Online casino cheating

[kewlJ]

Over the years I have seen and been a part of way to many discussions about number of blackjack hands won or lost in a row. Most discussion about hands lost in a row. I honestly don't know what the most hands I have lost in a row are, because it is not something I keep track of when I pay at the B & M casinos. It is something I don't even think about until I have lost 7, or 8, or maybe 9 and then you notice, but is it 7, or 8, or 9, or was there possibly a win mixed in that you forgot about. So, I don't keep track and it isn't really important.

So right now I am into one of my online sportsbook bonus play through. Bonus whoring. I only use the online sites for the sportsbook, I very, very rarely play in their casinos, because frankly, I have no confidence that the games are honest. Blackjack only counts as .05% of a dollar towards bonus rollover anyway. So just no interest.

So this afternoon, while watching some basketball, I get an email from one of the sportsbook/casinos telling me that today only, the casino games count towards rollover at 50 cents on the dollar. 10x the normal rate. I should have been suspicious right there. And I was, but decided to play and try to work off some money towards rollover.

Now when I do play online, I always count wins and losses. A running count just to see how close the game is to statistical norms of about 43% wins. I don't count pushes, so my number should be closer to about 45, or 46.

So I play a couple hundred hands and it is back and forth, I am running 6 or 7 losses ahead of win, which is close to "Normal". And then I lose 16 hands in a row. I have played millions of hands of blackjack in my 20 years and I am pretty sure I have never lost 16 hands in a row.

It was only a few hundred dollars lost. But all I am going to say is this incident, only adds to my earlier suspicions that these online casino games aren't pure. I just don't believe it. And I don't think I can be convinced otherwise.

[MDawg]

Over at GF I posted just a bit ago about how we need to corral this

thieving lying low down no good varmint

into just one forum and sure enough - Voila! (that’s French you high school dropout) she appears again at VCT to try to show that she’s not willing to be corralled. Although actually - she is!

Because I can make her do anything I choose.

Puppets like UNKewlJ give me the horrors. They jerk around like puppets on invisible strings, galvanized into hideous activity that is the negation of everything living and spontaneous.

The live human being has moved out of UNKewlJ’s body long ago. But something moved in when the original tenant moved out. And that something, is the Norm’s, The WizardsofVegas, the RobSingers, the Taters/Moses, the MDawgs who marched into UNKewlJ’s head and took over like ventriloquists' dummies who have moved in and taken over the ventriloquist. The dummy UNKewlJ sits there in front of the computer, envious, jealous, obsessed, and uncontrollably yapping out of a rigid doll face about MDawg.

There is a certain kind of ghost that can only materialize with the aid of a sheet or other piece of cloth to give it outline. UNKewlJ was like that. He materialized only when someone else moved into his head and gave him a reason to appear.

So here she is with another dumb irrelevant post desperate to try to make it seem she’s up to anything more than low end tunnel dwelling and prostitution.

[kewlJ]

Hi-jacking and trolling. That is all you are capable of now. Fuck off troll!

[MaxPen]

Why wouldn't a non regulated off shore casino not cheat?

[kewlJ]

Why wouldn't a non regulated off shore casino not cheat?

Well, this has always been my position as well. But I have read about some AP's that play some online casino games as a means of playing through the rollover amount. Axelwolf is one such player. He has specifically mentioned playing some blackjack. And blackjack would be a great way to work through the rollover if 1) the game was honest and 2) play counted as full amount toward the rollover. But most places blackjack play counts .05 or .10 on the dollar, making it a bad choice even if the game was honest.

And I did my own test last year to see if I thought the blackjack game was honest with mixed results. It seemed like everything was fine if you were betting $2, $3, $5 dollars. But as soon as you bet more than $10 at say $15 or $20, results felt very unusual. Small sample size, so I didn't want to make too big a deal about it, but an experienced blackjack player can just feel when something doesn't feel right. It just felt like too many dealer blackjack and pulling 21 on the bigger bet hands. Nothing scientific, just didn't feel right, so I abandoned any thought of playing blackjack as a means of working through the rollover.

The surprise email yesterday offering 10 times the usual amount toward rollover, made me want to give it another shot. Overall results were not unexpected, but the 16 losses in a row did surprise me. I didn't think they would be so blatant about it. Lesson learned, or maybe confirmed....again.

[redietz]

Why wouldn't a non regulated off shore casino not cheat?

That sums it up admirably. Except I'd state it as "Why would a non-regulated offshore casino not cheat?"

