Casino Lobby

[me_and_ed]

Hi again,

I am sorry that you feel that way. I can only let you know the reasons for the problem, and what we are going to do to square everything up.


Jonathan

I guess I just dont have tolerance for a casino that takes money from unsuspecting customers for games that are "improperly functioning to the casino's advantage" (was that politically correct?), how long would this have gone on if this hadn't been posted? It's great that you are not hiding but its going to be pretty tough to save face.

 

[vinylweatherman]

I guess I just dont have tolerance for a casino that takes money from unsuspecting customers for games that are "improperly functioning to the casino's advantage" (was that politically correct?), how long would this have gone on if this hadn't been posted? It's great that you are not hiding but its going to be pretty tough to save face.

We don't know how long this was going on for, but we DO know that it was until this thread arose. I find it hard to believe players did not contact CS when they kept getting these weird hands; or perhaps they did, and got the usual brush off "our games use a state of the art RNG....... you were just unlucky..... etc.
Are there any players here who DID raise this internally with CS, and if so, when, and what was the responce.
Does anyone know how long the multihand games were available?

Apart from all this, how are the casino still in business with even the OLD single hand games set at up to 109% return???
Other casinos have been burned with VP set to as little as 100.1%, such an obvious advantage as 109% would be on all the "bonus" forums the minute it was spotted, and at 100%+ no bonus would have been necessary (thus no convoluted excuses for non-payment).

I can only assume this "error" was frequent enough to offset the 109% paytable, and thus there was never a problem for the casino. The "error" must also be in the single hand games, but has gone unnoticed - it would take a lot of hands to figure out there was such a problem there, enough high pairs, for example, to show that too many hands remained unimproved on the draw.

 

[totalesoft]

Hi again,

Yes, I agree it is very difficult to save face with this issue - and I understand completely that you would not have a tolerance for casinos who are deliberately trying to "rip-off" their customers.

However, this was a genuine error on one type of game. I know I keep saying that, but it is true I have done, and am doing everything I can to ensure any affected player is reimbursed with their money back and with extra compensation. I've had the casino taken offline while we are thoroughly testing to make sure that everything is working correctly. I've taken accusations (understandable in the circumstances) of "rigging". I've taken accusations of being a BS-er in good grace. I've kept everyone up to date on this forum every step of the way. I've even answered questions on unrelated matters. Short of falling on my sword, there is little else I am able to do

When our software goes live again, I'd like to think that we could be given a second chance to redeem ourselves. After 4 years of successful operation with very few complaints - and no accusations of rigging, it would be disappointing to be "rogued" because of one genuine error. Again, I do welcome anyone to go over the software and try it, when we go live.

Jonathan

 

[vinylweatherman]

Hi again,

Yes, I agree it is very difficult to save face with this issue - and I understand completely that you would not have a tolerance for casinos who are deliberately trying to "rip-off" their customers.

However, this was a genuine error on one type of game. I know I keep saying that, but it is true I have done, and am doing everything I can to ensure any affected player is reimbursed with their money back and with extra compensation. I've had the casino taken offline while we are thoroughly testing to make sure that everything is working correctly. I've taken accusations (understandable in the circumstances) of "rigging". I've taken accusations of being a BS-er in good grace. I've kept everyone up to date on this forum every step of the way. I've even answered questions on unrelated matters. Short of falling on my sword, there is little else I am able to do

When our software goes live again, I'd like to think that we could be given a second chance to redeem ourselves. After 4 years of successful operation with very few complaints - and no accusations of rigging, it would be disappointing to be "rogued" because of one genuine error. Again, I do welcome anyone to go over the software and try it, when we go live.

Jonathan

There have been calls for this, but it is ultimately up to Bryan. As he does not usually work weekends, I expect he will get to see how this issue has progressed on Monday.
Certainly, there have been many instances of genuine errors creeping into the casino releases, probably the worst was the "English Harbour" case.
However, there are MANY rogues who DELIBERATELY run rigged software, and protest their innocence when challenged. This is probably the main reason that once a software is shown to produce non-random results, it is VERY hard to rebuild trust in the brand.

I'm afraid your affiliate package site does you no favours whatsoever, it being pretty much a clone of "startyourowncasino.com", which is known to be rigged software, and they don't deny it on their site either (they just describe it differently as "guaranteed profit margins etc...".).

There is also the question of "Package 1", the "Microgaming affiliate mini-site", and whether this is the root of the notorious "Mint Las Vegas" fake casino site, that instead downloads various genuine MG casinos, and is promoted 99% through aggressive spamming campaigns.

