Is Tarot Accurate? A Straight Answer
Tarot is accurate at describing the situation you are in and useless at predicting events. The honest split is the whole answer, and it explains why some readings feel eerily right and others feel like nothing.
Tarot is accurate at one thing and inaccurate at another, and most of the disappointment around it comes from mixing the two up. The straight answer: the cards are good at describing, and bad at predicting.
What "accurate" means here
A reading is accurate when it names something true about your situation that you had not put into words. That accuracy is real, and it does not require the cards to be magic. It requires the question to be real and the reading to be honest about what the image shows.
Where it is accurate
The descriptions land when the question is specific and about you. "What am I avoiding in this decision" pulls a sharper answer than "what does my future hold". The first has an edge to push against. The second is a cloud.
Where it is not
The cards cannot tell you what someone else will do, what day something happens, or whether a diagnosis is correct. Any reading that claims those is trading on your hope, not on the deck. The accuracy people remember is the descriptive kind, and the accuracy they resent is the predictive kind that fails.
Online versus in person
The draw is identical, because a shuffle is a shuffle. The reading quality depends on whether the interpretation stays honest to the question. A screen does not make a reading less accurate. A reader who tells you what you want to hear makes it less accurate, on a screen or off one.
How to tell if a reading was accurate for you
After it ends, ask: did I understand my situation better, or did I just feel like something was done to me? The first is accuracy you can use. The second is a feeling you paid for. Start a reading and judge it by that test, not by whether it said what you hoped.