vinylweatherman
You type well loads
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2004
- Location
- United Kingdom
It's just down to how the system reacts. I don't sit and crawl over logs day in day out checking for discrepancies. Had the person in question for this particular problem not have been super greedy, they probably would have made themselves very rich before we even had a sniff that something was wrong. I've come across a few problems during my time and it is almost always down to a hardware/technical issue, rather than software. You have to remember there is hardware powering these games in the background. I'm not for one second suggesting issues are always against the operator, I'm quite sure there have been issues in the past that impacted players. I seem to remember a game a while back that advertised a bonus feature that was impossible to hit?
Quite, this is how problems get noticed by game operators. In the 1990's, there was an "understanding" among us fruit machine players that if we had an "emptier", we would not completely empty the machine, but alter our play so as to "kill off" the exploit by playing in a manner that caused the compensator to tighten the game back up to it's norm. This meant that there was no technician call out for a machine fault due to it being completely empty, and so they would only be able to tell something was up by recording coin in and coin out against the target RTP, which many seemed to skimp on the daily visit to clear the cash from the cashboxes.
Hardware errors that affect the game results also mean that the game no longer meets the regulatory requirements, and it also creates doubt in the minds of players about all the assurances that the game is "fair" because the RNG and code has passed a number of third party checks
More fool them. Once a problem is found it'll only cost them more in goodwill & refunds if they skirt the issue. I'm a firm believer in transparency, especially in a business like ours. Problems are obviously going to happen, it's how we deal with the problems that sets us all apart.
Have to agree here I'm afraid. We're in a highly competitive business and IP is valuable. An obvious, glaring error may be prominent across games, so why would a developer want to help the competition fix this?
I would argue it's for the mutual benefit of the industry as a whole. An issue that seems only to affect the competition might be good for business, but they are thinking the same. In the mean time, smart players know it's affecting everybody, and that it will last much longer with this fragmented approach by the industry.
Simply doesn't and cannot happen with an Alderney/Isle of Man regulated company. No idea about Malta or any of the others as I've never had the pleasure of going through their compliance docs. I can categorically tell you that RTP's are declared by 3rd party testing firms, the game is provided with a certificate and then enters into a code freeze state. The game is moved on to the localised hardware and from there noone can touch with. You can't change RTP on the fly unless you're playing on some very hooky software.
Unfortunately, players only have your word for this, we do not have access to actual proof. Even Alderney now has a tarnished reputation over the Full Tilt poker scandal, and their willingness to bow to pressure in making the extraordinary decision to hold what should have been an open hearing "in camera". For poker players, it was first that Alderney didn't spot the fraud till it was to late, and then they compounded the problem by cooperating in what was seen as a "cover up".
Malta is far worse, Gibraltar not much different, and other popular jurisdictions like Curacao are seen as "ineffective" among player.
RTG is one mainstream software where operators CAN alter the RTP between 3 settings. Players are also not allowed to know which of these settings the game they are playing is running. We are then expected to take RTG's word for it that they only allow operators to change the setting once every 6 months, and only via a formal process that ensures only RTG can effect the change. It wasn't that long ago that RTG gave players their word that no such facility even existed, so naturally we don't trust this latest assurance either.
Now, if RTG can do this, and keep it secret with the approval of a number of regulatory bodies, then so can other softwares. It's either that it's true that the games are set in stone once released, or that they are better than RTG at keeping a secret.
Again, it comes down to service. Providing gameplay logs and being transparent is all we can do. Some may choose not to do this, in which case put a Data Access request in, pay your £20 or so and make them do the graft in order to provide it.
In the end, more transparency, and a greater willingness to be open about what went wrong when a game didn't work as designed, will help build more trust among players.
It's very hard to reconcile a "database error" with the idea that each game result is only determined when one presses "spin", and nothing that has happened before (and recorded in a database) can have any effect whatsoever on the outcome delivered.
If this CAN happen, it means that a properly certified RNG is pretty much worthless, as a casino could still "rig" the game post RNG by altering a "database". This is one of the long held "conspiracy theories" that a perfectly random RNG can still produce results that are "rigged".