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Hi guys,
I have a serious question about the process of randomization in card shuffling in online poker.
Is there any solution for it to make it 100% transparent and verifiable and simple at the same time as well? Please share any innovative idea if you have any.

Why you need to become transparent while you are playing against real player? What online poker are you pertaining, the P2P type or the Player VS House match. Because if it is the P2P is nonsense to become transparent on card draw. I heard already a method about verifying each draw on poker. I will come here when I found in again. I will be handling an ICO bounty campaign which is based on poker that's why it's sounds familiar to me.

It's not even called a solution if you are going to make 100% transparency when playing online poker. I guess there's no use and it's not even an innovative idea. The idea of playing poker will be useless and for sure many will forget this game online if all the cards are transparent to each other, everyone will be folding their cards and will just quit the game later on because there's no use of playing it.

Yes it is.
1 - you have to "provable randomly" shuffle the cards.
2 - you have to prove the cards were handed out in that shuffled order.

But you would have to find a really smart solution to make it "simple".





I don't think you know how provably fair systems works. (sorry if Im wrong)

The thing is you dont need to show cards to each other. All you need is to make sure "the cards order was given at game start and has not changed during the game".
This can be achieved by using "hash functions".

IMO by transparent he means: to be verifiable

Poker is multiplayer game and it is hard to make multiplayer game transparent and verifiable. There is one technique called mental poker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_poker

If you are concerned about whether other player is stacking the deck or peeking at other player's card than read about mental poker from the above link, a possible solution is described but haven't seen any platform using it till now.

Well, I think for this one game we will never be able to figure it out because of the way they work using the system, so never expect to see random cards in online poker games that you can see with your own eyes unless you play live poker live. you can see it on fortunejack.com, they provide online live poker game.

Sorry but you are misunderstanding what I said, what he says is different and his terms aren't appropriate and if he means about verifiable then that should be and it shouldn't be transparent. I understand on what you have said about the cards should be given in order and will be constant, no change at all. This is good and this can secure every sit players that there's no suspicious thing that's happening.

OK, I re-read the OP and see he used both "transparent" and "verifiable" words in his post.
So you were correct. My apologies for accusation.

@OP Transparent poker game makes no sense. I can only assume you have used inappropriate wording.

Been wondering if this is also actually true, i have heard it actually few times before but never actually been and saw it. I don' t know if this has a point but he means transparent? So i guess maybe it does exist in live poker but not actually in some p2p poker, it sounds like there is also no point on having transparency and could only lose players rather than attracting it, it sounds like actually cheating for me, correct me if i were wrong.

If you're talking about playing against a bot operated by an online casino site, much like when you're playing blackjack it's of course possible. I've seen and played online poker against a provably fair bot more than once.

If we're talking about playing other people it's impossible, because the provably fair system only verifies seeds by making sure that the house "roll" stays anonymous to both sides and isn't changed until the player sees it on his screen.
In a poker game people don't roll, they choose cards themselves. The only way a casino could cheat in a pvp poker game is by watching your hand and revealing it to other players who would be planted casino employees.

In the second line of your last paragraph you addressed the core of my my question, but the question remains the same, how to know that you are not playing against a casino who is seeing your cards and acting accordingly. Is their any simple solution to that so that this process become TRANSPARENT
 and verifiable?   

What's wrong currently most sites have probably fair mark and it can be verified , you can try to create poker on ether smart contract I'm not any sort if coder but doing so would mean everything is fair and can be viewed by anyone by the smart contract.

@Bittfort no, it's fine mate we're here to discuss things about like this.
@Yadstiker, transparency it's not literally a cheating for me but when you are one of the players it's a disadvantage right? You can see the cards of your opponents and your opponents knows your cards too. It's unfair and maybe there is something that OP wants to declare but he can't express it properly.

I don't see any way to do it at the moment. There's a reason why poker rooms are plagued with teams of players that work together and share the winnings. If you are at a 5 player table and 3 of them are sharing cards you will have a very hard time. It's similar with playing against casino plants, even in a 1v1v2 situation where those 2 are casino employees. They don't have to see your cards, but they will be able to minimize your winnings by playing together.

According to some, cheating in poker can be detected if you play long enough:
An understanding of game play and betting patterns will allow an observant player to realize when this form of rigging might be taking place.
In fact, this is exactly what happened during a tournament at Absolute Poker back in 2007, when observant players questioned the tournament winner's game play and instigated an investigation which led to the uncovering of a scandal in which online players were cheated out of up to $1 million.

I don't think you know how provably fair systems works. (sorry if Im wrong)

The thing is you dont need to show cards to each other. All you need is to make sure "the cards order was given at game start and has not changed during the game".
This can be achieved by using "hash functions".

IMO by transparent he means: to be verifiable


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What you told is the only way of finding the game cards given are correct or not , only the Hash Function way can give you the transparency and fair system working of cards drawn

Then how do you intend to play the online poker if it is going to be transparent ?
Cause the only way to make it transparent is to verify the card shuffling isn't it and except there is a very smart program that can be trusted or written to do the shuffling and rely totally on the fact that it is doing a fair job, I do not see any other way.

