a common concern, the math does not back up the many claims. Since online poker began there have been billions of hands dealt. Large scale testing, player databases and tracking services are unanimous in acknowledging that the shuffle is random.
To back up their claims, the most trusted poker rooms regularly use independent auditing companies. Games are tested over millions of hands, and any discrepancies highlighted. Good sites have their deal checked regularly – and will display certificates or links to their results. Look out for the following names:
- Technical Systems Testing
Despite the claims (of mainly bad players), poker is unilaterally fair when it comes to the deal – you’ll get your fair share of aces at all the major rooms.
Commerce casino poker payouts. If you still have doubts – think of this from the perspective of the poker rooms. https://gourmetlucky.netlify.app/casino-poker-table-etiquette.html. Their business model means that a fair deal is essential. Any site caught cheating (including with ‘Super Users’) would lose most of their players overnight. With a fair deal they keep players coming back – and keep taking the rake and tournament fees which fills their coffers.
Website Security and Safe Poker
Of all the elements which go into making online poker safe, website security is the easiest to check. All browsers use the ‘Secure’ tag to show sites which have valid security certificates. SSL is only the start of it. You can check the ‘about us’ information at all the main rooms for information on how your personal data is held. At the time of writing, there have been no data breaches at legit online poker sites for personal or payment data.
Depositing and Withdrawing Safely at Online Poker Sites
You’ll have a lot of options for depositing at poker sites. Which you choose will depend on your location (US sites have fewer options due to banking restrictions) and your personal attitude to risk.
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Credit cards and debit cards are the easiest way to deposit for both US and international players. Using these is the same as shopping online – and very fast. Many players are reluctant to share their credit card information with poker rooms. This can be due to the perception of risk, or because of a desire to keep gambling transactions away from your bank statement.
Alternative deposit methods which are even safer include the following:
- Bitcoin / Cryptocurrencies: All of the offshore US poker rooms now accept Bitcoin including Bovada. This is the most secure of all deposit methods. It is also cheaper and faster than many alternatives. The downside is that you will need to create a Bitcoin wallet – and buy BTC (or other currency) at an exchange. You will not need to hold Bitcoin for long. The poker rooms switch this into dollars as soon as you deposit.
- Prepaid Visa Cards: There are two types of prepaid option. First, the Visa gift cards that you buy from gas stations or convenience stores. These work like regular cards (for US players, you’ll need to get brands which work for international payments). The second type is ‘Virtual’ cards, which work via an online account. Examples include PaySafeCard (a card-like voucher system) and EcoCard / EcoPayz.
- Money Transfer: This is sometimes known as person-to-person transfer. Here you will use services like Western Union or MoneyGram. You wire money to an individual not the poker room. The sites then reconcile the deposit with your poker account. This sounds risky, though is an established and 100% safe option for US players.
- Electronic Wallet Services: This deposit method is ideal for players that want to put a secure 3rd party between their bank and the poker rooms. PayPal is the best-known example, though there are many more (Skrill and Neteller are two major alternatives). The big advantage of using ‘eWallet’ services is that you never need to share your information with the poker room. You will separately log on to your wallet during the deposit process, and simply confirm the transaction there. You will need to pay fees (this is how the wallet services make money).
- Wires / Bank Transfers: Many secure poker sites will accept bank wires, though the fees for these mean they are more suitable for bigger deposits. Local transfers can be made in many countries (though not the US). There are local 3rd party systems to facilitate local transfers. Examples include iDebit for Candians and Poli.
This is not an exhaustive list. You will find many local options around the world, and more brands which fit into the categories above. From a safely perspective, you can choose the method which suits your attitude to risk the best.
Terms and Conditions and Poker Site Safety
The mark of a good reliable poker site is that they administer their bonuses in a fair and straightforward manner. Good online poker sites have clear terms and will not void bonuses for small things like playing the wrong games.
Play-through or points requirements to clear bonuses are very different across the sites. You need to ensure that that excellent bonus deal is not impossible to clear due to slow point accumulation or limited time.
Reputable brands have ongoing rewards and promotions to boost the bankroll of loyal players. If you see a big headline bonus, and no promotions, it is possible that that room is not somewhere people hang around for long.
In addition to the bonus terms, look for a responsible gaming policy. This shows how seriously the safest online poker sites take problem gambling. The best sites have self-exclusion and deposit limits, which players can volunteer to have in place.
Poker Site Licensing
Operating licenses are a great sign that you have found a secure and reputable room. There are very few reputable sites without a license. For US players, only Bovada / Ignition does not have one. Fortunately, these sites have a reputation going back many years – and are among the best for fast withdrawals.
