MG EZ Bonus

[chuchu59]

I have a question that I have been pondering over the past few days. If I were to get a match bonus but lost nearly every dollar without meeting much of the WRs and then suddenly hit a bonus round with say 75 spins x 2 in Dragon's Lair. Knowing that WRs are voided once you have zeroed out, I exit and play my remaining balance till I hit $0. Then I make a fresh deposit and enter the free spins stage again. Am I still bound by the previous WRs?

[SlotsWizard]

That's a very interesting question. I think the proper way to "try" it would be to:

1) Get the feature, but don't play it
2) Switch to another game to finish off your balance
3) Log off, then log back on to start a new session
4) Play the free spins
5) Check to see if the winnings went into your bonus balance or your cash balance

I'm inclined to say that they will go into your cash balance. But I'm also inclined to say that if it "works", it could very easily be considered bonus abuse.

[vinylweatherman]

This manipuator is what USED to work before they made the alteration that created the problems with WR being carried over with fresh deposits onto a ZERO balance. MG knew about this, and fixed this "on the quiet", the only sign being a number of complaints about players zeroing out, making a fresh deposit, only to find EZBonus "remembers" a carry over of WR.

It seems MG cannot come up with a "clean" fix for this, so have left the messy one in place, even though it causes complaints. Casino CS will manually clear carried WR, but will check to see whether the carry over was due to this problem, or whether you deposited onto a non-zero balance, in which case a carry over is correct.

This is an interesting idea though, as the original "manipulator" was to play high stakes, and if the balance fell well below the bonus too quickly, make either a fresh SMALL deposit, OR redeem $10 from comps. This USED to reset the bonus balance to the CURRENT balance, wiping out WR on funds already lost. Players would then continue to play high stakes hoping for a few decent hits before busting out.
This was never anywhere near as good as doubling up on Blackjack or Roulette, and then grinding out WR, but was +EV over the long term if played strategically, and with reasonable luck (MG not being in "takedown" mode).

This brings things MG have fixed "on the quiet" to THREE (to my knowledge) over the past year or so.

Sadly, this will probably not work, and given how damn lucky you have to be to even GET a decent bonus round on an MG slot, is a tactic that would probably MAKE casinos money now that the EZBonus "bug" has been fixed.

If MG continue to fire out new games and updated lobbies at the current rate, all which seem to come with various "bugs", there are probably new "advantage" bugs awaiting discovery, which will probably hang around till they become an "issue" that gets bumped up the priority ladder for fixing. Bear in mind that bugs that do NOT affect the casino's revenue NEVER get fixed. Some of these bugs have been around for over THREE YEARS (THunderstruck "-1 free spins" bug), and simply DON'T EVER get fixed, as the priority is in releasing new games.

I would suggest Tomb Raider 2 as a good prospect for "advantage bugs", as they have pioneered many features where the outcomes depend upon previous events, such as the "reel activation" bonus feature, as well as "rolling reels", where the number of lines played has a direct influence on the eventual payout because more active lines means more wins, and thus more "rolls" and multiplier upgrades.

I am already looking into their "Fruit Machines", but sad to say I have not found any REAL "Fruity methods" (yet ), just tactics, again based on the fact that these are not random, but influenced by the player's decisions both in the current feature round, and previous ones.

[GrandMaster]

Originally Posted by vinylweatherman

This manipuator is what USED to work before they made the alteration that created the problems with WR being carried over with fresh deposits onto a ZERO balance. MG knew about this, and fixed this "on the quiet", the only sign being a number of complaints about players zeroing out, making a fresh deposit, only to find EZBonus "remembers" a carry over of WR.

It seems MG cannot come up with a "clean" fix for this, so have left the messy one in place, even though it causes complaints. Casino CS will manually clear carried WR, but will check to see whether the carry over was due to this problem, or whether you deposited onto a non-zero balance, in which case a carry over is correct.

Isn't the obvious solution to clear the WR if the player has 0 balance and there are no games in progress?

[vinylweatherman]

Originally Posted by GrandMaster

Isn't the obvious solution to clear the WR if the player has 0 balance and there are no games in progress?

Of course, but this is MICROGAMING, and they are not known for UNDERcomplicating things

[footdr]

About 2 weeks after cashin. I deposited and clicked on a game to play it and low and behold I had free spins(must have had a problem and disconnected from game before knowing outcome of spin) all I can figure.

No bonus playthrough reinitiated.

[vinylweatherman]

Originally Posted by footdr

About 2 weeks after cashin. I deposited and clicked on a game to play it and low and behold I had free spins(must have had a problem and disconnected from game before knowing outcome of spin) all I can figure.

No bonus playthrough reinitiated.

This might be down to the two week delay. Since you say this was after a CASHIN though, there were clearly no WR at that point, so it is hardly surprising that none reappeared after you found the free spins.
It was, in fact, the SEVERE issues, still ongoing, with MG disconnects that first made me aware of this obscure "bug" initially with EZBonus. While this was corrected within 3 months of EZBonus being rolled out generally (after being beta tested at Grand Prive), they didn't do much about the disconnects.

If you had wagered a bonus to zero, and then found the free spins, you would have found that any win generated would go back into the bonus balance up to the level it was when you zeroed out without having met WR, THIS is what they fixed, as for three months or so it was possible to do this WITHOUT a correct restoration of WR. While this didn't come to light at Grand Prive I don't know, it seems to have necessitated general release for this to have been spotted, and this may even have been because players queried the workings of the bonus account when they saw some of these oddities.

I have to wonder if this is the "illegitimate play on slots" that MiniVegas made "famous" in the latter half of the same year, even though ONE poster claimed to have been accused of said "illegitimate play" even WITHOUT a bonus

Because of all the trouble with MG software, including disconnects, there could be many players with incomplete games that they are completely unaware of till they go back to the game at a later stage. If anyone is short of funds, and has been playing a particular casino for some time, AND has been disconnected regularly, it might be worth looking into each game in turn just in case, but be aware that old WR will now be restored if these games were disconnected whilst bonus funds were in use.

This leads me onto an even more obscure bug, sometimes it is possible for a disconnected game to produce ONLY bonus funds when found with a zero balance, and the software "forgets" the old WR, and regards it as infinite, which leads to ALL wins, however much, going into the BONUS account.

As I said, one would think this a simple thing to program, but MG have made it so complicated that the software throws out these errors, even AFTER they are supposed to have been fixed. It seems that "testing" is not something MG take as a high priority BEFORE release, preferring instead to test only a little, and then let the PLAYERS test fully when released. This is why we have had so much damn trouble with MG, especially around the time of the monthly update, and why pretty much every time we get "update aftershocks" - there was one such "update aftershock" this month too!