32 red and m/gaming (merged thread)

[vinylweatherman]

The answer is simple - don't increase your bet - ever. Casinos will lose (or rather not make) money this way, but will still face the same fixed costs for operating the account. If this is a genuine case of rigged to lose at high bets, then so many players will steer clear of higher bets based on this kind of experience that MGS would be forced to change the way it designes games.

As for the 32Red slotmeister, it is necessary to have an average of a mere 0.10 per spin in order to qualify for the bonus, so raising bets to anywhere near 10p per line should be unnecessary.

The problem with raising bets with the same bankroll is that you get much higher absolute variance, which means you are much more likely to bust before reaching the next feature. Many slots seem to reserve a third to half their payout for the feature game, so if you don't hit any, you will get a poor payout figure.

You can sometimes catch out the slots by jumping around with the coin size and coins per line figures, and see if it looks more "feature friendly". You can also try the clones. If Thunderstruck is poor, jump to Ladies Night, Spring Break, Jane Blonde, or Adventure Palace. I believe Summertime to be a clone as well, but using the newer layout.

[kmay87]

Also, the Slotsmeister carries a mere 5x WR, so playing slots at medium stakes is rather a strange way of attempting to clear the wagering, if that was your intention. Which I would presume to be so?

[vinylweatherman]

Problems with the tournaments are a MASSIVE issue, yet MGS continue to bury their heads in the sand, preferring to continually blame the player's kit.

This is a poor attitude, as it should be MGS that designes the software to be compatable with what players have in the real world, not what works under laboratory conditions.

It is clear that tournament issues are THEIR fault, because the issues commonly experienced with tournaments are strikingly absent from the normal lobby versions of the games. If this were a problem with the player's kit, they would be booted, lagged, etc just as often when playing "normal" Tomb Raider, for example, as when playing the Tournament game.

The connection to the tournaments goes via the casino lobby, rather than directly. This has to add many more "hops" to the connection, and probably unnecessary ones as well.

An example. Casino server is in Kahnawake, Tournament server in Europe.

If a player in Europe logs on to play a tournament, their signal has to go all the way to Kahnawake, and then to Europe, then back again for the result of the tournament spin. This could explain why there is so much more lag and booting with tournaments than with normal play. The problem is, lagging and booting is a BIG PROBLEM when you have a TIMED event, and only an irritation when playing a "normal" casino game.

This has all had the effect of reducing the number of players prepared to PAY for entry, with casinos dishing out loads more FREE entries to get players interested. Often, only the first round is free, and I suspect they hope that after getting a good free first round, most players will pay for continues.

The $20,000 weekender shows this well. It seems that there has been some kind of "ban" on casinos dishing out free entries, which inflated the numbers to over 1000, but when no free entries are issued, there are only around 300-400 registered players. many have probably won these entries through the feeders. BEFORE the period where loads of free entries were dished out, the feeders and those prepared to pay the $20 often resulted in 600-800 players registered to compete.

[Jasminebed]

Suzy...sorry your play did not go well on your bonus. My slotmeister win was $32, I though I'd share my recent chat...edited to remove personal details:

Paul: Thank you for contacting us, Linda. My name is Paul, how can I help?
Jazzy: Hi Paul, P32RExxxxx...just wondering if I have completed my wagering
Paul: Hi Jazzy
Paul: let me just check that for you
Paul: looking good Linda, so far u have wagered 184.59
Jazzy: great, cleared the WR!
Paul: so yes you have completed!!
Paul:
Jazzy: Paul, can you give me my statistics as a percent of total play? There is a thread from another player who is not happy with her results from the Slotmeister tourney bonus, I'd like to respond..
Jazzy: but since I have about doubled, I know I am over 100
Paul: since you were awarded bonus
Paul: let me check for you
Jazzy: yes, just today's play
Paul: 118% Hurrah!!!
Paul:
Jazzy: see, I don't always get this stats...I know I could get like 98 percent and still lose everything if I played long enough
Jazzy: and my biggesst win was at 50cents, more than my average bet,
Jazzy: so I've double my money, met WR, but average is not 200%
Paul: yep, well done Linda
Jazzy: still, I'd like to respond, so thank you for the info.
Paul: hope your good luck continues!
Jazzy: and I haven't quit playing, so they might get worse, lol
Paul: aaagh!!
Paul:
Paul: kk, bye for now Jazzy

Now, that's only about 1,000 spins give or take. I actually though the percentage would be higher in fact, but I played a couple of hundred spins on Thunderstruck with just one bonus that paid $2.

