Rigged: A Poker Player Explains Regular Things That are Rigged and Blockchain Solutions

"The business model of Wall Street, is fraud." - Bernie Sanders

As a poker player, it's obviously important to be able to recognize situations where, for whatever reason, other players in the game are getting some advantage you are not. A small advantage makes a big difference. For instance knowing a single card is missing from the deck provides some advantage that can be exploited over time. Sometimes, there is a situation where you suspect the game is rigged and then something happens, that confirms your gut feeling. Once you are trained to identify these situations, because they are always obfuscated in some way, you start to identify more of them.

The US Voting System
Let's start here. It bothers me that Americans voted, overwhelmingly, by over 3 million votes, for Hillary Clinton and Trump is President. I mean let's get real, the majority of Americans who even bothered to vote, disagree with Trump and his climate change denying cronies. Hey, if they are wrong, again, it's just ... oh it's pretty much the end of the world? Oh, well that's serious then. Get out and vote people! Particularly if you are poor and white, and your coal mining job is gone, get out and vote against anyone who supports Trump. Sadly, and this is not new, the Republican modus operandi is to prevent minorities and people likely from voting against them from voting. In Bush v. Gore in 2000 there was a situation where Gores's lawyers had an opportunity to fight against counting military votes that might have been cast after the election, and Gore said they should be counted. Gore wanted all the votes counted. Since that election, every major news media group or unbiased government inquiry has come to the same conclusion, if all the "intended" votes were counted, Gore wins Florida. In other words, Republicans stole the election in 2000, and they did it with the help of the rigged courts. Then they stole a Supreme Court seat when Obama was President. They have the whole thing now, the house, the senate, the courts ... and they are the minority party. The reason is, all that matters to them is winning. "If you aren't cheating, you aren't trying hard enough." Hey, you know what blockchain technolgy could solve? Do you really NEED a token for ... Yes. One token gets one voting right. Each token is tied to your social security number. Solves the problem of "could voting over the internet be secure". It may take a Revolution though, to overturn the electoral college which basically allows empty land to have voting weight. It's over, we amend the constitution, just a straight up 51% vote wins and it's Democrats forever. The MAJORITY of the PEOPLE in the United States vote democratic ... and by the largest numbers ever, and we lose everything. Rigged.

The US Banking System
Are you aware that any money you have in the bank is being leant out at almost 10 times your deposit? It's called "fractional reserve" lending and is 100% legal. The obvious problem there is, if everyone goes to withdraw their digital dollars into cash, the banks straight up can't pay. They only have a fraction in reserve. It's like if Tether claimed to be backed up by 10 US cents, instead of a dollar but still wanted it to be worth a dollar. It's insane.

Meanwhile, in the stock market, people get paid to gamble with other people's money. It's like the best deal ever. Everyone gives you their money, you gamble with it, and if you lose ... oopsie! I still get my million dollar bonus, right? Gambler's have a word for that, and it's a real scumbag move. Let's say Sal gambles with Jimmy. Sal knows that if he loses, he wont pay, but expects to get paid if he wins. Sal is "freerolling" Jimmy.

It's interesting to see how ubiquitous smart phone technology has become in Africa, in rural areas where the "unbanked" are just starting to come online. And you eliminate all the thieves, and the rent-seekers, and give the power of money to the people? Yeah, fantastic. Sign me up for that. That sounds like REAL democracy.

Gambling and casinos
This is the most obvious one. You know going into it you are not a favorite to win, you just want to see if you get lucky. This is almost more honest. The casino is not trying to hide from you that you are at a disadvantage. And if they can identify you as an AP (advantage player), they don't want your action. This is why card counting blackjack players sometimes wear disguises. Online casinos, forget about it. I've been playing recently, poker, without any deposit on a clearly rigged, bot ridden system, just to hone my skills on smelling when something is wrong. It's also fun to try and find the weakness in the armor and slay the dragon. There's a whole variety of ways a digital poker game can be rigged beyond "you get to see everyones cards", but that has happend as well. One anonymous software developer who worked for a major online poker site admitted to writing "inducer hands" code. It's maybe one in a thousand hands, but that will still come up a lot, where the system has identified a pro, vs a recreational player and the hand is rigged where the pro gets a really good hand but still loses. In this way, fish keep playing, pros want to play the fish, it "induces" more action and a steady flow of rake. This is of course, not even getting into the concept of bots. Oh yeah. Blockchain can solve this too. I'm not even sure it is possible, in a sort of basic way, as long as phones exist, if online poker can be fully secure. There really is no way to prevent two, or more, people at the table to be in secret contact with each other. So even though the provider, has a perfctly fair and honest system, it just can't be secure. People could be cheating without the provider being aware of it. Then you get into bots that can talk to each other and botnets ... forget about it. Rigged. Not a popular thing to say, just the truth. Sort of like Global Warming.