Mathematical Proof that English Harbour is cheating

[kengam]

His meaningless seal is still posted on the site. Only when you click on it do you see this:

This casino has been audited for return percentage and fairness by an independent third party gaming expert, Mr. Michael Shackleford A.S.A., who's Gaming Audit practice was located in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Michael has decided to leave the auditing practice. The seal attests to his continuous certification over a four-year period. We believe strongly in fair gaming and are looking into other auditing services as an independent overseer of our casinos. Meanwhile Michael has agreed to let us use his seal to attest to our fairness during his tenure until a suitable replacement can be found.

[soflat]

Mr Shackleford said he was auditing game fairness right up to the unfair double up incident. If he quit recently, that is kind of unfortunate, but the seal really means nothing anyways if he is not going to thoroughly check game fairness by going back thru the logs.

From the Wizard of Odds site:

As a professional mathematician, one of the services I provide is evaluation of the logs of online casinos to ensure fair play, though I stopped taking new clients for this service a few years ago. One of my existing clients is Odds On, which provides the software for English Harbour casino among others.

He went on to say:

Although both English Harbor and myself believe that April 13 to May 2 was the only period affected we will be scrutinizing earlier logs to make sure, and will be monitoring future play closely.

If he is not going to check earlier logs, then the seal means nothing. It is just something EH is buying.

[Linus]

It's nice to have an arbitrator to settle disputes, but the bigger long-term concern isn't separating the trustworthy from the 'not', it's having the clout to put the 'not trustworthy' casinos right out of business.

The only real power consumers have over casinos lies in deciding which casinos deserve our business, and our deposits, and which do not.

Ultimately we have to accept the responsibility of educating ourselves, and each other, about which casinos are trustworthy.

Until or unless we do, casinos will not have an economic incentive to respect the rights of players.

[henryVIII]

I think Michael shacklefords claim to "audit" casinos is flawed from the outset.

As a qualified accountant I do know that an audit does not involve simply looking at results (the equivalent of just counting the cash in a till in a shop). You need to examine the systems for weaknesses (which in the shop example, would be stock control procedures, recording of creditors and debtors consistently, etc).

Without checking the systmes and controls procedures it is the equivalent of a fire department giving a certificate for fire safety based on the fact they havent seen any fires in the recent past.

It can often take a fire to expose all the weaknesses and lopholes that have existed all along. (in this case the casino being caught redhanded).

I cant comment on him personally and perhaps he made it clear that he was just checking percentages or whatever it was he did. I dont know. But he clearly did not do sufficient systems or control checks.

However, it does not look good that he quit just when this thing unfolded. This is usually the time a company's auditor earns his corn.

Will he even finish the past checks he said he needed to do?

[Casinomeister]

New section at Casinomeister
"Bumblings, Blunders and Negligence"
http://www.casinomeister.com/rogue/index.html#bbn

EH New Ventures Inc. Casinos
http://www.casinomeister.com/rogue/english_harbour.html

[henryVIII]

Intersting reading and Id need to reflect on it personally.

However, can you clarify one thing?

With regard to their initial statement you say "Unfortunately, they based this by looking at the wrong files."

Its the first time I have heard this. I dont think this has ever been made public knowledge before.

Which files did they look at?

[Casinomeister]

They looked at the wrong section of data - this was explained earlier in this thread. This is why they made the initial statement that they did.

[Vesuvio]

Thanks, Bryan That's exactly the sort of statement this situation's been crying out for.

1. Vegas Technology never followed up on this. Players have no assurance that this will never ever happen again, and this incident has damaged player trust since all they can do is speculate on what really happened.

Exactly - it could also be added that we have no assurance the same thing didn't also happen in the past.

They relied on me, Ted Loh, and whomever to be the bearers of their message. This is not our job. There has been nothing but speculation concerning this whole episode and it was unfair to allow people like myself, Ted Loh, Michael Shackelford, and anyone else for that matter, to take the heat for their screw-up and explanations.

Spot on again.

3. Their auditing service, albeit a good one, audits the gameplay weeks after the play has occurred. This flaw was uploaded and was detected by players. This is inexcusable. It would not have been detected until weeks later by Michael Shackelford who was conducting his "Certified Fair Gaming" report for their seal.

I'd be curious to know if that's true about the audit. I'd assume that a standard casino audit (whether by PWC or Michael Shackelford) just looks at payout percentages for games (over different time periods). Such an audit probably wouldn't spot this "fault" in doubling as it wouldn't impact on the overall VP payout that dramatically. I don't know, though, so if anyone has any actual info on the way casinos are audited it'd be great to see it.

[kengam]

Kudos Bryan. I am happy that you have done the right thing. Highly not recommended is rogue enough for me.

[elscrabinda]

Perfect summing up of the Grand Prive issue as well. Because a casino is alllowed to do something does not mean it is the right thing to do.

Well done Bryan!