Advice needed

[Ian Roberts]

Does anyone know if the odds and rules in online roulette are the same in 'live' mode as they are in 'fun' mode? Many thanks for any help on this.

Ian

[vinylweatherman]

Does anyone know if the odds and rules in online roulette are the same in 'live' mode as they are in 'fun' mode? Many thanks for any help on this.

Ian

Would be the case for the reputable software brands, but others have been known to deliberately enhance "fun" mode in order to give players a false expectation of what they might get if they used real money (including Welsh money)

Microgaming can be trusted.

Cryptologic uses the PC's own RNG, and can give odd results for the random jackpot games, although general play should be similar to real money expectation.

RTG operators can tweak the odds of most games - with this in mind, it is possible the more ruthless (I.e Virtual Group) would take advantage of any ability to tweak fun mode as a marketing tool. I do not know if RTG operators can do this per account, or have to do it over the entire casino as a whole.

Playtech - I think this is honest in fun mode as against real mode.

I do not know so much about the others, but there have been many accusations levied at various software brands, and discussion has ensued as to whether the cases have merit. A few minor brands were busted for "cheating" in fun mode, and some have even been busted for "cheating" in REAL Mode. When caught, they have claimed "software error" as the culprit. High profile cases of "cheating" in real mode include English Harbour group (Odds-On/Vegas Technology) - error was confined to the doubling game of the VP. Mansion, multi-player VP was redrawing discards, but the rules said this did NOT happen, the "error" makes quite a difference to the small house edge involved in Video Poker (in the casino's favour of course).
Most recently, Absolute Poker has been accused, and with pretty good evidence, of having around 20 accounts "cheating" by being able to see other player's hole cards. There have been suggestions this has been going on for some time, but was discovered when the cheats just got plain greedy and were busted royally by game stats.

MANY casinos have been accused of "cheating", but normally this is explained away as an unlucky streak that stands up to statistical tests as being unfortunate, but not all that unlikely over the longer term.

The rogue pit here includes a section on known cheating software (as well as casinos rogued for other reasons), and these casinos should be avoided unless you just want to be fleeced in the name of entertainment, (or you know of a way to cheat back).
The accredited list contains casinos known to be reliable in not having bent software, nor in cheating players out of rightful winnings. With some, standards of customer service have lapsed on occasion, giving the impression they have been listed in the wrong section.

[KasinoKing]

Does anyone know if the odds and rules in online roulette are the same in 'live' mode as they are in 'fun' mode? Many thanks for any help on this.
Ian

Yes Ian, the odds & rules are exactly the same.
Whether the software is fair or not has been comprehensively covered by Vinyl!

Good luck!

[suzecat]

I recall that a few RTG managers have confirmed they can adjust the payout percentages on slots only. These tweeks apply to all players and cannot be adjusted for individual accounts.

[chuchu59]

I recall that a few RTG managers have confirmed they can adjust the payout percentages on slots only. These tweeks apply to all players and cannot be adjusted for individual accounts.

That was before the ban on US players. I honestly hope they havent done this to the other games but I do have my suspicions.

[vinylweatherman]

That was before the ban on US players. I honestly hope they havent done this to the other games but I do have my suspicions.

They can indeed alter the percentage payouts of the other games, however this is done by altering the paytables rather than weighting the decks of cards, so it is easy to spot.
One obvious candidate is the Tri-Card poker, check the payouts for the straight flush and 3OK for the pair plus bet. Full pay is 40/30 as seen at Microgaming, but RTG casinos have different payouts over different casinos, some might be 40/25 and others might even be 35/25 They can also downgrade the ante bonus for these top hands, which pays out on the straight flush, 3OK and straight only.
Video poker paytables can be adjusted quite subtly in ways that dramatically increase the house edge, probably the most sneaky being a cut from 2:1 to 1:1 for 2 pairs, with the more obvious being downgrading the simple games like Jacks or Better from full pay to some lover level by lowering the payouts for the Full House and Straight, as well as only paying 100 instead of 125 for 4OK for a 5 coin bet.
RTG Blackjack is a little more sneaky, we have it on record that the number of decks can be adjusted in a way that is hidden from the player, all the way up to 255! This makes a difference to both house edge and correct strategy for a given set of rules, and is the nearest one can get to "rigged" decks in RTG software (rigged because the player does not have the information as to the full rules of the game in order to make a decision on strategy) Former RTG employees even state this can be done "on the fly" by booting off players, increasing the number of decks, and allowing them back on to what they believe is exactly the same game.

Software between fun and real mode can only be considered fair if the game is the same, and plays true regardless of bet size, including zero real money bet as in fun mode.
A fun mode roulette could mislead players by having the same rules, and thus odds, as real money play, but programmed to give a small weight in favour of the numbers the player has selected, thus it will APPEAR fair on the surface, but the player who plays for a long time might believe they can nearly always beat the house over time. If the weighting was too blatant, it would be pretty obvious that it was not a realistic game, but just a bit of fun, as in the "silly" superhero jackpots seen and won on Cryptologic fun mode as opposed to real mode.

[hippo925]

that was a great summary on casino software issues but i was suprised about the absolute poker thing. just finished reading up on the whole absolute poker thing and boy, that was interesting. thanks for bringing it up!

i used to play at partypoker and did quite well for over a year. then suddenly, it became very hard to make the kind of money i was winning before. i thought either all the "fish" were gone, or something "fishy" was going on so i quit online poker. (or i guess i suddenly sucked at poker after years of playing well?)

i don't know if partypoker had these kind of issues with their software but i know they were not very good at controlling collusion (sometimes it was sadly obvious.) but it really brings to light how scary online gaming can be sometimes. gotta tell my brother about this since he's a big poker player online and at b & m casinos.

but you gotta respect all those people who helped figure that whole absolute poker thing out....smart, smart people (we have plenty of those "brains" here too!! )