The second spinoff question is "Why would a Native American casino on its own land not cheat?"

Both have motive, opportunity, and means. And the (lack of) law on their side.

P.S. I took a cognitive psych class back in the day. One of the books featured studies of how long it takes the average person to process number of negatives in a sentence. Yes, this is a topic, probably financed by advertising firms and the US government to see how stupid we are. Anyway, the fewer negatives in a sentence, the better and faster we do. The effect of adding negatives is dramatic.

[kewlJ]

The second spinoff question is "Why would a Native American casino on its own land not cheat?"

And this too, has always been my position and belief. Back in 2009, the year I moved to Vegas, I knew that my time playing Atlantic City was coming to an end as I was being bet restricted with more regularity. I knew I was going to end up in Vegas, but at that time the Indian Casinos in the mid-west were all the rage among blackjack players on the blackjack forums. On paper these looked like great games. Good rules, good penetration.

I was actually considering moving to the Midwest for a year or two and bouncing around the casinos before I settled in Vegas. But I was concerned about the whole Indian casino thing on Indian land and playing by their own rules and laws. So I nixed that Idea and just headed for Vegas. next thing you know, I was reading more and more of good card counters that were playing these Indian casinos in the Midwest and just not doing very well.

Now I have made several trips to the Pacific Northeast and played Indian Casinos, as well as Indian Casinos in Colorado. And I hit what used to be Sands Bethlehem, now Windcreek and Indian owned, almost every trip back east. And we even have several Indian owned and run casinos in Vegas now that I play or have played. I think the big distinction is "on Indian Land". If they are on Indian land, with their own jurisdiction and sometimes police force and courts, anything goes. But if it is an Indian Casino but not on Indian land, I believe they have to follow state regulations, rules and laws. Now getting them too might be something else.

One of the things I like about Las Vegas, is I have learned the laws and what is allowed and what isn't. I don't believe all casinos are following the laws and rules, but if there is something egregious, I know what to do about it. And while I don't have any illusion that Nevada Gaming is there to help players, if you complain loud enough and long enough and have the right legal advocate, they will act. In other jurisdictions, especially Indian casinos on Indian land, I just don't know what recourse is available. That is why for the most part, I stay put and play where I know and understand the rules.

[redietz]

I have a few things to say that I've written before, but I'll do it as a review. But I have errands and things to get done, so I'll comment later today. To get the ball rolling regarding offshore poker, for example, I was told in confidence about five/six years ago that some of the programs for offshore poker are designed to have cards distributed randomly in terms of each person, but not randomly in terms of the cards' relationship to hands competing in the same moment. A programmer told me this, someone who allegedly worked for some of the offshores. What he's suggesting makes perfect sense in terms of generating rake

[smurgerburger]

I have a few things to say that I've written before, but I'll do it as a review. But I have errands and things to get done, so I'll comment later today. To get the ball rolling regarding offshore poker, for example, I was told in confidence about five/six years ago that some of the programs for offshore poker are designed to have cards distributed randomly in terms of each person, but not randomly in terms of the cards' relationship to hands competing in the same moment. A programmer told me this, someone who allegedly worked for some of the offshores. What he's suggesting makes perfect sense in terms of generating rake

There are many problems with this idea. One is that it would still show up as a non-random distribution of hands in the player databases (which many people keep). For example in HE an abnormal % of dealt pairs.

[1Hit1der]

I never stopped to think that, if all of the hands are played optimally, then a proper house edge may be calculated.

[redietz]

I understand that. I'm not vouching for the idea. I'd telling you what I was told. There's also no reason this couldn't be deployed on a sliding scale and/or a scale based on number of people at a table. My assumption would be that it would NOT be employed in tables that weren't full. But I have strictly civilian knowledge of poker and I am not a programmer, so my opinion regarding this doesn't really count for anything. Programmers I have talked to say it would be easy to dial it up or dial it down.

[kewlJ]

Programmers I have talked to say it would be easy to dial it up or dial it down.

Red, I gotta say that this doesn't sound all that different than the discussions about the ASM programable cheating and ability to turn it on and off when desired, through a code or "key".

The technology for this kind of stuff is definitely there. It is only a matter of whether casinos, B & M or offshore, would partake. And related if you, as a player, believe they might partake.

[MDawg]

Mais bien sur (French again, you uneducated high school dropout ):

And then I lose 16 hands in a row.

It was only a few hundred dollars lost.

Of course, if you're playing just red to green as cover for male prostitution, you wouldn't lose much no matter how many hands you play.

