Are online poker sites trustworthy

The mot known ones sure are trustworthy. I'll explain you how a poker site works.

A poker site allows you to play against other players using your money. All you do is you transfer money to the pokersite and you get to play with your money. From each pot played in cash games, the poker site takes a small percentage (For instance per dollar in the pot, they take $0,05 from it). From the rake the poker site takes from the pots they make their profits. Considering the fact that the largest poker sites hold hundreds of tables it is quiet a profitable thing for them just to take a very small percentage of the pot to cover their expenses and make profit. Tournaments also often have a tournament fee. You will notice something like "$125+$10" in online tournaments. This means you need to pay $125 to enter the tournament and an extra $10 as tournament fee. This fee goes to the poker site. Often these fee's are used to guarantee more money in the pot in that or another tournament.

To cut this short, poker sites live of the rake and fee's they automatically take when you play. They have no advantages in you losing all your money for instance. This is what makes them trustworthy. When in doubt you can always check for references on the Internet. However the most known poker sites are very trust worthy.