To be fair, it's also true online, but to a lesser extent, because you can't be as blatant. Still, if you play high enough, most regulars know each others pretty well, are part of the same stable or study group or have connection one way or the other.
At least, live play has very low level across the board, which can somehow make it acceptable in many cases, because you might still want to be playing against people who soft play against each others as long as you are aware of what's going on.
In private games, I think the worst I have seen is not soft play, but when people actually understand the game. For example, when 3+ players force you to play against 3 ranges every hand, but won't actually play against each other in the sense that they have a shared bankroll anyway. I've been invited to a game like this once where I was obviously the mark and players would actively be playing against me as a collective.
Arguing the rigged thing is actually much more of a thing with live play. Most websites don't care if you win or lose. But in private games there is so much that can go wrong.
You have the obvious cheats, like mechanics, soft play, collective play, signals, RFID cards, marked cards, angles etc... But you also really need to trust the dealer is not a thief or a retard.
The dealers and floor are crucial to maintaining game integrity, and in many cases, they are actively part of making it worst. From my own experience, most dealers in private games used to work for actual casinos and something went wrong. Knowing what that something was is pretty enlightening. From druggies to thieves, It's easy for them to lift from the pot without you realizing if you don't pay attention.
It does not help that private games are always ran by players, and cash flow is a big concern for them. If the guy running the game lost a 100K that night and still needs to pay out players, who for the most part don't front the money, it needs to come out from somewhere.