[redietz]

Programmers I have talked to say it would be easy to dial it up or dial it down.

Red, I gotta say that this doesn't sound all that different than the discussions about the ASM programable cheating and ability to turn it on and off when desired, through a code or "key".

The technology for this kind of stuff is definitely there. It is only a matter of whether casinos, B & M or offshore, would partake. And related if you, as a player, believe they might partake.

Exactly. When it comes to something like offshore poker, the question you have to ask is what is the motivation to NOT do it?

Usually people argue vis-a-vis Las Vegas that the penalty if caught would outweigh the value. That's a questionable argument from several angles. First, if an LV institution is caught, say rigging a drawing or with bad vp chips, the penalty is easily absorbed. And there is no historical evidence that making public any such trickerations has a significant or lasting impact on the institution caught doing the dirty deeds. Second, if an individual or two shoulder the blame for, say a rigged drawing or bad vp chips, those individuals can easily find employment in the tribal realm. And one would suspect they would be hired as much BECAUSE they were part of the rigging process as anything.

And third, as an American Casino Guide article written by a former NGCB checker about 10 years ago showed, the checks of the actual slot and vp chips are (A) never on schedule and (B) dependent on the idea that the reviewer schedules aren't leaked. In general, according to the author, the NCGB is often somewhere between 12-18 months behind or more. And the idea that the specifics of the NGCB inspection schedule are invulnerable to leakage is, frankly, ridiculous.

[smurgerburger]

For Las Vegas losing your gaming license, class action lawsuits, losing your job when your compensation was only tenuously tied to profits anyway, criminal charges. Loss of reputation for the casino.

Since you asked.

[redietz]

For Las Vegas losing your gaming license, class action lawsuits, losing your job when your compensation was only tenuously tied to profits anyway, criminal charges. Loss of reputation for the casino.

Since you asked.

Yeah, except LV drawings have been rigged. LV vp machines have had bad chips. And nobody lost a gaming license. No loss of "reputation," however you want to define that. And no criminal charges for people who are alive. Other than that, you're spot on. Since you asked.

[smurgerburger]

For Las Vegas losing your gaming license, class action lawsuits, losing your job when your compensation was only tenuously tied to profits anyway, criminal charges. Loss of reputation for the casino.

Since you asked.

Yeah, except LV drawings have been rigged. LV vp machines have had bad chips. And nobody lost a gaming license. No loss of "reputation," however you want to define that. And no criminal charges for people who are alive. Other than that, you're spot on. Since you asked.

Do you have some specific cases of intentional cheating in mind that we may take a closer look at?

[redietz]

For Las Vegas losing your gaming license, class action lawsuits, losing your job when your compensation was only tenuously tied to profits anyway, criminal charges. Loss of reputation for the casino.

Since you asked.

Yeah, except LV drawings have been rigged. LV vp machines have had bad chips. And nobody lost a gaming license. No loss of "reputation," however you want to define that. And no criminal charges for people who are alive. Other than that, you're spot on. Since you asked.

Do you have some specific cases of intentional cheating in mind that we may take a closer look at?

LOL. You think these things are going to pop with a 10-second google search? Why would they?

Not my job to educate the younger generation optimists. Let' see -- off the top of my head --- I think it was MGM got flagged for rigging drawings maybe 12-15 years ago, and they were ratted out from in-house workers. Nothing happened. Fined a couple hundred thousand or something. I believe it was one of the smaller Dottie's type chains that got caught rigging vp chips. Somebody got killed amidst it all. Don't remember much else. Evidently it was a lack of royals was the trick -- which is obviously the way to go.

I guess an additional question is whether I myself have ever experienced such a thing. Someone requested that one of our company win a drawing, and the powers that be chose the fine Italian lad. LOL. I should have seen that coming, but honestly I did not.

I'm no expert on this topic, at all, but if you've bothered to hang out in LV enough, not exactly a snipe hunt.

[smurgerburger]

Seems a bit thin.

[redietz]

Seems a bit thin.

Yeah, that's great.

Here's my recommendation to you. The LVA has been there since I've been going to LV. We may have started within a year of each other. Email "Anthony Curtis" that you're willing to shell out $1000 for a one-hour summary of what he knows about drawings being rigged or vp chips being flawed and so on. See if he's willing to sit down with an off-the-record spiel. I think it would be well worth the $1000.

If you do it, tell him I want a coffee and danish as a finders' fee.

Meanwhile, I shared about all I'm going to share. I'm "thin" and you are "uninformed with a dose of naive." I'd rather be "thin."