A Challenge to All Casinos

[thelawnet]

LOL, There is no math. PWC have been faking "payout reports" for online casinos for about 10 years now. This is one cosy relationship of five-figure back-handers you won't see disturbed any time soon.

Ok, so you are prepared to libel a multi-billion dollar partnership (PWC) with no evidence? And why? Because you believe that reports of 97% payouts are rigged? And because what? Because making 3 cents in every dollar wagered isn't enough to guarantee a profit in a business where that same dollar will often be wagered 20-30 times, meaning that the casino have taken ALL of its customers' money, with no cheating required.

If you are going to come up with a ridiculous conspiracy theory, then this one is not it... Why do you need to cheat when the numbers that the casinos are giving out point to HUGE profits? No other business can take its customers' dollar again and again and repeatedly take 3% off it, in return for nothing more than a few CPU cycles and some pretty graphics.

And you think they need to cheat? And you are libelling an accountancy firm by suggesting that they would risk their reputation and billions of dollars in return for a few lousy bribes from some two-bit casinos?? Why? Why, when the numbers that have been published already point to massive huge profits from these casinos?

Your accusations go beyond stupid.

 

[thelawnet]

Imagine that we were 10 people playing at the same time in the same place during one hour with all 100 USD credits in our casino account. Imagine also that no player has ever come to that place before us. No matter what games we play during this hour but we, the ten people, are happy to play there as weve read previously a report of an audit company who stated that in this place, players can expect a 90% payout. After having played for thirty minutes, I manage to bring my account to an amount of 900 USD (how lucky i am !)and decide to cash-in. You know what it means my friends ! It means that, if no other player join us during this hour, the nine others are to loose their 100 USD and i do not need to be a physician or a seer to give your this certitude ! Effectively, to pay my 900 USD winnings, the casino (or the software used) has to take the money to other players and of course needs to pay itself (900USD for me (or the player), 100 USD for the casino) This is what means a 90% payout rate !

That would give a 90% payout that is true, but it does not mean that the casino must do that. Firstly, nearly all reputable casinos use software that is provided by a third-party vendor. They have little or no control over it, and probably do not have access to the source code.

In your scenario if I won $900, 9 other people would have to lose $100. This does not reflect the realities of actual casinos.

In a real casino, I win $900, the casino does not care. The nature of sampling is that the larger the sample, the less effect individual wins have. Let us discount your fallacious example, and look at the larger sample that a real casino would have. Further, let us imagine that your win was not $900, but $90,000 (by increasing the amount we can show that your suggestion is wrong). Given that online gambling revenues are roughly $90 billion per annum, let us suppose that a given (small) casino has 1/1000 of this as revenue, that is $90 million per year.

Now assuming that that $90 million of revenue is $90 million in deposits, and each deposit is wagered 20 times. That gives total betting of $1.8 billion. Given that the payout is 97%, they are making $54 million in profit, prior to paying their operating costs.

Now tell me why you think that they need to rig things. Every single game in the casino has a built in advantage for the house. Even if you give the players a $90,000 head-start, with sufficient wagering this will become a tiny blip, because we are talking about millions of dollars in wagering.

So the casinos have no need to try and balance wins against losses, becomes the nature of a house edge and a large sample will quickly offset that.

This brings me to this conclusion : thinking youve got one chance out of two to double your stake on the roulette playing red or black is valid in based land casinos but is just an illusion (imagination ) in on line places. Sometimes, this chance will be more than one out of two, sometimes less, depending on how appears the casino balance at a precise time !

Definitely, and the ultimate point to consider when playing online would be for me the number of people frequenting the place and betting with real money. This is the only argument that should be taken into account for me. I saw it in some places, and it is the right way i think ! But please, stop with probabilities , calcultations and so on : the chance of having a RF is not one out of 40000 ? as read here and there. If the casino doesnt have the money to pay it to you at the time you are playing, you will never have it and your chances then are less than zero.

Once again, the majority of gamblers do not seem to understand the activity they are participating in. I wouldn't play tennis if I did not understand the ruls of the game.

If a casino does not have the money they are unlikely to be operating as a casino. They do not write their own software, they are largely governed by what the software manufacturer gives to them. Any casino is likely to have at least $1 million for just this kind of event (somebody betting $50 on 10-play VP and getting a pat Royal Flush), and they will be quite happy to pay it out, because they know that randomness will do its own work, and the casino business model means that a profit over the long term (although not every single day) is guaranteed.

There is no need for online casinos to operate any differently from B&M casinos - both want people to win to sucker the rest of the gamblers in; and they realize what you seem not to, namely that 1 person geting a Royal Flush has no effect on their long-term profits, provided they have sufficient customers and wagering to reduce variance below their expected profit....

Broadly speaking, if casino A has $1m in wagering a day, casino B that has $4m in wagering per day will have four times the expected profit, but only twice the risk in terms of variance (a few people getting lucky). If you feel that the casino is too small and the action they are getting is not enough for them to afford natural variance, DON'T PLAY THERE. But certainly for any casino that has good turnover has NO REASON to operate under anything other than natural randomness, and to sit back and count the money that games designed to take money from the players give them.