 

[totalesoft]

Vinylweatherman,

I have no knowledge of anything regarding "startyourowncasino.com". They are certainly nothing to do with us. I have just tried to access that site and there just seems to be a placeholder there. Our affiliate program does not make any kind of offer of guaranteed profit margins - and if we did, I definitely wouldn't have joined in this thread. I expect that if our site is similar, then it will be them who have copied us. We have been online with our program since 2001 - again with few complaints and no accusations of any kind of rigging.

Regarding "Mint Las Vegas", could you let me know where that can be found? I will definitely check into that. We have T&C that say spamming is certainly not allowed and that they will be removed from the program if it is done. I have checked mintlasvegas.com, but there is no site for it. It should be pretty easy to find out who they are from the affiliate ID on the Roxy download they are using.

Back to our software - we have received no complaints to our customer service about the multi-hand video poker. If we had, we would have checked right away and this thread would never have come about. As I mentioned before, this was the first time I had heard about it, and I acted immediately to stop the software being used while it was sorted out. The single line poker only had that paytable rate for very very short periods, to give an incentive to new customers to play. So while it did cost us money, it was for a limited time and was not part of the initial bonus wagering requirements at the time.

I agree that it is not easy to rebuild trust once a problem occurs, and I don't expect everyone to say "OK, we forgive you", but I just hope that you will give us the chance to redeem ourselves over time.

I am away from my computer until Sunday/Monday now, so I will be unable to catch up here until then.

Jonathan

 

[happygobrokey]

what we need is some continuity.

how long, during what periods, were the paytables set to 100%+ ?

how long was this "bug" in place (when was the game/s installed or critically updated prior to this to incorporate the "error/crash quick-fix")?

do the glitches occur frequently enough (take in enough money) to offset the respective paytables/return%? (well the screenies posted before were of the first two hands of a session if i recall, so maybe this point is solved already)

how long have there been complaints of this (if any were made), and what was the casino's response at that time?

and perhaps most importantly, how many players faced how many instances of this glitch? is the casino going to go broke paying back double what they took in off the glitch, on top of the 100%+ vp they provide? what's the line this casino doesn't "come live again"?

the problem is, none of the loyal readers here have frequented that casino in the what was it, 4 years, they have been pleasing customers?

how can we solicit testimonies from non-CM-members who might have played there and had issues? perhaps some of the webmasters here could put up warnings on your sites and ask them to email you or come here with any stories?

 

[totalesoft]

Hi again,

I will get the information you requested on Monday when I am back in the office. What I can tell you right now is that there were no complaints to our customer service about the problem. The first time our attention was brought to it was through this thread. I hope you will agree that our responses and actions since we have been informed about it have been acceptable.

What I would like to suggest is to give a couple of members/moderators on this forum an account each at TheCasinoLobby.com and ask them to play as many VP hands as they wish (and any other game, if required). I will ensure this also contains a Real Money Balance, so that it can be seen that there is no difference in the software for real money or free players. Maybe the person who first noticed the issue, and even Bryan if he would like to?

Further to this, I would also be happy with regular "spot-checks", if so desired.

I would ideally like to draw a line under this issue now and move forward so that we can start to repair our relationships with players and readers. Hopefully what I am offering is the best way to do this.

Jonathan

 

[SlotsWizard]

I re-downloaded and re-installed the software and played in free mode. I see the paytable for Great British Poker at least, has been adjusted to a reasonable payout level.

I didn't play for very long, but the payouts seemed to be more reasonable, although I'm still a little skeptical that it is 100% random. In the 50-hand poker, I was dealt pat 2 pair and kept the 2 pair. On the draw, I only got 1 full house out of 50 (expected number of full houses = 50 * 4/47 = approximately 4). The next time I got 2 pair and held them, I got 2 full houses on the draw. This is a very small sample of course, but it still seems like the larger hands appear less than expected.

I think part of the problem is the way the 50 result hands are visually presented - all at once, instead of 1 at a time scrolling from left-to-right, top-to-bottom.

I will check it out a little more at a later date. For now I give it a tentative OK.

 

[vinylweatherman]

I re-downloaded and re-installed the software and played in free mode. I see the paytable for Great British Poker at least, has been adjusted to a reasonable payout level.

I didn't play for very long, but the payouts seemed to be more reasonable, although I'm still a little skeptical that it is 100% random. In the 50-hand poker, I was dealt pat 2 pair and kept the 2 pair. On the draw, I only got 1 full house out of 50 (expected number of full houses = 50 * 4/47 = approximately 4). The next time I got 2 pair and held them, I got 2 full houses on the draw. This is a very small sample of course, but it still seems like the larger hands appear less than expected.

