I was listening to this week’s Ante Up podcast, and the guys had a long argument about something that has always bugged people who play poker online: how do we know these sites aren’t screwing us over? It would be facile for a poker site to rig the deal in various ways, such that the cards a player is dealt aren’t truly random.

The guys on the show were arguing about two things: 1) continuous shuffle, and 2) weighting toward action hands. Unfortunately, I don’t think any of them really knew at any point which, if any, of these things they were actually talking about. I’ll address them one at a time, and give my opinion about both.