Pete... I think you're looking at it the wrong way. The correct way to look at it would be to ask what reason you have to believe it is NOT an honest game.

No. i do not think its appropriate to give them the benefit of the doubt. The circumstances warrant being skeptical. You send money out of the country to someone you don't know, and have no legal redress if you believe they have cheated you, or don't pay you. Caution is warranted.

Consider this... if a site were proven to be running a dishonest game, ALL of the players would leave the site. Absolutely. These sites can make millions a day. Why do you suppose they'd risk this for any reason?

This is the argument that I hear all the time and yet it strikes me as exceptionally weak for these reasons.

1) The argument suggests that anyone with succuessful business would have no incentive to lie cheat or steal since that would hurt there business and they would lose the successful business. yet we see many examples of successful businesses taking short cuts and stealing in order to make more money. In the gaming field I don't have to point further than American Coin for an example.

2) In order for the threat of being caught cheating to be a deterent there has to be a reasonable chance that you get caught. But these sites operate with no oversite by reliable regulatory bodies. Who is going to catch them cheating. And even when someone comes along and makes a claim that they have been cheated there is no context for the investigation or fact finding. If you read online poker forums you constantly see people make allegations of cheating (people who accuse the sites of being rigged or not paying) what you see is other people immediately call them kooks liars or cheaters. Simply put a site has no realistic chance of being "caught" so the threat of losing business from being caught cheating is non-existent.

Consider this too... it is virtually impossible for just ONE person at a site to know that it is run dishonestly. If more than one person knows, it wouldn't take long for the "secret" to be out.

But the secret is out. Lots of people tell you they know that online poker is crooked, or this site cheats this way or that way.

As for Mark's question about unusual hands on internet poker sites, it's a common question. Don't forget that you are seeing MANY more hands than you do in a brick & mortar site... maybe double, maybe triple the number of hands. There will therefore be double or triple the number of bad beats ande unusual hands.

I agree, i am skeptical of claims people make that more bad beats happen online than in real life simply because these claims are made anecdotally and not based on actual data compiled from both.