Mathematical Proof that English Harbour is cheating

[Threeler]

I played on their site in March for a total of about a thousand hands. I'm not entirely certain what the statistics were, but lets just say I busted. I have a lot of friends who play around at different online casinos and they've all noticed issues with their software in regards to doubling. The major complaint was with range of cards. For example, aside from the regular ace or paint as an up card, any mid card seemed to leave you drawing dead and the low ones were rarely better than a push. I lost about $700 (bonus included) and know at least eight other people who can say the same, while I know a couple people who about broke even with the bonus (down just al ittle, but that's the point of bonuses) and ONE person who was up (via a royal which I've still never hit online... ah well). With the positive expected value of the bonus, this seems a bit off, to a point where me and my group of gambler friends here at college quickly put it on the "do not play" list along with some other sites which can be found in the rogue gallery here. There's about ten of us who know to avoid this site, but some insisted it wasn't rigged and in fact instantly assume no online casino is. After reading this, I've e-mailed them to audit their stats from March and I guess I'll tool around with them. The Wizard says they're legit, but I'm a bit curious anyway, hell, even if they fix it once a week per month, well, that's still bogus (word of a nice fat bonus spreads quickly so I wouldn't be surprised to hear we all did it within a period of two or three days).

[dovmin]

Should I send an email asking for my money back if I played their doubling Videopoker in the past

How much is past, if t was half a year ago, can I do that ?

Should they return the deposit ?

[GrandMaster]

English Harbour sent me the logs.

My tally was very accurate except that I missed one of the losses. This makes things slightly worse for English Harbour.

The exact results were 19 ties, 84 wins, 152 losses.

I attach the results in CSV format.

As it seems that English Harbour have full logs and are handing them over, this looks very bad for them.

Has anyone else got their logs from EH? I would like to do some statistical analysis on them.

[Tony_Ross]

However my point is, where does it say that doubling has to be a fair game at online casinos?

Because at BEST you get a fair game, but there is no guarantee. There are strict rules that VP games/Dices has to be fair, but are there similar rules for doubling?
Zoozie

To address this, lets just say I am well read enough in Mathematics to offer a solution to your question and the original poster. "are there similar rules for doubling?"

Yes and no. Yes as far as any gaming commission or governing body is concerned. In other words randomization standards are met and certified every 6 months.

No in the fact that you stand to loose almost every time. To quote,"the fluctuations go mostly in the favor of the house. The house has to win above the standard deviation, always! Or especially when player's bet is high! That's anything but fairness! Static progression betting has virtually NO mathematical validity." http://www.saliu.com/Roulette.htm

First, the casino considers a push as a win for the player, because the casino did not win. This outcome is never neutral for the casino software.

Secondly with a little math, one can see the odds just in a game of 50/50, that a double win is reduced to 1/4. However the degree of certainty just in a 50/50 game can take up to 10 bets just to get to a 99.99% degree of certainty(DC) to produce a win.

Care to estimate how many bets it takes to get a double win ( probability of an event occurring twice in a row)? I highly recommend the following link for free analytical software and education in gambling strategies. http://www.saliu.com/keywords/casino.htm

Finally, know this: Random outcomes are computed over a million iterations and are still considered "legal" by gaming commissions. These bodies also profit from the casino's revenues, so you can be damn sure they are in place for industry to profit.

<the rest has been snipped as it is not relevant and more like shilling>.


Sincerely, Tony Ross

[jetset]

Grandmaster posted:

QUOTE: Has anyone else got their logs from EH? I would like to do some statistical analysis on them. UNQUOTE

I had forgotten momentarily that Grandmaster is an ideal member to involve in this issue; he is totally independent, always straight with his views, appears to have expert qualifications and knowledge in this field and is respected by all the posters I know.

EH would be well-advised to contact him if they are sincere about clearing their reputation from the allegations and speculation that have been so much a part of this mess.

I would very much like to see this in addition to Spear's (programming) expertise in order to have a balanced and fair picture.

[thelawnet]

We were expecting a proper explanation as to how this happened. At what point are we to assume that none will come and add thse guys to the rogue section?

It can't be too hardd if this realy did happen by accident to find out why and post it here. They need too come forward and come forward quickly.

[nafanny29]

It can't be too hardd if this realy did happen by accident to find out why and post it here. They need too come forward and come forward quickly.

If they managed to fix it they must know what was wrong to be able to correct the error

thats fix as in "mend it" everyone, honest

[spearmaster]

I am studying the source code right now, but not likely to have any answers shortly as I am heading for the airport in three hours.

[thelawnet]

I am studying the source code right now, but not likely to have any answers shortly as I am heading for the airport in three hours.

I would be interested to see the broken code as well.

[chalupa]

I have a background in software engineering as well and I can't fathom how the software could be accidentally broken to cause the results experienced.

The obvious way to program the doubling game would be to deal out 5 random cards using the exact same code found in the main game, which was presumably working fine.

The nearly perfect 2:1 ratio of player losses:wins is also a bit too coincidental.

Finally, I can't help wonder why the delay in complete detailed disclosure. They obviously found the accidental problem some time ago, and should have been able to explain it fully and satisfactorily immediately to limit damage to their credibility.


So call me cynical but... if I was (hypothetically) a casino/software provider with millions of dollars at stake and got busted for a non-random game, what would I do? Well, after making sure my island hideaway was stocked with beer and ammo , I'd probably stall a few days to allow my programmers to crank out some plausible-looking source code to explain the "accidental" bug.

Which brings me to a question, when did the source code get released? And are they going to release it for full public disclosure? I know that I personally would never touch any casino running this software again without personally examining it or a number of experts examining it (no disrespect to Spearmaster's experience intended.)

Regardless, I probably will never touch any of those casinos again anyway, being the cynic that I am, because again even if the source code fully explains the problem, we have no assurance that it was the actually the code that was running at the time of the skewed results.

In fact even if I could somehow be 100% convinced there was NO intentional misbehavior, I would still not have confidence in their technical ability to run a fair and correct game in the future.

If they can make a MAJOR screwup that goes on for days and has to be caught by the PLAYERS, not the casino, what about a minor screwup? How would players ever know that a slot jackpot didn't pay off quite as often as it should? How do we know such "minor" screwups don't exist right now?