Actually, I've been thinking about this a lot lately.  If a smart contract were implemented that could record the shuffle and the distribution of cards on the blockchain then that could solve the transparency concerns. In fact, if a blockchain can be created specifically with a poker client in mind, then there are a variety of possible solutions that can be attained---> I am waiting for it ---> it will come because it's a no brainer!

Cards are not fair. I play live poker and believe when I say cards are not fair. Poker sites use programs to shuffle cards, are they probably fair I believe they are because they are earning money from rake, they shuffle cards and deal to players, for some its good hand for others bad, as long as people play site is earning.
You can't judge poker just from your experience, I had bad weeks with poker, when I couldn't win nothing, if I start to talk you can't believe what stories I have to tell, but there are good weeks too. Poker is a card game and you can never trust cards, play a lot like I did and you will see miracles in live and online poker, its same for me.

It is possible but I just don't like that idea. I want to hide my hand and show it when I want to as a part of strategy, with provably fair everyone could easily check if someone bluffed or not and use that info.
Besides, provably fair system in texas holdem is meaningless, you will never know is it "real provably fair system" or is it "rigged provably fair system", for example you get KK, your opponent gets AA and flop shows KKA - one person will go all in other will call, one will lose and house will earn big rake. You will never prove was it rigged or not, even thought it was provably fair.

These are some of the same concerns they had back in the day when poker began to become popular on television which lead to the big poker boom.  A lot of players were concerned with the card cams installed on the tables; however, the advantages of the system outweighed the potential liabilities and the players adjusted their game ---> sometimes advertising a bluff is a good thing.  And, if a poker client were built upon a DECENTRALIZED blockchain then there is no "house" to rig the game, right?

That's why I'm a bit disagree if online poker games need skills, because as we hope the system will get a good card because the player with the highest-ranked poker hand is the winner, so it is crucial to understand the correct poker hand rankings.

Nope, not always player with high cards wins on the poker, Poker really needs strategy because bluff is famous trick on that game. You can win even if you have the lowest card among the player on the table as long as you know how to right betting strategy and bluff somebody. Poker is not a game of high cards only but also in mental aspects.

This is the thing that do entertain me on playing poker which it is just not a simple game of cards which you would really need to use your skills,bluffings,intuitions,instincts and other related things that are essential in able to win the game and you are right even if you do have the lowest card if you do know how to control the pace by bluffing then you do have the advantage.

I've been playing online poker a very long time and I don't care what site I'm playing at or how transparent their RNG might be, when I go through streaks of unfavorable variance, there is always something in the back of my mind that says, "Rigged!"  Then the tilt syndrome sets in and that distrust affects my decision making processes....so ---> if there were a means to insure the integrity of the game as a whole, I think that would be a good thing.

There's this thought going around that maybe some of these sites are "rigging" the game to skew the odds in favor of the "underdogs" in order to maintain site traffic to generate rake and fees.  In the past, poker sites recognized lower traffic as the "sharks" (regs) optimized their game and became extremely skilled at finding and attacking the "bums" (recs) which discouraged and limited the amount of time recreational players spent on the poker sites....so....the thought is that skewing the odds in favor of the recs slightly would keep them in the game longer, thereby, generating more rake and fees for these sites ---> that hasn't been proven but there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that suggest it may be true.

The reality may be that all professionals who are very few in gambling win at the expense of beginners and incompetent players. It seems to me that this has always been and will be so.

There should be. It's just a matter of code, and likely any creative developer would be able to make one. There are so much possibilities in coding anyway, so I think it is 100% possible. The thing is that I don't think anyone would want to fund it. Online poker doesn't really pay well for owners, since it cost a lot to operate vs the profit margins they get on the games.

random sharing by online poker sites,
it's been proven to be honest.
because there they use a coding system that only certain people can make it all transparent,
because every card distribution also has its own sign,
and if indeed you are smart you can certainly know in every turn that goes on.

Hello, Im the Dev for No Limit Coin (NLC2) a cryptocurrency and we have announced we are launching a no-rake online poker platform. After year 1, we will implement a $1 per month sub fee. So we want to build a large base for this and you get to play for free any level. All we look for is you use the coin. Even private tables will be avail. USA and restricted countries will not have buy in games, but there will be free rolls. USA will have private games with a no rake model for play chips. Outside the USA and restricted countries will have no rake NLC2 buy in for micro to big limits. Cash, sit and go and tourneys. Johnny Chan is our spokesperson. Check out his commercial. https://youtu.be/JJtDXS8iuyo. The website is nolimitcoinpoker.com

On collusion we will have a KYC process for all players, this means that any game over $1 buy in will require you to register with an ID and a picture of you holding that ID. This is to eliminate collusion and know you are playing with a real person. So we tried to focus on the 2 main issues with online poker. Rake and collusion. I will check back to see any comments.

We also have a post related to this in the NLC2 blog.