Jurisdictions that license poker rooms will depend on the market they are serving. Big international sites do not accept players from the US. These sites are licensed in Malta, Gibraltar or the Isle of Man. In addition, many countries have their own site licensing setup. The UK Gambling Commission is among the strictest. A poker site licensed by them is more likely to be safe.
For US sites, licenses are awarded by Caribbean nations and Central American countries. Jurisdictions include Antigua, Curacao and Panama. You will also find sites which are licensed by the Kahnawake tribe.
While the lack of an operating license should not stop you playing at a site – it should mean your checks on reputation, RNG testing and security need to be more through.
Are There Any Safe Poker Sites for US Players
Since the big shake-up of Black Friday in 2011, a new group of sites has taken over serving the US market. These sites operate legally from the Caribbean or Central America – and have growing player bases. The question is, are these online poker rooms safe?
Bovada / Ignition Poker: These sites are part of a network which share players. Bovada is the single biggest US friendly poker room by a wide margin. They voluntarily gave up their license (from Kahawake) in 2016. Fortunately, other factors show that this is a very safe poker room. This site has a very long track record of looking after players well – and paying out winnings quickly. Their site is secure, tested (by iTech Labs) and a wide range of deposit options, including Bitcoin, are available. You can find out more in our detailed Bovada Poker review.
America’s Cardroom: This site is part of the Winning Poker Network. They hold the biggest poker tournaments, and regularly hold events known as the ‘Online Super Series’. ACR Poker are licensed by the government of Curacao. Their games are tested and their website secure. With more than 8 years online – this is considered a safe online poker site by US players and are open to international markets too.
BetOnline / Sportsbetting Poker: This site recovered from some historical payment scandals and are now under new management. They are part of the ‘Chico Poker Network’. Both rooms are licensed in Panama. While this is a smaller network, the games are considered soft – thanks to a lot of cross over traffic from the big sports betting brands.
All Us Poker Sites
Safe International Poker Sites
International players have a pick of some huge and long-running brands. These rooms have built a reputation over decades in many cases. Some are listed on the London Stock Exchange. This brings a new level of financial oversight – in addition to any security measures they put in place individually.
It is hard to choose one international site which is ‘safer’ than the others. PokerStars, Party Poker, 888.com and Bet365 are all huge brands with everything covered above fully in place. If you want to enjoy the games at a smaller international poker site, it is worth doing some extra checks to make sure that they comply.
Know Your Customer Checks and Safe Poker Sites
Document / Id checks are something which divide players. Many reputable sites will ask for ID. This can happen when you make a deposit, and if not, it will always happen when you make your first withdrawal. Typical requests include a picture of your photo ID, and proof of address. Some sites also ask for a picture of both sides of your credit card (you can black out some of the numbers).
My view on these is that they protect you as much as they do the poker sites. Without them, poker would be the target of fraud and money laundering – making the games unsafe for regular players.
If you want to ensure that your withdrawals are quick, you should prepare for the ‘KYC check’ in advance.
Wrapping Up: How to Find the Safest Poker Sites
Poker Sites Are Rigged
The good news is that online poker is extremely safe. You’ll be protected in many different ways by sites which have a huge interest in maintaining their reputation. This includes regular testing of deal fairness (remember, after billions of hands, no proof of rigged deals has ever been produced).
Payment security is increased by the large number of options available. If you feed uncomfortable sharing your credit card info, then cryptocurrency, eWallets and local bank transfers are all safe and secure options.
A surprisingly large number of players think that online poker is rigged to some extent. A lot of their claims are made after bad beats or heavy losses, when they’re in a dejected state of mind. In such cases they don’t actually believe that the site is rigged and are merely venting their anger, but there are those that take their venting too far. For instance, a simple Google search for “Pokerstars”, the largest of all the poker sites, will eventually lead you to a website that is devoted entirely to badmouthing the online poker giants. The site name itself is rather offensive, and therefore not worth repeating, but the content is certainly worth reading, even if only as a psychological study. It is reminiscent of a conspiracy theory, where many thin “facts” are collected to support a weak overall theory, with little sense made along the way.
- US Friendly Poker Site
- Credit Card Deposits
- Accepts eCheck
- Sportsbook & Casino
- www.betonline.com
- 100%
- Accepted
- Yes
- 2001
- Top-Notch Software
- eChecks for Canadians
- Free Money Offers
- Tournament Overlays
- www.888poker.com
- 100%
- Not Accepted
- Yes
- 2000
Obviously I cant say for certain that Pokerstars is not rigged, but what I do know is that online gambling is a huge business, one that makes an estimated $30 billion dollars every year, and there is no need to fix things in order to make money. Gambling on the whole is a lucrative business, you only need to look at the behemoth of Las Vegas — a city built on lost bets — to realize that, but online poker can be even more lucrative. Firstly, there is no chance that the poker site will lose money. There are no jackpots, no money taken from the site itself, and all of the money won throughout the site is from other players. Poker websites work by taking a rake, and the more people that play, the more money they make. That’s it. It’s something that Forbes estimated makes Pokerstars nearly $1.5 billion a year, so to suggest that they rig the game just to annoy a few small stakes players is not just outlandish, it’s laughable.
