Yea again the issue with this argument is just that it can be equally applied to many other things that have extremely bad consequences. social media is the obvious one. But even recreational drugs are arguably an example, or really anything that people aren't allowed to buy. All of those are just things that people want and that used to be okay when they weren't that powerful, but once someone figured out how to make them sufficiently good, eventually the results were so awful that they were outlawed.
And not exactly a stretch to compare this to GG given that online gambling is already under threat of being outlawed (and has been outlawed in some countries). The more the product becomes "better", ie looks more like GG and less like ACR, the more likely it is that it more countries will follow india.
Although I'm speculating a little, I don't have stats on how many people have ruined their lives due to GG. Would be very interesting to know, but the data probably doesn't exist.
I don't have an investment in this fight btw, if anything it's probably better for me if online poker dies more and people are forced to play live
I don't know about that.
I created a account to play CC frerolls, but I did not used a link, therefore I was not allowed to play the freerolls EVER.
So i deleted my account to re- create with the link, and guess what, they banned me forever because I deleted the account
God bless
that's because this ^ is against the Terms Of Service on ALL sites. (you should consider reading through them if not familiar with them).
fwiw, this week GGPoker is extending the 'Olive Branch initiative' to previously suspended/banned accounts. I'm guessing you'd have a good chance at opening an account on GG if you followed the application procedure.
It's on 'X' (Twitter)
But y'know, so did twitter. And YouTube. And TikTok. And the entire social media apparatus that's tearing society apart right now. So I don't really think it's a good argument. It doesn't help the people whose lives were ruined by GGPoker, and they most certainly exist.
So you're against online poker? 'or' just 'poker' in general?
When I first began playing online poker (20yrs. ago) I actually felt bad while winning on cash game tables so I preferred to play in MTTs & SNGs. It seemed to be easier on my conscience to not be exploiting Johnny Whalestation as badly as it did on cash tables. (I actually sent some players their buyin to them back on Fulltilt... it was such easy money that I knew I'd be winning a bunch more every time I played so sending a few buyins out to other players during a session wasn't a big deal.
Well the games got harder (and so did I). Poker is all about taking advantage of others. It's the way it is. I'd suggest finding a different game if you don't have the stomach for it.
fwiw, I don't think today's live poker venues would be anywhere near as busy if it hadn't been for the online poker boom.
Then simply stop playing there. ..
This thread is ridiculous.
It's a business... A restaurant encourages you to eat...a casino encourages you to gamble.
You are completely right. Even I admit it—I’ve never deposited money on GG. But I’ve withdrawn over $1K just starting from scratch with the daily freebie. It used to be the same on PokerStars, but they stopped giving that opportunity once the new daily spin turned into a joke
Not sure what you mean by 'pokerstars daily spin turned into a joke'? I always win a $0.50 spins ticket each day and even without playing many of the PowerPath steps games (I don't have enough time), I've won a fair bit with them. I think I have close to 50 tickets right now. (value over $3k)
Hard to respond to this when I list about six factors that contribute to gambling addiction and are unique to GGPoker and you respond by asking what's different about GGPoker.
Perhaps GG has invested more $$ into hiring a staff that is more capable of marketing... more capable of producing better software... more capable of everything that helps a site to grow. Many other sites have (and are) failing miserably as they attempt to keep up and stay in the game.
Winning poker players do depend on sites attracting losing players, so there is some validity to this argument. But it does not mean, that there is not at the same time a lot of things wrong with GG Poker, which in my opinion there is. Besides the issues, which OP has pointed out, the most obvious is a complete lack of transparency, since they have banned both trackers and independant tracking sites like sharkscope.
GG Poker recently had a super user scandal, so apparently they did not invest nearly as much in security, as they do in marketing. And because of the lack of transparency, should there ever be one of the major sites, that was proved to actually be rigged or manipulated in some way, then GG Poker is the prime candidate in my opinion.
