MG are you taking the ****?

[Rusty]

You are very welcome Cynth
Actually I made an error
10477,000X0 (losses) 343,000X1 ( 3 Cherries) 8000X10 (3 Sevens) 10,000X100 (3 Bars)

should read 1000X100
an extra Zero got in there

[AussieDave]

Hi all,

As a player who has played untold millions of wagering dollars (over the course of 12 years), I can tell you that there is definitely something flaky with MG software since the UIGEA came into force. It's got noticeably worse since MG pulled out of the US market.

As an affiliate I like to see my players win. To me...Happy players who win will always return and deposit. Players who keep losing will go else where.

It's not rocket science

However, in about the last 6 months I've seen things go from bad to totally pathetic - this is at multiple MG casinos btw.

EG - A whale who used to drop between $50K to $70K a month would have their good months and so so months. In the last 3 months this person was consistently doing their nuts! Well this player (and I don't blame him/her) has stopped playing.

This month another of my long term players dropped $16K and didn't win jack. They totally spat the dummy; I'm told they went totally nuts. Obviously aware that all was not kosher with the MG slots. As a result the Casino locked their account.

As a player I know exactly how they feel.

Reiterating as some posted in this thread...It's not a couple of gamblers having a bitch because it's a bad month. Fact is, the majority of MG players here at CM who are playing MG slots (at varied MG casinos) are all experiencing the same thing & feel they are getting shafted!

Maybe all the new slots are having an impact of the over payout percentages, I don't know.

What I do know... is MG software is tighter that a fishes butt hole & has been getting worse each month. No matter what slot is played the results are generally the same...SH#T

Previously to MG slot going pear shaped, I could have placed a side bet that if I got the re-triggered spins on Thunderstruck, Spring Break or Ladies Nite I would have collected a decent win. Not any more.

When this scenario plays out time and time again and your lucky to get 20x your original wager, then in my book something is wrong.

Of course CSR's are going to repeat the same canned BS but as a player I know I'm getting consistently shafted.

Before the MG slots went strange, withdrawals of $1 - $4K would generally happen every month or so. Of course I didn't always hit the cash-out button. But I was winning and that's the point here!

To put this into a tangible perspective I just check Neteller and these are the last cash-outs from May 2009 - Jan 2007:

March 2009 (32Red) $800US
January 2009 (32Red) $900US
December 2008 (32Red) $300US
November 2008 (Platinum Play) $1,630US
October 2008 (Casino Share) $3,300US

From November 2007 - June 2008 I have varied small cash outs of between $500US - $1,200US every month. From either Casino Share or 7Sultans.

October 2007 (Casino Share) $3,500US
April 2007 (Casino Share) $4,500US
March 2007 (Casino Share) $4,000US
Feb 2007 (Casino Share) $1,200US
Jan 2007 (Casino Share) $1,000US

---------

Now to put this into a greater perspective 99% of my game play is slots & of this I only play these bonus slots:

Isis
Break da Bank Again
Spring Break
Ladies Nite
Thunderstruck

In so far as Spring Break, Ladies Nite and Thunderstruck I would average the 5 scatters every 3 - 4 months. I've not had one single 5 scatter pay on any of these MG slots since October 2008.

Of that I've has untold re-triggered free spins (up to 7 times in one group). Best win achieved was a pathetic $90 @ $2,25 a spin.

I could write a book on how flaky MG slots are these days. Maybe it's time I also pulled the pin on online gambling.

Frankly I think I'd get just as much enjoyment (if not more entertainment value) from flushing $50 & $100 notes down the S bend of my toilet as opposed to playing MG slots.


Cheers
T

[suzy1975]

hi there all
just new to this so no fancy post but i have played online for 5 years and m/g used to be muy fav. with break da bank again the leader, i dont play for big massive cash but i hit 25 free spins with a multiplier of 5 and throughout received an incredible 55 extra spins(wow gr8 eh?) total payout for these 80 spins x 5 ..........£0.90 and the answer when i called was it was well within the parameters lol. Also there Jackpot thermometer is as much use as an ashtray on a motorcycle it was at 999.0 for a full 4 weeks and after 15 deposits chasing it i asked for it to be looked at and lo and behold it was won during the investigation after the thermometer dissapearing for 4 hours. Finally while playing i noticed my cash had risen by 50 pounds and i did not see the win, turns out it was not a win but i had won a monthly prize from casinomeister, therefore i deposit with them all month chasing an invisible jackpot but in the end my biggest win came from casinomeister.....THANKS MEISTER

[Pinababy69]

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.

Rusty, that is a great post. It makes my head hurt....but it's great.

A post worthy of an award if I ever saw one. Not sure I still totally understand, but I definitely have a better grasp than I did before. There are certain things you have to explain to me like I'm a five year old....and math and probabilities, etc. is one of them. Thanks for taking the time to do that.

[cynthial]

I forgot about that button. I agree!

[heatherad]

Rusty, my head hurts after reading the explaination/example you gave of weighing.
Like Pina, I don't fully understand but now have the concept of what you were explaining. Great job there Rusty and thank you so very much for taking what must of been a heck of alot of time to research that

[Rusty]

Rusty, my head hurts after reading the explaination/example you gave of weighing.
Like Pina, I don't fully understand but now have the concept of what you were explaining. Great job there Rusty and thank you so very much for taking what must of been a heck of alot of time to research that

Thanks Heather.
Can I just point out though that this is not actually researched material but a personal explanation of my position as regards how the software operates from my programming knowledge and experience of game design and how I consider weighting is used and misused through my observations and analysis of various gaming software.

You may take as fact that 3 Reel slots are weighted and there is no argument against this as I have shown in my example.
Some though still argue that 5 Reel slots are not weighted or "programmable" even though all logic and evidence shows otherwise which is why I try to explain these things in easy terms and break the arguments down into simple points of logic.

The point of all this is to hope that One Day a player will know the return of any given slot and know that this slot is not weighted and the return can not be altered except through changes to the paytable or a redesign of the slot.
In both those cases the player should be notified of those changes and how they effect on the game and its return.

Currently we are light Years away from that and worryingly that is the least we should expect.

[doomed4ever]

This subject crops up more and more especially in regards to MG casinos. If in doubt vote with your wallet and dont play. I doubt the casinos will listen as for every player who stops another bunch are lined up ready to deposit. I stopped MG a while back not granted really for the reasons listed here - I just put it down to personal terminal bad luck. On reflection as a now none MG player I can see (without bias as I aint wagered on mgs for a while now) that some truth has to be in them running a tighter ship with the US fiasco.
Loved all those mind boggling gut busting stats in this post Still trying to fully understand it but a very interesting read.

[vinylweatherman]

MY luck at MG has taken a sharp turn for the better this year, however this only licks the wounds of LAST year, where the second half was TERRIBLE.

I have changed the games I play, my former favourites have been ditched, and I am promoting other games to be my favourites, not necessarily the new ones.

Despite some bad sessions, I have done well from 4 hand Double Double Bonus Poker, and the new(ish) AWP games introduced a couple of years ago into the download lobby. Former good payers, such as Munchkins, are now consistenty poor, fewer bonus rounds, fewer retriggers, and fewer big payouts. I got the feeling last year that Munchkins had been changed to cut down on bonus rounds.

[chuchu59]

Rusty,

Members of the fairer sex seem to get dizzy when trying to figure out the logic in your post. Maybe it's the length maybe something else. So we know what to do when engaging in arguments with them lol.