why i no longer will play online....

[hippo925]

i strictly played rtg because i liked their slots. recently, notoriously bad luck streaks made me wonder how things could be so different since i started playing. i thought, maybe it's just me, you know..... just repeated bad luck streaks as if it wasn't my month.

so i thought i would try to objectively look at my play to see if it was just a misinterpreted view like many of us tend to have when losing. you know, how we tend to think a game is rigged, not random, etc... something to blame because we feel we can't be that unlucky.

so i tried some new sites and some old ones again....

49'ers : deposited 200, got 200 bonus: $2 bets on achilles, finished in 1.5 hours, less than 15% of playthrough completed.

club world casino(new rtg on accredited list): $300 plus 300 bonus, played achilles again... about 3 hours, less than 25% playthough completed.

sci-fi casino: 200 plus 400 bonus, less than 2 hrs, 15% playthough completed. second deposit 250 plus 500 bonus, about 4 hrs, 25% playthough completed.

tired MG, trident lounge: 200 plus 200 bonus, about 5 hrs, different bonus system (released in increments), played avalon... $30 out of the 200 bonus was transferred to cash account so im guessing about 15% playthough met. why does MG software seem more "random" than rtg? ( the reels don't make sense on rtg slots, almost like a predetermined payout with reels picked to match the win)

when i first started playing, i had no troubles meeting wagering requirements at the four casinos i played. now, i wasn't even close to meeting them at all at the four i just tried. i have played rtg slots so much that it is very difficult for me to believe that things aren't different and that i am just "unlucky." i'm sure others have the same "feelings."

with the new law about to go into effect, i thought of what i would do if i had a casino and was thinking in a purely "business" manner. knowing that it may all end soon, why have higher payouts than necessary. wouldn't a casino want to "milk" as much out as possible? what would the repercussions be since the longevity of casinos that cater to U. S. players is highly questionable? if you look at it from a purely business standpoint, it kinda reminds me of a corporation telling it's stockholders to keep their stock and buy more even though the corporate board knows they are heading for financial collapse, doesn't it? how many players are experiencing this extra "bad luck?"

anyway, this site has been great and casinomeister does a great service. good luck to all those who continue online gaming because i really hope that i am wrong about what is going to happen.

[KasinoKing]

You should have been visiting Casinomeister more often.
There have been quite a few threads in recent months all saying RTG have done something awful to their slot payouts.
I even started a thread on this myself:
http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...s-payouts.html

This 'tweaking' of the odds happened sometime in August as far as I can detect and made RTG slots un-playable as you describe and as I also found out very expensively.

But there is a very simple solution, say FU RTG and play Crypto's & MG's instead!
(Well, MG's in your case - no Crypto's allowed in USA for the moment).

[swampwitch]

Sorry...but hippo925's experience at any given time could mirror mine...and a lot of other players'. My losing streaks could fill volumes. RTG, MG, Boss....wouldn't matter. And then, once in a very great while, there will come a couple of days where I can do no wrong.
hippo925's post is well though out and I'm not about to...just this once...tell him he's full of it. But I don't believe that Micro and RTG have been slogging the reels to offset what they'll lose if the US goes catty wampus completely on online gambling.
In other words...how was hippo925's win/lose ratio REALLY before Frist got his dirty mitts on the Ports Bill?

[Simmo!]

The biggest problem with playing online, as opposed to at B&M's, I think is "time". In a B&M you go, stay for a while then leave and its more effort to go back. Online is always there and you win one minute but you could be back and playing in minutes, hours or next day.

It requires you to have more structure about your play if you want to avoid overdoing it. You might treat it like a B&M. Like okay, this weekend I'm off to play online, returning to normal life on Monday etc. Easier said than done but with less playing time, the losing sessions are less clearly.

Every casino has a house edge and I believe online casinos offer better odds than B&M's. I don't like the fact that RTG have introduced this "unknown" factor into their software which means casinos can chaage the payouts on some games and it's part of the reason I generally stay clear of RTG. But overall, if i spent as much time in a B&M as I do playing online, Im sure I'd be a helluva lot more down than I am.

But gambling is gambling. It doesn't matter if its online casinos, stocks and shares or lotteries. The odds are in the favour of business and it's up to the punter to decide if they want to dabble and up to the individual to decide who they trust to be fair. There is certainly enough advice online to make those sorts of decisions. You wouldn't gamble on share prices without researching first, and I don't think you should play poker or casinos without researching first - IF you're aim is to win.

I think you're decision is sound in that you will probably save money following a less expensive pastime. Horses for courses and each to their own

[hippo925]

thank you for your responses. i should clarify that i in no way have enough experience with MG casinos to really have any idea how well they play. in fact, my experience with MG so far hasn't been bad at all. yes, i lost at both casinos that i tried, but it seemed fair and more random to me and i had a fairly good time.

on the other hand, i have a lot of experience with rtg slot games. i did in fact keep up with the forum but at the time, i didn't think it would effect me, lol. i figured it was a few players with a run of bad luck. i can't imagine going to my indian casino to find that they lowered all their slot payouts. Just didn't seem like something a casino would do. a little naive maybe.

simmo brought up a great point that i have also pondered. it's like poker where people think it is not random because of the "weird" hands and crazy bad beats, but really it is more a function of the speed of play and number of hands compared to a B & M casino.

but even with faster play and increased hands, some things are just too improbable. for me, an online poker player getting AA is normal. getting it twice in a row is lucky. three times in a row is amazing. four times... that's kinda weird. five times... what's going on? six times in a row....something's not right. I'm sure you get the point.