I think part of the problem is the way the 50 result hands are visually presented - all at once, instead of 1 at a time scrolling from left-to-right, top-to-bottom.

I will check it out a little more at a later date. For now I give it a tentative OK.

In the same scenario at Microgaming, two pair held in the 50 hand game does indeed sometimes offer no improvement, and two samples are not enough to check for the average of 4 expected.

They MAY have changed the paytables due to the exposure received here - this makes sense given that potentially 10,000 players have been informed of the existence of 109% Video Poker. I presume under the original promotion the risk was smaller as only a few people were aware. I doubt the 109% paytable will be repeated again either!

It will be up to players who are interested to try the updated games to see if anything odd is going on.
If players report that all seems fine, or at least like Microgaming VP, then rebuilding of trust can begin.

Despite being around for 4 years, I only heard about Casino Lobby earlier this year, and it was mentioned on the forum shortly after this.
It may be that there white label scheme means that many players have experienced the software under a different name, and these other casinos MAY have generated complaints.
This can be assesssed by knowing all the casinos that run this software, and use the search function to check for complaints.

Next time I see a "Mint Las Vegas" spam - I will get details so that totalesoft can check it is not their customers.

The "Mint Las Vegas" site is NOT actually hosted on a "mintlasvegas.com" address, but instead on some odd looking multiple hosting sites of the form

xx:www.clickthrough.co.uk/mg-17 (Not the actual name of course).


It gives the impression that "mg-17" denotes which actual MG casino is to be downloaded on clicking on "Mint Las Vegas" casino.
It matches the description of what "package 1" is, but I very much doubt the totalesoft site is the only one offering this kind of kit.

In the absence of spamming (or direct mailing), how on earth DO these affiliates market their mini-sites for Roxy Palace. Surely Roxy Palace is so well marketed that any traffic would hit this, and never make it to some nondescript mini-site owned by an affiliate UNLESS they rented their own URL, and had some form of additional content that would get a ranking in the search engines.

 

[totalesoft]

Hi again,

I am just making a post to this thread to provide the answers I promised on Sunday, and to acknowledge the forum members for allowing me the chance to enter into a reasoned discussion.

Firstly, for happygobrokey: the multi-hand VP error had been in place since we released the newest types, 2 months ago. The number of real-money players affected was low, as the error was only occasional. All these players will receive their compensation over the next 48-72 hours. Our single-hand VP paytables had been offering the higher payout rate for 2-3 weeks, on 6 occasions for player incentive purposes over the last 2 years.

For SlotsWizard: All our VP paytables have been set to the standard rate, and you can be sure that we will not be changing them again, for any reason - promotional or not. If you decide to check out the games at any point in the future, you are most welcome to do so - and my offer to give you a real-money account to check to your satisfaction will stand permanently.

For vinylweatherman: I would appreciate any information you can provide on the Mint Las Vegas spam in the future. If you would like my personal email address, I will send it on to you. Saying that, I am almost 100% certain it has nothing to do with any of our members - we only added Roxy about 3-4 months ago, and it sounds like it has been going on well before that.

Again, I would like to express my thanks to the contributors to the thread for giving us the opportunity to start building our bridges again, and I'd just like to reiterate that we will do our utmost to ensure that an error like this does not occur in our software again.

Best regards to all,

Jonathan

 

[thelawnet]

We don't know how long this was going on for, but we DO know that it was until this thread arose. I find it hard to believe players did not contact CS when they kept getting these weird hands; or perhaps they did, and got the usual brush off "our games use a state of the art RNG....... you were just unlucky..... etc.
Are there any players here who DID raise this internally with CS, and if so, when, and what was the responce.

My emails in 2005 where I complained of software glitches and inability to withdrawa were ignored (except for the one where I had trouble depositing, funny how that one got answered) entirely, until, five months later, I found Jonathan's own email and contacted him in person.

 

[totalesoft]

Hi,

thelawnet - I have offered in a previous posting to talk to you and to provide satisfaction for the below-par customer service you may have received 2 years ago, in 2005. However, you made the point very clear that you had no interest in doing so, and would not be returning to our casino.

I do not want to turn this into a "past customer-service" thread, as it was originally the software error point that had been raised, and this might appear to "dilute" the importance of it. We had no multi-hand VP games at the time you played at our casino, and so the error that has been discussed would not have affected any of your games - all would have been totally random. A quick search for just about any company in the world would reveal some instances of customer service dissatisfaction, so we are not alone in that. However, one customer not satisfied is one customer too many.