Reputable casinos are few and far between, so I don't know if I would despair of 32Red just yet Suzy.

[Jufo]

The $20,000 weekender shows this well. It seems that there has been some kind of "ban" on casinos dishing out free entries, which inflated the numbers to over 1000, but when no free entries are issued, there are only around 300-400 registered players. many have probably won these entries through the feeders. BEFORE the period where loads of free entries were dished out, the feeders and those prepared to pay the $20 often resulted in 600-800 players registered to compete.

In the previous format (Tomb Raider) there used to be 600-800 players because there were 30 free entries given in each feeder and those feeders took place every four hours Mon-Thu. Now only 5 or 12 free entries per feeder are given which explains the drop to 400 players per week.

I actually preferred the old version where you had to invest $100 to complete all the legs, as the competition level was reasonable and you could often quarantee a profit if you had a good first leg.

[spearmaster]

The connection to the tournaments goes via the casino lobby, rather than directly. This has to add many more "hops" to the connection, and probably unnecessary ones as well.

An example. Casino server is in Kahnawake, Tournament server in Europe.

If a player in Europe logs on to play a tournament, their signal has to go all the way to Kahnawake, and then to Europe, then back again for the result of the tournament spin. This could explain why there is so much more lag and booting with tournaments than with normal play. The problem is, lagging and booting is a BIG PROBLEM when you have a TIMED event, and only an irritation when playing a "normal" casino game.

I highly doubt this is true, since the casino server is irrelevant to tournament gaming - it matters not what casino you enter from - the only difference between different lobbies may be additional XML to show a casino-specific tournament.

Once connected, you are connected to the relevant URL by normal routing procedures - there is simply no need for the casino server to act as a proxy.

The reason they have problems is simple - too many people sending too many requests to the servers at the same time. I doubt it's a bandwidth problem.

[vinylweatherman]

I highly doubt this is true, since the casino server is irrelevant to tournament gaming - it matters not what casino you enter from - the only difference between different lobbies may be additional XML to show a casino-specific tournament.

Once connected, you are connected to the relevant URL by normal routing procedures - there is simply no need for the casino server to act as a proxy.

The reason they have problems is simple - too many people sending too many requests to the servers at the same time. I doubt it's a bandwidth problem.

If it is this simple, MGS would have solved this long ago. If it is due to too many requests to the server at the same time, then either there needs to be more servers, or less tournaments running at the same time.

It is not just about lag, there is the issue of the tournaments not showing at all when logging into the casino lobby, and the connection dropping from the tournament server altogether - this certainly looks like the casino server is being used as a proxy for connecting players to the tournament server.

Considering there have been vocal complaints about these tournaments for some while, it is about time MGS found a solution.

With some revelations about how live dealer games can go wrong in another thread, MGS are looking pretty bad to me, since with real money at stake, systems should already be in place to ensure that things "fail safe", rather than leaving players out of pocket. MGS already have this implemented for the casino games, you simply return to where you left off - so why not implement this for tournaments.

Perhaps an operator can tell us whether their MGS casino server acts as a proxy for tournament play, or whether the player is directly connected to the tournament server once they click on a running tournament.

[vinylweatherman]

Has anyone ever noticed that when a m/g casino has a problem they say they have to contact there software provider, well i for one think this is a crock to be honest as my money is not with the software provider, it is with the casino i am a member of. M/G then always reply "it played out properly" or "it was within the parameters of the game" when it is all a bunch of b.s. as we have seen it play out and what did and did not happen, in fact i am interested to know if anyone has ever had m/g admit an error!!! I am now left in a position where the casino i am a member of and have over 46000 spins this month in and i think is great but i am having to leave it because of errors through m/g who keep insisting it is my serverbut my server is fine every one of them 46000+ spins but they seem disinterested in this fact. I also see that there jackpot thermometers are suspect as i was on the kathmandu slot and the thermometer was at 999.0 and i won it twice including once at bet max and it has still remained there for over 5 weeks (why would that be) I would be interested if any microgaming employee would speak to me but they dont deal with the public at all so why on earth should we be forced to wait for these people when something goes wrong............anyway give me your feelings on this plz.

