Can tournament/promotion results be trusted?

[zap987]

I recently took part in a promotion run by Desert Dollar casino. One of the categories was highest number of spins on Thunderstruck or Big Kahuna with 10 winners being paid.

I deposited some money and played for a while, then set it at autospin 9999 spins betting 0.01 when I went to sleep. I managed to get a total of about 40000 spins, maybe more as I was disconnected and lost one long session result. With all settings set to maximize speed both these slots can get to just over 2000 spins/hour on autoplay and much less with normal play. It should be safe to assume only players really trying for this prize category will have a chance to get enough spins which should limit the competition.

I was quite surprised when I didn't even finish in the top 10 list.
I don't doubt there might be other players trying to be smart and do the same thing, and they might certainly beat me since I didn't play for the full time the promotion was running.

What I really can't understand though, is that they had a very similar tournament earlier the same week. Not one winner is the same. I would expect if someone had success in the first tournament, using a strategy specifically designed to win a prize for most spins, they would have no reason not to do it again a few days later. Maybe not all 10 on the list, but at least one or a few names would be the same. On the other hand, if there were so many players doing this the huge majority would not have gotten a prize in the last tournament and not bothered trying again. In my mind it just doesn't add up.

I sent an email asking how many spins the winner and 10th place had made so I could compare with my number. Reply from customer service was that they were not allowed to give that information out. I find it just a bit hard to accept playing a game and being told 'You lost' but not the actual results of the game. Sent another email with some furter questions and was only told the promotion had a huge amount of participation and players made thousands of spins.

I'm not saying they are rigging the tournament results to reward players they like, for all I know there could have been 1000s of players only trying to get a ton of spins. I have no idea how many players there are in total in the casino even.

I certainly don't like that the results are secret though and if anyone was thinking of doing something similar, now you know to save your money.

 

[jpm]

I"ve never liked those promotions where you have to have the most of anything, but the casino refuses to give you specific results. I used to play a very similar tournament at a playtech casino, and could get over 100,000 spins during a weekend very easily. And I would see the same names placing each week (including me sometimes). If I didn't place, they'd at least tell me how far I was from placing (roughly) and would tell me roughly how many spins #1 got.

There's no reason why they can't tell you this if its a legitimate tournament at a legitimate casino. If they won't tell you, then I wouldn't trust any of their promotional contests and certainly wouldn't play there again!

 

[dave_r]

If you can't even trust land based casinos to run legitimate tournaments/promotions/contests, why in hell would you trust online casinos to do the same:

Old / Expired Link

What's so amazing about the above article, is that all of the people fired by the Venetian have now been rehired by other land based casinos.

Absolutely mindboggling.

 

[dave_r]

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

 

[jpm]

Wow dave, thanks for that info. That REALLY pisses me off, but doesn't surprise me. I've always believed it was the high rolling (high losing) players who win any kind of substantial prizes at the so-called 'contests'. Particularly online.

 

[dave_r]

In the case of Desert Dollar, I wouldn't rest until the casino provides to you a winners list. Even if they don't want to provide you the names of the players, the least they could do is tell you how many spins each of these players made.

There's no way to know if Desert Dollar is telling the truth, and there is no regulatory authority to hold Desert Dollar accountable.

I must admit Desert Dollar has a good overall reputation overall reputation. (Cust service, speed of payouts, reliability, and so forth.)

But even the most reputable casinos will do whatever it takes to keep thier high rollers happy and if they have to rig a contest to do so, then so be it.

 

[zap987]

Thanks for the interesting links.

They did provide a list of winners on their webpage. First they sent out their newsletter saying the list was up but some old list was shown at the link. After 2 emails the real list was up about 24h later. Strange that they didn't recieve 100s of emails from the other players that spent 24+ hours playing the game only to get tons of spins and fixed it much faster.

Have only had my account there for about 3 weeks and in everything else they have been really good, fast replies and cashouts.

If it had actually been the same names winning as the previous tournament like for jpm, I would have just figured I needed more dedication if I wanted to win but for all 10 winners to be different seems really strange.

 

[jpm]

Those contests always tell the winner's name, but never the winning amount of bets/spins/etc.