MG are you taking the ****?

[catrina m]

The joke is on all of us who deposit.

We do it because someone has to win.

Or do they?

Your bad luck may be my good luck, they all advertise 95% to 98% payouts

I have had luck here and there.

If I claim 65% they say my sample isn't large enough. I say I have gambled online 9 years and I'll not bet my lifes savings to prove it.

It's all up to the gambler. have a bad streak and take a break, win a little and feel good but in the end we are all losers and they have our money to prove it.

[skiny]

Well, I hit a jackpot last year and I think I'm still playing with their money.

They just seem to have taken all the entertainment value out of it.

I hardly even play anymore.

What bugs me is this story they keep trying to convince me of that the only reason I've been losing for most of the last year is because I have really bad luck. Luck is entirely dependent on odds.

If the odds are really good you don't need much luck. if the odds are even luck definitely helps. If the odds are terrible... You're probably gambling online.

[Rusty]

The joke is on all of us who deposit.

We do it because someone has to win.

Or do they?

Your bad luck may be my good luck, they all advertise 95% to 98% payouts

I have had luck here and there.

If I claim 65% they say my sample isn't large enough. I say I have gambled online 9 years and I'll not bet my lifes savings to prove it.

It's all up to the gambler. have a bad streak and take a break, win a little and feel good but in the end we are all losers and they have our money to prove it.

Nothing wrong in what you say but it is about how you win and lose.
Winning and losing streaks are all a natural part of gambling but will occur within expected parameters, that is, within an expected range of variations.

This range would be different for each slot and to be exact we would need to know the probability of outcome of every possible combination of every slot.

Fortunately we do not need to be this exact to know when something is outside of expected variation.

For example;
If you had a losing streak of 12 hands playing Blackjack you would consider that a horrible losing streak but even without the Maths a Blackjack player would instinctively know this is within the expected variation over Thousands of hands.
However they might be suspicious the way the games played out and look into the play history in more detail.
If they found that for example each time they had 20 the dealer drew 21 they might become more suspicious and check other losing streaks.
If they found this theme repeated itself then they would know this was statistically anomalous.
So even though losing and winning are part of gambling to simply accept this fact without question will leave you open to being cheated.

Even if you get overall expected return (which I certainly do not) that does not mean you should assume the game is fair.
What if you were guaranteed an exact 95% return on you deposits through a Year by a Casino?
You would I hope say thanks but no thanks because you know it would have to be rigged.

Remember everyone and anyone who reads this forum including representatives from the Casinos and Software companies I openly question have the right of reply.
If I am mistaken about something or have some stats wrong etc and they can show me how and why I will certainly listen.
I am not here to slag off any particular Casino or brand, they all get the same treatment and analysis, I am here to raise awareness because the more people become aware the more likely things will improve.

I personally believe and have plenty of evidence to support that online slots are weighted and that the return of slots is altered without the players knowledge.
This does not mean you can never win but it does mean you will certainly lose as and when the Casino wishes by lowering the return of their slots by a significant percentage through weighting.

[cynthial]

Hey Rusty, would you be kind enough to explain "weighting" to me. I am sure it is here somewhere but I know not where to look.

[catrina m]

I found this in a search cynthial.

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.c...t-machine4.htm

[Rusty]

Hey Rusty, would you be kind enough to explain "weighting" to me. I am sure it is here somewhere but I know not where to look.

Sure Cynth,
Weighting is a term used that describes artificially altering the probability of the outcome of a random event.

Pretty much every 3 reel slot uses weighting.

For example If you play a 3 Reel slot with a bonus symbol on the 3rd reel you will notice that the bonus symbol lands above and below the payline with much more frequency than on the payline, this is a result of weighting.

So there may be 20 symbols on the virtual reel but these do not all have a 1 in 20 chance of hitting.
It may be that the bonus symbol has a 1 in 200 chance and the Jackpot symbol a 1 in 100 chance for example.
The reason for this is to artificially make it more difficult to hit certain higher paying combinations but overall the return should still be around 95% or whatever.
These games though weighted can still be perfectly fair as long as the weighting remains the same and the player knows the probability of each combination. Of course the flip side is there is plenty of scope to make the game unfair without it being obvious by altering the weighting.
For example making the higher paying symbols and bonus symbol less likely to hit by increasing the weighting.

To make this clear I will give you a very simplistic example;
I have a 3 Reel slot with 3 symbols on each reel. (Cherry,Seven,Bar)
My RNG is giving a number from 1 to 3 for each reel stop position, say the 1=cherry,2=Seven,3=Bar.
This means there 27 total combinations of reel stop positions (3x3x3) In reality there are often Millions.
If I award a prize for 3 of a kind then there will be 3 winning combinations (3 symbols the same) and 24 losing.
1,1,1=3 cherries 2,2,2=3 Sevens 3,3,3=3 Bars.
Now lets say we want this slot to be more interesting so we decide to make each of the 3 symbols award a different prize for 3 of a kind.
We make the cherries pay 1/1 (bet back)
The Sevens pay 10/1 (10Xbet)
The Bars as Jackpot pay (100Xbet)

Now we have a serious problem as our Casino is losing a lot of money because people are winning fortunes on our slot.
In 27 spins, a full cycle of combinations, their expected return is
24X0 (losses) 1X1 ( 3 Cherries) 1X10 (3 Sevens) 1X100 (3 Bars)
So they have bet 27 and the slot has returned 1+10+100=111
That is just over 400% return! Oops we need to weight our slot.