 

[Agamemnon]

Reality check:
PWC does not doctor data.
It's like saying Microsoft has done a deal with online casinos by appropriately tweaking their OS in order to make cheating easier.
I've contacted them to get some sort of responce on the principle of Ceasar's wife etc. and -I admit- with a little tongue in cheek towards some previous posts, but come on people:
Let's not forget that it's the casinos (dwarves in comparison to PWC) that try to gain credibility by associating themselves with PWC. I've noticed that a few used to have PWC's logo on their front pages and now have a logo reading: 'Reviewed by independent auditors". I don't know the details but if I were a gambling man I'd bet that they were asked to remove the firm's name probably BY PWC . In point of fact I've noticed that some of these casinos use the same Script when writing the phrase "Reviewed By independent auditors" that's used by PWC in their name. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.


I think we should separate the two issues here and now.
It's one thing to ask casino operators to give slot machine data and it's a different track to insinuate PWC is somehow involved in shady deals.
In fact I believe that not separating them only makes the challenge towards casino operators weaker by making us all sound like we're on a soapbox in Hyde Park.
So,
Casino Operators: Publish your slot machine data! If you do, I might play at your casinos.

Just my take.
I'll get off the soapbox now.

 

[knowlesm]

If you're implying that you're an employee of PWC, knowlesm, then I'm sure many here have some valid questions for you.

I'll get it going with:

1) Why not publish the means your numbers are derived?

2) If the software uses a true random number generator, then why would there be a risk in publishing it?

3) What government body or organization audits the calculations and certifications made by PWC?

I saw the PwC logo at one of the places I play, was intrigued, and clicked on it. It brought up a picture of a document signed by PwC South Africa saying that the software was fair, blah blah blah.

Yeah, I do work for PwC, but in the US. I don't work in audit (i'm an actuary) and didn't have any idea we even did this kind of work. Unfortunately, I don't have answers to any of the questions you asked.

I realize that's not much help...just wanted to add a little levity to the thread. I will say that there's a large emphasis on integrity within PwC and I'm proud to work here. All of the public audit firms rely on maintaining pristine reputations in order to develop public trust and stay in business.

 

[falderal]

.

"I'd trade it all in for just a little bit more."(Monty Burns)

Old style casinos actually had been caught "skimming", which was used to reduce taxes or cheat shareholders. As I'm sure you'd agree, profits, large or small, are not a cure for greed, thelawnet.

As to any figures indicating profitability comfort, I am reminded of just how many casinos struggle to avoid paying out, particularly via carefully hidden policies or bonus rules. This lack of transparency can be for one reason only: to deceive the player into appearing at the casino. If profits are so strong, such common back-alley techniques would surely be more rare.

But what could they gain by hiding the fact that the bonus only applies to previous depositors? I mean, really, if the bonus is designed to "bring back" prior depositors, wouldn't they want to make that very visible?

Unless they want an army of "playthrough drones" who get uncashable bonuses and play them through, increasing the slots returns without increasing the actual deposit, leading to a statistical illusion of high percentage payouts.

Like this:

PWC would get a sheet that reads:

Total deposits: $100
Total payout: $97


PWC would be able to verify, without ethical risk, that according to the numbers provided there is a 97% payout.

I'm not suggesting that the use of playthrough drones is commonplace - or even exists at all - but without ANY rigid auditing system in place, similar deceitful methods are not a mere possibility, but a likelihood. This, sadly, is simply the nature of mankind.

I offer by means of proof, that file "sharing" software such as Napster, which helped millions make illegal copies of every form of data, had grown in popularity so quickly as to threaten a multi-billion dollar industry. When the cat is away, mice will play. There is no reason to expect differently in the online gambling industry, which tends to situate itself where both laws and law enforcement are at their weakest.

knowlesm: As an actuary, perhaps you can verify my numbers above, and see the inherent succeptibility to abuse in the above methodology. If PWC showed how the data was collected and processed, they would further distance themselves from corrupt reporting at the casino end.

I will note that years ago I too clicked on the links to PWC at several casinos - none of them worked!

 

[nafanny29]

From what ive read here PWC get sent data relating to payouts/deposits etc and then verify the payout percentage. Anyone with an aptitude for maths could "verify" it couldnt they? Guess it looks good to have a "certified by PWC" stamp on the front page.

But how does anyone know if the "data" is accurate in the first place?

And again from the above posts it seems that the "fairness" of the casino/RNG isnt even examined at all.

Or am I missing something here guys

 

[caruso]

I answered your question in my remarks directly following your last post.

BTW, I got my acronyms confused; it's not "EGAP", it's "TGTR" - for what that's worth, LOL.

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The relevance of that page is that this work is ostensibly NOT undertaken by eCogra, but out-sourced to PWC. Jetset can confirm this, it's not a secret and we talked about it ages ago at WOL.

 

[ToucanSam]

If it's required for Toucan Sam and his Froot Loops, then why not Froot Loot and Microgaming?

Froot Loot ? where ? I,ll sue !!