is it any different for slot machines over thousands and thousands of spins? i think many of us have a "feel" for the game after playing it a long time.

this may be weird, but the way i thought of it is like this: if an rtg casino offered me $10,000 if i didn't hit a bonus in 1000 spins... how likely would i win that $10,000? well, i would have won $50,000 this last month. try playing cleopatra's gold in fun mode to see if u can do it...it's not easy. now try doing it 5 times in one month....im sure u see my point.

honestly, i really hope i am wrong about the possiblity that onlilne casinos may take a "get them while it lasts" mentality because i really enjoy seeing the screen shots and hearing about your wins.

and thank u all for taking my post seriously. i didn't want to seem like just another "sore loser." i really did put a lot of thought into all this and i appreciate that u all are doing the same.

[BBKPoker]

4 Bonuses is also a statistically rather small sample size (yes, I realize you made hundreds of wagers). The bug in their fruit slot for the bonus games is pretty well documented and that is certainly cause for some concern. Personally, I play a few of the reel series video slots. My guilty favorite is Hillbillies, and I'm up about $500ish playing several hundred $2 spins this week.

[amatrine]

I went through over a grand the last two weeks playing the rtg real series slots.

They are not playing rite allright. Im done with real series games for good.

No fun in them anymore. Bonus rounds are far and few in between. I very rarley went above what I put in. (has been the case as Simmo said for a long time)

They used to be fun to play. I can not remember the last time I hit a bonus round on cleopatra.

The biggest hit I had on real slots in the last 6 months was $120 and it went dead after that. Last year I would hit the bonus feature a few times in a row.
Sometimes getting some really good hits. Now it seems you never hit it more than once, if you do hit it. Its too bad. They were fun to play once.

This is my theory. I think they are having more randoms (though Ive never hit one in five years playing) , but the slots are set at a very low payout, and in the long run paying the randoms is cheaper for the casino and they are making a bigger profit by the low payout.

Ill drive down to the Indian casino, thats smokey and crowded before I ever play a real series game again. At least when I played the machines there sometimes I cane home with a few grand. I have never once done that on a
real series game.

Amatrine

[Lord_Have_Mercy]

Well I decided to give Club USA CASINO A try yesterday. I deposited $100 and got $100 bonus from them. I played BJ and I kid you not. The dealer got 20 and 21 atleast 20 times out of 35 hands. I then redeposited $350 no bonus. I went to Video Poker (JOB) and didnt hit anything at all. Then I went to their Penguin real Series and lost $195 only 2 bonus round out of 600 spins at (.40 and $1)

Finally went to craps wagered on craps. Point was 8 betted $30 and placed $100 on side bet and $100 on 6. FIRST ROLL WAS A 7 and crapped out.

Afterwards my bankroll was only $75 now and went back to Penguin slots at $2 and $5 and now my account shows .15 cents.

[me_and_ed]

I have actually requested 49er to close my account, absolutely brutal, not even a chance of hope on 8 different Real Series.

[hippo925]

my experience is very simialr to amatrine's. to look at it objectively, i did make some observations (though not scientific) using the auto-play feature (you need something to do when in autoplay, right? lol)

cleopatra's gold is fairly predictable in the sense that the payback is around 60-70% if you don't hit a bonus in any session of 250 spins (playing auto-play repeatedly at $2 bets for 250 spins at a time allows for easy record keeping) in my experience, the bonus hits about once in every 150-200 spins. the average bonus win is about 25 times your bet (so $50 to $60 on a $2 bet.) a bad bonus is about 10 times your bet and a good bonus is 100-120 times your bet. the bonus will yield a re-trigger about once in 5-6 bonuses. obviously, getting the bonus determines the result of your 250 spin session more than anything else. these are things i noted the first 5 months i played.

for the last month and a half i have noticed this: bonus occurs about once every 250-300 spins (as i noted before, i have had 5 sessions where i got no bonus in 1000 spins), significanlty more bonuses paying less than 25 times the bet, obvious abscence of re-triggers, and very few bonuses above 100 times the bet. the most significant observation i made was that if you don't hit a bonus in 250 spins, the payback is about 40-50%. i think this factor was what really got my mind going because it is so obvious when using auto-play.

bbkpoker brought up the fruit slot issue and that is a great example of how players "know" there is something wrong. the whole issue of variable payouts is a scary thought. a "bug" that essentially disables or reduces a bonus round in a game would be a nightmare if it was "reproducible" by a casino.

are rtg casinos trying to build as much profit as possible before online gaming significantly slows? their software seems to point in that direction. it's difficult to believe that with these huge bonuses, how most of them could have anything but very low payouts. i see bigger bonuses coming with casinos determined to keep as much money as possible.

reputable casinos, especially sportsbooks and publically traded corporations, have already excluded U S players. as time goes on, what will remain are smaller, possibly less trustworthy casinos that see an opportunity to take up the slack while it lasts. there will be no incentives to paying out, only taking in. of course, there will always be trustworthy casino owners who will continue to offer a safe and fair place to play, but sadly, their decency will only put them in the spotlight and under more scrutiny. i don't think any casino wants to be the "biggest" anymore.

but trust me, i love slots i'll still be checking up on casinomeister and when u guys say it's safe to come back, i'll be there, lol. good luck to all of you. it' s been great.

casinomeister, i hope u never stop what u are doing. things would be 10 times worse if u did.