Question Can casinos just decide not to pay you because the game was paying out too much?

[vinylweatherman]

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".

 

[paul@bgo]

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".

You can't modify the result of the graphics in the game by fiddling with the database though. A database only knows what it is told. To give you some idea of how an integration works... we have our platform, call it the account management software where everything is tracked. You log in via this platform and a token is passed to the game provider with whom we are integrated with. This token contains information such as your unique player ID and balance (where balance can be displayed in a game). Whenever you click 'Spin' - we use the token to tell the game provider that you just placed a bet and with the set parameters. The spin then takes place on their side (the hardware I mentioned earlier will take the bet, store it etc) and the game provides us with a result and how much you should be paid. It is quite literally that straight forward. The software (game) is locked down, no-one can fiddle with it and it produces the result. When a database error occurs, it means we either didn't give you what you were owed or we gave you too much. We can't change the result that the game showed to you, therefore if there was a problem that affected the player, we'd more than likely hear about it. If the problem affects us and the player is the beneficiary of such a problem, only the very honest or very stupid would tell us!

This is about as transparent as I can get, but you guys should have no doubts that we are not in any way in control of what you are paid or how the games perform.

 

[vinylweatherman]

You can't modify the result of the graphics in the game by fiddling with the database though. A database only knows what it is told. To give you some idea of how an integration works... we have our platform, call it the account management software where everything is tracked. You log in via this platform and a token is passed to the game provider with whom we are integrated with. This token contains information such as your unique player ID and balance (where balance can be displayed in a game). Whenever you click 'Spin' - we use the token to tell the game provider that you just placed a bet and with the set parameters. The spin then takes place on their side (the hardware I mentioned earlier will take the bet, store it etc) and the game provides us with a result and how much you should be paid. It is quite literally that straight forward. The software (game) is locked down, no-one can fiddle with it and it produces the result. When a database error occurs, it means we either didn't give you what you were owed or we gave you too much. We can't change the result that the game showed to you, therefore if there was a problem that affected the player, we'd more than likely hear about it. If the problem affects us and the player is the beneficiary of such a problem, only the very honest or very stupid would tell us!

This is about as transparent as I can get, but you guys should have no doubts that we are not in any way in control of what you are paid or how the games perform.

I think I understand now. The game result is OK, but a player notices that instead of, say, £2, he gets credited £2.50, and realises that with every win he ends up getting 50p more than he should. He quickly spots this, but your systems don't make it all that easy to trace at first. All the player then has to do is play at the right stake such that the extra 50p credits on wins push his RTP over 100%. It will only get noticed if he gets greedy and accumulates so much extra money that it skews the accounts, making the casino want to launch an investigation.

In effect, it's another "emptier" for an online slot, rather like the "emptiers" we get for our land based fruit machines, which can also be both software and hardware based. A "hardware" example is a dodgy payout mechanism that pays out 2 coins instead of one, or returns your input coin AND gives you the gaming credit. I have seen both of these happen.

 

[dunover]

I think I understand now. The game result is OK, but a player notices that instead of, say, £2, he gets credited £2.50, and realises that with every win he ends up getting 50p more than he should. He quickly spots this, but your systems don't make it all that easy to trace at first. All the player then has to do is play at the right stake such that the extra 50p credits on wins push his RTP over 100%. It will only get noticed if he gets greedy and accumulates so much extra money that it skews the accounts, making the casino want to launch an investigation.

In effect, it's another "emptier" for an online slot, rather like the "emptiers" we get for our land based fruit machines, which can also be both software and hardware based. A "hardware" example is a dodgy payout mechanism that pays out 2 coins instead of one, or returns your input coin AND gives you the gaming credit. I have seen both of these happen.

LOL....I remember once in an arcade on a £4.80 jp machine in the 1990's seeing a lad swap the wire plugs around on the 10p and pound coin tubes while the engineer had the back open and had gone to the loo. He saw that I'd seen him and left. I kept my trap shut and of course suddenly found myself playing uncharacteristically and collecting ahem...cough.. the 20p-80p, sorry £2-£8 wins....