Just yesterday I see on Partypoker, during tourney breaks they have a window appear in the middle of your table, suggesting you play CASINO games during the 5min. break. LOL. (I haven't experienced anything of this nature on GG thank God).
I like to play SnGs on working days and MTTs mainly during weekends. And since GG Poker dont have any proper SnGs, they simply dont offer the games, I want to play. I will admit though, that its probably a decent site for playing MTTs. There is a huge selection, and most micro and low stakes MTTs have around 8% rake, which is less than any other site, I know of.
That being said its not like, PokerStars lack MTTs either, so the main disadvantage of playing MTTs on Stars is the higher rake. GG Poker is also not a legal site here in sweden, which on one hand makes it possible for me to take advantage of benefits and promotions. But on the other hand it also mean having to deposit and withdraw though an e-Vallet, which is more expensive and inconvenient. Just like when I play on ACR Poker.
Presumably because there is a lot of traffic? All the best tournament regs also still play on PokerStars though. I cant imagine, that a lot of professional MTT players dont participate in the ongoing WCOOP event for instance.
If OP was living in the USA do you think they'd be posting this? imo, people who have had access to the different sites don't understand that online poker shouldn't be taken for granted. I have no doubt there are thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of poker players in the USA who would love to play on GGPoker.
They would probably also love being able to play on PokerStars, 888 Poker and PartyPoker though. Its quite a bit besides the point, because as OP said, the more scrupulous the industry becomes, the more likely it is, that other countries will follow Indias example and ban it completely.
Not sure what you mean by 'Pokerstars daily spin turned into a joke'? I always win a $0.50 spins ticket each day and even without playing many of the PowerPath steps games (I don't have enough time), I've won a fair bit with them. I think I have close to 50 tickets right now. (value over $3k)
So you're against online poker? 'or' just 'poker' in general?
When I first began playing online poker (20yrs. ago) I actually felt bad while winning on cash game tables so I preferred to play in MTTs & SNGs. It seemed to be easier on my conscience to not be exploiting Johnny Whalestation as badly as it did on cash tables. (I actually sent some players their buyin to them back on Fulltilt... it was such easy money that I knew I'd be winning a bunch more every time I played so sending a few buyins out to other players during a session wasn't a big deal.
Well the games got harder (and so did I). Poker is all about taking advantage of others. It's the way it is. I'd suggest finding a different game if you don't have the stomach for it.
I'm not against either, I was saying that if poker becomes too egregious, it's more likely to get banned. That's why some restrain on the parts of companies is good. If I were a lawmaker seeing ACR, I'd be much less likely to feel like it needs to be banned than if I saw GG.
But, yeah earning money with poker is not super great ethically speaking either way. But I don't think it's always the same; I'm more comfortable taking money from players who just have an expensive hobby (it's not worse than any other expensive hobby) than from people who don't really want to play but are addicted, and I know the second type also exists (and probably more on GG).
BTW, was this a subtle dig? I'm about the most anti-LLM person in this forum, especially when it comes to anything related to poker, but "summarize the research consensus/general knowledge on this topic" is one of the questions that they're genuinely great at, imho. They're bad at adapting to context, but they have genuinely vast knowledge.
But, yeah earning money with poker is not super great ethically speaking either way. But I don't think it's always the same; I'm more comfortable taking money from players who just have an expensive hobby (it's not worse than any other expensive hobby) than from people who don't really want to play but are addicted, and I know the second type also exists (and probably more on GG).
Of course addicted people exist in life poker as well. But you have a point, much more of them are online, just because online poker is so easy available.
That’s like stepping into a casino elevator, hearing elevator music, and thinking it’s stealing your chips. Fun fact: elevator music was literally invented at the Bellagio in Vegas to calm down gamblers who were tilted on their way back up to the tables. 🎶 GG isn’t rigged
When I first tried GGPoker about two years ago, and even more as I continued using it, I had this continuous realization of just how cynical a company can be. Like, I knew that all poker sites try to maximize profit, but the utter lack of shame and willingness to play dirty to drive engagement was genuinely impressive. I knew that this probably meant the level of play was pretty low, so ironically the presentation is actually a reason to stay on the platform (softer field than PokerStars), but I immediately understood what I was looking it.