In fact, it’s almost dangerous, because aspiring players see such claims and immediately assume that all calls of “scam” are equally preposterous when concerning online poker, but that is not the case. There are smaller websites that don’t get the traffic they need in order to make money through rake, websites that really are scams and really are out to take your money through unfair means. This is not always done through rigged software, as poker websites tend to use established poker networks and franchised software, but there are those that have unaudited or even malfunctioning software that simply doesn’t do what it is supposed to do.
A good example of this is Betfred, which once offered a “gamble” feature where players in the casino where given a chance to boost their winnings with a 50/50. By law a 50/50 should be what it says it is, but in practice this 50/50 was weighted heavily in the favor of the casino and was more of an 80/20. Betfed are a big brand and a huge name in the United Kingdom, and although they did fix the issue by changing their software provider, the fact that this happened in the first place proved to the poker world that gambling software isn’t always as fair as it professes to be. This can be damaging when it comes to poker, as an unfair random number generator pretty much takes away the only skill element in the game. A skillful poker player is one who understand the odds of each move, and effectively plays to those odds, and if those odds are not as they are supposed to be, then that player’s skill is no longer worth anything.
Whilst we are confident that there are no “rigged” sites out there, there are sites that simply want to take your money and have nothing more to do with you, and more importantly there are sites with poor random number generators that turn the game of poker into a laughing stock. In this article we will do our best to avoid them, looking only at the sites that have the best random number generators, and therefore the fairest software.
The Best Sites
There are those that believe a good way to begin their poker journey is to find out where the poker professionals play and then join them. In theory this is sound, it worked for them so why can’t it work for you? But it’s not that easy. The professionals have bigger budgets than the common player and they also get a lot of benefits from the sites, including free tournament tickets, so you should never take anything on face value. You also have to consider that there are poker pros everywhere, from Gus Hanson and Viktor “Isildur1” Blom at Full Tilt; to Daniel Negreanu at Pokerstars; to Sofia Lovgren at 888 Poker; and to Wayne Rideout at SkyPoker.
As we have already mentioned, Pokerstars is not rigged and is the best site around for the sheer volume of tournaments and players. Despite that, Pokerstars has a lot of statistical long-shots happening on a regular basis, and many players have validated this. These things do happened, and even when monitored over an extended period they still show, but the impression is that Pokerstars’ random number generator is a little too random, and is therefore far from the best out there. The same goes for Full Tilt Poker, which can be even more frustrating to play and at times can feel like a game of bingo, particularly when you consider that many of the lower stakes players on that site really don’t know much about the game of poker.
All Online Poker Sites Are Rigged
The Merge poker network has always been very good in this regard, and its software seems spot on. In fact, if anything it is weighted the other way. Whereas a bad hand will beat a good hand 4 or 5 times out of 10 on Pokerstars or Full Tilt, it will only do so 1 out of 10 times on Merge. This makes it a game where the professionals can prosper, where those who play poker by the book can consistently cash in. Carbon Poker uses the Merge network and is by far the best choice on that network, having been flying the flag for Merge for many years. There are many others though and if Carbon Poker is not your thing, then you’re sure to find another site that is.
Another poker network with a very good random number generator (or so it seems) is the iPoker network. iPoker is one of the oldest networks and is very popular with sports books that want a quick and easy poker room as an addition to their site. It was the first poker room adopted by Betfair, and it is also used by many other leading sports books in Europe. iPoker’s motto is “always a full house” and this is something that matches its always-connected and always-full mentality, as there are at least 9.000 players connected to the network at any given time. There are not as many players or tournaments here as there are on Pokerstars or Full Tilt, but if you’re looking for a game that feels and plays like the real thing, then you can’t go much wrong with the iPoker network.
SkyPoker also has some very fair software, although you really need a compatible computer in order to download this on your desktop, as the browser client is very slow and buggy. SkyPoker has several poker variants, but unless you’re prepared to wait an hour or more for an Omaha sit and go to fill, or you’re happy to play a “multi-table” tournament with just a handful of people, then you should stick to No-Limit Hold’em. SkyPoker also has their own TV channel (Sky channel 861) and they sponsor several events around the UK, the biggest of which is the United Kingdom Poker Tour which has stops up and down the country and is considered to be one of the biggest amateur poker tournaments in Europe.