Yes

Mupinfo - nice dinner out of 32Red for me demonstrating it to MGS (through their tech team), because THEY couldn't find it at MGS HQ, and said nothing was amiss

Better still, I later found MGS were LYING, because Fortune Lounge had already been issued with a "casino repair tool" by MGS to distribute to players suffering such problems at FL casinos.

MGS DO have problems, but policy seems to be never to admit it, but "quiet fix" some of them when they are brought to their attention. They tend NOT to fix problems that do not cost casinos anything, but give out their standard "blame the player's kit" reply.

Mupinfo got a fix because once a player was affected, they could no longer play at all at that particular MGS casino, meaning casinos were steadily losing players who decided the simplest solution was to switch to an MGS casino unaffected by the problem, since at the time the only solution was a complete reinstall of 1Gig, and even then, the problem could simply come back straight away.


There was also this from 2006 - a very puzzling case indeed

http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...ot-paying.html

http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...-winnings.html


I got curious, and even MORE curious when the operator started making very strange explanations as to why they would lock accounts and deny winnings to players who did NOT take a bonus, and ONLY played SLOTS.

In effect, they claimed "illegitimate play", but crucially NOT "fraud", and certainly not "bonus abuse".

In the end, they had to pay up.

After around a year, I got to the bottom of it - an MGS cock-up of STELLAR proportions, with the potential to "break the bank" at MGS casinos.

MGS have NEVER admitted that there was a problem at all, but left individual MGS casinos to take the hit, and the resultant loss of perceived integrity for voiding winnings for nothing more than claims of "illegitimate play" on slot games - something that any player knows should be impossible because of the very nature of slots.

A number of casinos proved the case further by pulling the slot game implicated, and as we know, MGS Viper casinos NEVER drop an OLD game, they just get more NEW ones.

[funky_seagull]

One thing that really annoys me about microgaming at the moment is to do with their mobile casino.

They have a virtual racing game called: Derby Day

When I place a bet and the phone loses it's signal in the middle of a game, I have to log back in again and resume. When I do, I find the value of my bet has been deducted but I do not see the result of the lost game and have no idea whether I won or lost. (Lost obviously due to the bet being deducted from my balance.) Most online casino games in a situation where you lose connection in the middle of a bet, recover and play from where you left off when you log back in again, so you can see the result. But with microgaming mobile this doesn't happen, and it's a bit shoddy I think.

It seems to be impossible for the player to get in touch with microgaming to complain about these bugs. And casino operators seem to have to do it for the player. And Microgaming's response to these complaints is rubbish and a let down. I especially hate the one where they won't admit anything is wrong when it clearly is. They seem to only care about software bugs which cost casino operators money, and couldn't care less about player issues... in fact their attitude towards the player community seems to be condescending... at least that's the vibe they give off anyway.
.

[CK - Schalk]

A tad harsh I think.

*I am not a rep for MGS and don't speak for them, this is just my personal opinion, based on my experience in the industry.

While I understand the frustrations of waiting for resolution, and going through what seems like endless channels to get queries resolved, I think it's a bit unrealistic to expect a company like MGS to open up communication channels straight to the end user.

Can you imagine how many queries they would get about "irregular game-play", "X game is rigged", "Check-this-check-that" from every player that deposits $50 into an MGS casino? On top of that, I would expect the bulk of the queries they would get would be things they have no control over, that are handled by the operator - "Where's my bonus?", "Cash-out hasn't arrived" etc.

Sure, the group (forumites) over here at CM are well educated in things gaming, and would know the difference, but remember, not all players that happen onto an online casino are lucky enough to come from an informative board such as this and some others around the net, and in fact, the percentage that do, is probably a lot smaller than you think.

I think having operators as a "screen" so to speak for legit queries in unfortunately the only way to go, but as mentioned above, they don't have all the answers either. Some queries just HAVE to go to the Software provider. Insisting that the operator help you with those, is like trying to pour water out the proverbial rock. There are just some things that your average CS center do not have access to, and believe me, not being able to help an impatient customer is no picnic for them either.

The system is far from perfect, but it's the only realistic one at the moment.



Regards,
Schalk