However... when I make the occasional comments in this forum about how GGPoker is obviously horrible, I usually get surprised responses. It seems like most people have no idea what I'm even talking about. Like, why would I call them shameless/unethical? What's worse about GGPOker than any other site? And I don't think people are being deliberately obtuse when they say this, so I thought I'd make a thread explaining it.
In a nutshell, the reason for the title is this: we know a lot from psychology about how the appeal of gambling (and gambling addiction in the extreme) works, and GGPoker is deliberately designed to maxmize gambling addiction in its users. Nothing about its weird and complex reward system is an accident; all of it has been delibaretely optimized, from someone who is evidently familiar with the research on gambling, to exploit people's desire in the most cynical way possible. And the sheer scale of it is just breathtaking. Other sites may have one or two quirks that go in this direction -- e.g., PokerStars made a step toward delibrate exploitation when they changed their reward system from a flat payout (each star = 1ct) to a randomized, chest-based system. But on GGPoker, it's literally everywhere.
So what are those psychological principles that GGPoker is exploiting? Well, here's Claude summarizing them. (Claude is a Large Language Model, essentially a competitor to ChatGPT, you can use it here.) Note that I didn't ask it to apply this to GGPoker, I just asked it how casinos design slot machines, which is the stereotypical invention that drives people with gambling addiction into ruin. It just naturally applies to GGPoker because their entire site is designed like a huge slot machine:
Prim: Describe the basic principles behind the allure of gambling and how they influence the design principles of slot machines (from the perspective of the casino).
Claude: Casinos design slot machines to leverage several powerful psychological principles that make gambling compelling:
The Variable Ratio Reinforcement Schedule
The most fundamental principle is unpredictable, intermittent rewards. Slot machines don't pay out on a fixed schedule - you never know if the next spin will win. This variable ratio schedule creates the strongest behavioral conditioning, far more addictive than predictable rewards. Players keep pulling because the next spin could always be "the one."
Near-Miss Engineering
Modern slots are carefully programmed to show "near misses" - where symbols almost line up for a big win. These near-misses trigger similar brain activity to actual wins, maintaining excitement and the feeling that victory is just within reach. The reels might show two jackpot symbols with the third just one position off, creating the illusion that you were "so close."
The Illusion of Control
Despite being games of pure chance, slots incorporate elements that make players feel they have influence:
Buttons to stop the reels (which don't actually affect predetermined outcomes)
Choices between different games or bonus rounds
Adjustable bet sizes and number of lines played
These features create a false sense that skill or strategy matters, when outcomes are actually determined by random number generators the moment you press "spin."
Sensory Immersion and Flow States
Casinos design machines to create a hypnotic "machine zone" where players lose track of time and outside concerns. This involves:
Comfortable ergonomics that allow hours of continuous play
Smooth, rapid gameplay with minimal interruption
Enveloping sound designs with celebratory music for wins
Visual effects that make small wins feel significant
Curved screens that create a cocoon-like feeling
Loss Disguised as Wins
Modern multi-line slots often celebrate "wins" that are actually net losses. If you bet $3 across multiple lines and win $1, the machine still plays victory sounds and animations. This tricks the brain into feeling rewarded even while losing money, maintaining the dopamine response that drives continued play.
The Cashless Illusion
Converting money to credits creates psychological distance from real value. Betting "100 credits" feels less significant than betting $100, even when they're equivalent. Digital displays and card-based systems further abstract the relationship with actual money, reducing the psychological pain of losses.
Incremental Commitment
Slots are designed for low minimum bets, making initial engagement feel low-risk. But rapid play means these small bets accumulate quickly. The "foot in the door" principle means once someone starts playing, they're more likely to continue and escalate their betting.