To do this we need to artificially alter the probability of each symbol hitting from the natural 1 in 3 (1 stop position, 3 symbols to each reel) so that the higher paying symbols hit less frequently.
We achieve this by artificially increasing the amount of combinations possible while keeping the slot the same by having our RNG return a number from 1 to 100 instead of 1 to 3 as before, even though there are still the same symbols on the reel.
Now we have 100X100X100=1 Million possible outcomes from the RNG.

OK now to balance our slot.
Let us say each time the RNG returns a number from 1 to 10 inclusive the Bar will hit.
This means the probability of 3 Bars is hitting is now
10/100 X 10/100 X 10/100 (10 numbers which=Bar/ 100 possible numbers)
so we can cancel that down to 1/10 X 1/10 X 1/10= 1/1000 or a probability of 1 in 1000

We will also say each time the RNG returns a number from 11 to 30 inclusive the Seven will hit.
This means the probability of 3 Sevens hitting is now
20/100 X 20/100 X 20/100 (20 numbers which=Seven/ 100 possible numbers)
so we can cancel that down to 1/5 X 1/5 X 1/5= 1/125 or a probability of 1 in 125

Finally We will say each time the RNG returns a number from 31 to 100 inclusive the Cherry will hit.
This means the probability of 3 Cherries hitting is now
70/100 X 70/100 X 70/100 (70 numbers which=Cherry/ 100 possible numbers)
so we can cancel that down to 7/10 X 7/10 X 7/10= 343/1000 or a probability of 1 in 3 (2.91545...)

So now
In 1 Million spins, a full cycle of RNG, their expected return is
477,000X0 (losses) 343,000X1 ( 3 Cherries) 8000X10 (3 Sevens) 10,000X100 (3 Bars)
So they have bet 1 Million and the slot has returned 343,000+80,000+100,000=523,000

That is just over 52% return! Oops we made our slot a little tight.
Not to worry the punters will never know

And this where the story really starts

OK so now you understand One form of weighting but the same results can be achieved using different methods but they all use the same principle.

You can also see why Three Reel slots might use weighting because the programmers/designers were to lazy to incorporate more reel positions even though they do for 5 reel sots which are obviously more work (That makes no sense does it? Tell it to the shills)

Now the Daddy;
We are told that 5 Reel slots do not use weighting, that the amount of symbols and their order remain the same and the probability of outcome for each and any of the combinations are all exactly equal and remain unaltered.

This is possible by using much longer reel strips and incorporating variance (The frequency and size of wins) into the design.
The return of the slot is only alterable through changes in the paytable (awarding more or less for winning combinations) or by a redesign of the virtual reels.


At least that is what I would say if I worked for One of the Software companies.

The big problem for these purveyors of misinformation though is that unlike 3 Reel slots, where we are not privy to how the weighting is applied and so can not calculate how fair the game is, we can find out the Reel layout of 5 Reel slot and because they tout it as unweighted we can check to see if indeed each combination appears to always have an equal probability as every other.
This is where we find many anomalies in the results that show conclusively either the RNG is faulty or the slots use weighting.

Software developers are becoming very aware of this and they are already trying new methods where weighting would be less conspicuous.

Ever wondered why virtual slot reels are getting longer and longer?
The more combinations there are the harder it is to prove the results are anomalous.
New slots can now have Several Hundred Million combinations, try to pick the anomalies out of that.
There is your answer.

Of course it could be argued that although software developers are too lazy to design 3 Reel slots with a relevant virtual reels they just love the extra work of designing 5 Reel slots with Reels that incorporate over 50 symbols.
That would be a very silly argument indeed but then Casinos and software companies have been making them for Years.

Sorry for putting people through such a hideously long post.

[skiny]

Everytime I ask a casino if the odds on these slot games vary I get told "We don't manipulate the games in any way."

And then I ask again "I'm not saying that you're doing anything. I'm asking if the odds change on the slot games for any reason at the software level? Does the software alter the odds under different circumstances?"

And then I get told that I have bad luck and the discussion ends.

[Mouche12]

What about PartyCasino (no USA I guess unfortunately). I won on slots only 1,100 with a 300 usd deposit.

[cynthial]

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain that to me Rusty. I really do appreciate this and I know it must have eaten up a good piece of your evening. It sure is an interesting subject. I owe you one.

[chuchu59]

Rusty,

Thanks for the explanation in layman terms. That's more like it but then again you have always taken the brunt of their 'weighting' based on your play recently.