The Availability Heuristic
Casinos ensure big wins are highly visible and memorable - flashing lights, loud celebrations, prominent placement of progressive jackpot displays. This makes jackpots seem more common than they are, as players overestimate probabilities based on these salient examples while the countless losses remain invisible.
These principles work together to create what researchers call a "behavioral addiction" - the compulsion comes not from a substance but from the carefully engineered experience itself. The casino's goal is to maximize "time on device," knowing that the mathematical edge ensures profitability over time. Every design element, from the angle of the seat to the frequency of small wins, is optimized through extensive testing to keep players engaged as long as possible.
Understanding these mechanisms can help people make more informed decisions about gambling, recognizing that the feeling of being "due for a win" or "on a hot streak" are illusions created by design, not genuine patterns in random events.
If you're familiar with GGPoker at all you probably don't need further explanation for how this applies to their platform, but ehh I want to make sure everyone gets it, so I'll spell out anyway. So here's all the ways they're doing this:
Variable Ratio Schedule: yup, literally everything about their reward system is designed to be random and variable, rather than steady and predictable
Near-Miss Engineering: yup, and in more ways than you think. Not only do they make every River feel like a near miss by opening the card slowly, they also allow you to view the cards that could have come after folding, and their Flipout tournaments are delibaretly designed to make you feel like you could have won a lot more (because their payouts start at 0, then increase, then actually stays quite shallow for a while, so you really don't win much more by going further, and then steeply increases near the very end where you almost never get). And you constantly see how other people are winning huge.
Illusion of Control: yup, lots of control, all the stupid games that you can't beat like all-in or fold still have choice, even the reward system leaves you with choice
Sensory Immersion: yup, in almost every way
Smooth, Rapid Gameplay: yup, client is very smooth
Enveloping sound designs with celebratory music for wins: literally yes (they're so shameless, even now I'm just in awe reflecting on it)
Visual effects that make small wins feel significant: yup, that's there
Curved screens/comfortable ergonomics: n/a since you play at home; the interface looks really nice I guess. If they could do this more, I'm sure they would, too.
Loss Disguised as Wins: yup, that's there, you get big flashy victory animations for minor wins all the time. Also the PokerCraft thing literally shows you your results without rake, tricking you into thinking you win.
Incremental Commitment/Foot-in-the-door Effect: yup, also there, and again in more ways than you think. E.g., their reward system actually incentivizes playing new formats; you temporarily get more fish buffet points if you try something new.
The Availability Heuristic (making big wins visibe): absolutely there; they rub your face into other people's big wins all the time, and you can't turn it off
If I were going through this text with marker highlighting everything that applies, I'd just color the entire text. They're that shameless. And somewhow even this doesn't quite capture the extent to which they play dirty. At least in casinos, it's common knowledge how much a slot machine pays out in expectation. GGPoker refuses to even tell you how their reward system works. At least in casinos, they don't lie to you about future progress. GGPoker literally had their honeymoon system where they offer to 250$ for completion if you complete one task every day for I think a month, and then they make each task take 10-30 minutes only to bury one near the end that is essentially unbeatable, ensuring that you can't win unless you get extremely lucky. They literally have no shame.
Does this mean you shouldn't play on the site? No. I mean you probably shouldn't because their rake is super high. But as I said in the beginning, the presentation is proabbly a reason to play because it will disproportionately attract gamblers rather than poker players; it encourages all of the wrong ways to thinik about the game, so it attracs all of the people who don't know how to play.
So yeah, you can use the site if you want. I did. But err yeah you might wanna know what you're dealing with.
And again, you may say something like "well all companies try to maximize profit" but this is literally not true as demonstrated by literally ever other poker site refusing to go this low. They're trying to maximize profit to an extent, but they have some scruples, and they fall short of blatantly trying to fuel your addiction. GGPoker does not.
So yeah, if you are a poker player, the rake is hard to beat, but you can play on the site for practice against weak players. If you have a gambling problem though, stay as far away from the site as possible; it's trying to drive you into ruin.
Can you turn the slow reveals off? Because I looked for this and didn't find it. Also didn't find ways to turn off options to see remaining cards, or your own hand. Or notifications for other players' wins.
A lot of replies here seem to, I think, mis undertsand the OP and the point he was trying to make.
Just because they are all poker sites with casinos does not make them all the same, and I am torn with the fact that I love poker, and love playing it, and online is very very convinient. There has though been a huge increase in gambling addiction since you can now do it so easily online. Lets just take sports betting or casino games. They are so easily accessible now, wheras previously you had to go to a casino, or usually pretty scummy betting shop to gamble. This in itself put a lot of poeple off. Now they can smash £100 in minutes on their phone!!
I do see where @primrose is coming from. GG have made it more attractive, and potentially more additcting. The fact that I don't find it more addicting or anyone else is not the point, we are likely not the target market for these subtle marketing ploys, and even if we were, would we know!!! I don't play casino games, hardly ever anyway. I just love poker.
But if the poker sites continue to over promote lots of other gambling, its harder for governments to be persuaded that poker should be separate from other gambling!! GG is a marketting machine, and I agree they do do it to a more extreme level than other sites. They advertise on radio frequently in the UK, and when you do join, the site looks slick etc, so newbies are clearly more likely to want to keep playing, and maybe venture to the casino areas too.
All that said, of course this is all beneficial to us as poker players who make varying money from the game. The OP wasn't complaining about this. Simply making one of the most well re searched posts made on here for a while, detailing how they are making marginal gains in various areas to be more addicting to players, and make more money from being there.
We are all responsible for ourselves, but we are also, I believe, responsible for more vunerable members of society too. This is why many countries have health care systems for example. So while I'm comfortable taking players money at the tables, I'm less comforable that that player then deposits, and keeps playing and playing while tilting and keeps losing, or goes to the casino and loses more, and GG do appear to be more direct/effcient in targetting these players in small incremental ways as the OP described.
The claim of OP was, that "GGPoker is the most unethical non-scam poker site ever created", which I tend to agree with. Your response is basically of the type "but there are also other drug dealers". Which does not really adress any of the points made by OP, or by myself quoting the music as an example of, how GG Poker differ from other sites. So lets just end it here
Just for the sake of it. Let's suppose that 50 thousand people log into GG during a certain period of time. No one would argue that at least, and I repeat, AT LEAST 100 of them would like that music, wouldn't they then stay on the site? And if no one of them has any funds in there, wouldn't 10 or 5 of them (At least) get carried by the "novelty" and make a deposit?
Ofc, I could be wrong, but I'm sure that that music is not there for nothing.
I'm not against either, I was saying that if poker becomes too egregious, it's more likely to get banned. That's why some restrain on the parts of companies is good. If I were a lawmaker seeing ACR, I'd be much less likely to feel like it needs to be banned than if I saw GG.
But, yeah earning money with poker is not super great ethically speaking either way. But I don't think it's always the same; I'm more comfortable taking money from players who just have an expensive hobby (it's not worse than any other expensive hobby) than from people who don't really want to play but are addicted, and I know the second type also exists (and probably more on GG).
Agree with everything you've written except I'm not so sure about the last part. The customer base on GG is definitely much different than the other sites - tons of Asians.
With the $0.50 SPIN, I try to win the $1.50 (or $1) and am always giving it my best effort. And of course the rest is satellites with $1.50 > $11 > $55
I'm actually trying to use up some of them today because I wasn't able to play an MTT schedule today.
With the $0.50 SPIN, I try to win the $1.50 (or $1) and am always giving it my best effort. And of course the rest is satellites with $1.50 > $11 > $55
I'm actually trying to use up some of them today because I wasn't able to play an MTT schedule today.
He was talking about the daily spin in the casino and never about the pp ticket. I like this promotion too btw and people can still "freeroll" with it as it basically takes nothing to get the ticket.