If you would like to discuss the service you received, then please do not hesitate to contact me. Even though it was 2 years ago that you felt the service wasn't up to scratch, I am still willing to discuss it with you. You said on your postings that had I sorted the issue out for you at the time, once you had contacted me. You know from experience then, that I will do my very best to ensure your complaints are attended to promptly, and to your satisfaction.

Regards,

Jonathan

 

[vinylweatherman]

For vinylweatherman: I would appreciate any information you can provide on the Mint Las Vegas spam in the future. If you would like my personal email address, I will send it on to you. Saying that, I am almost 100% certain it has nothing to do with any of our members - we only added Roxy about 3-4 months ago, and it sounds like it has been going on well before that.

Spam that downloaded Roxy Palace was more than 4 months ago, more recently it has been Jupiter Club.
They still keep coming, not just "Mint Las Vegas". It is only possible to find out which real casino is offered by clicking on the spammed link and then downloading it and seeing the name when the installer starts (then you can cancel the install). This CAN be dangerous, as it may not actually BE a casino!

As for the VP, I hope that "standard" does not mean poor payouts compared to other operators. It is easy to work out the hold for each paytable and compare this with the same or similar games offered elsewhere.

When players are refunded, they should ALL be, not just those that noticed and complained. This was something Mansion tried, and it didn't go down too well, and in the end they refunded everybody they could indentify was affected from the game logs.

If it ever becomes necessary to alter paytables again, it should be done openly. For many games an alteration should be obvious, but for slots much less so. If the slots payouts are boosted for promotional reasons, it should be made clear this is part of a promotion, as any perceived drop in payouts without explanation will lead to the kind of suspicion that now dogs RTG slots.

 

[totalesoft]

vinylweatherman,

In that case, I am 100% confident that Mint Las Vegas is nothing to do with any of our members whatsoever.

Our VP paytables are still excellent, offering generally around the 98/99% mark. Anyone can compare them, simply by opening their chosen game.

With regards to paying affected customers, we will absolutely pay ALL affected - not to do so, particularly after my promises made for all to see would be the worst kind of move to make. There has been a big-enough mistake made already without compounding it to try to save a few dollars.

As to changing paytables, this is just something that will not happen again. Period. We can see that this only leads to suspicion - however unfounded.

Jonathan

 

[SlotsWizard]

As to changing paytables, this is just something that will not happen again. Period. We can see that this only leads to suspicion - however unfounded.

It's not just mere suspicion, and it wasn't unfounded. Evidence of the software being rigged can be found on page 2 of this thread.

There is absolutely no way a casino could possibly stay in business with 100% random (fair) video poker games with paytables that pay back more than 105%. To quote Michael Shackleford (The Wizard of Odds), "with just a small advantage of as little as 1% and a bankroll of as little as $100 you can grind your way to a million dollars through the gambling equivalent of compound interest".

Whether the rigging of the games was intentional or in error, it still happened. It may have been suspicion which prompted me to test them out, but that suspicion ultimately turned out to be accurate. I resent your claim that the suspicion was unfounded when, quite clearly, it was not.

 

[totalesoft]

Hi,

Please don't misunderstand me. I wasn't saying that your suspicion of our software was unfounded. I was making a general observation of casino software in general.

I have already accepted full responsibility for the error on our multi-hand games, so I am not trying to come out now and say there was no evidence to back your original postings - as there quite clearly was. I was just making the point that our VP games will now only ever have the standard paytables, as raising them for any reason, for any period of time will undoubtedly raise eyebrows as to whether the games are completely random in future.

Jonathan

 

[happygobrokey]

i don't think anyone's adverse to sweetened paytables, just not when the game is erroneous. you can pay more for the random hands, just make sure they're random.

 

[AussieDave]

Taking a look over at Link Removed ( Old/Invalid)

I see that "is 100% owned and operated by Mega Media Holding S.A, San Jos, Costa Rica."

Yet at the footer it states "interXcasino. Licensed by the government of Curacao, Netherlands Antilles".

As far as I'm aware if your licensed by the government of Curacao then your casino operations must also run out of this jurisdiction.

I've aways held the belief that casinos need (should) to be fully transparent. Using a hotmail account spells trouble. Include the whois info that's obviously bodgy makes me question the validity of the entire operation.

(whois inof same as Registrar of domain)

Administrative Contact:
messios, constantinos gkgkgk69@hotmail.com
honey child
P.O. Box 20483
Lefkosia, Maryland 2152
Cyprus
35722460446

 

[AussieDave]

Whether the rigging of the games was intentional or in error, it still happened.

Good point

It should also make it pretty clear that no legitimate auditing process was administered on the casino games/software before it was released. With the typo in the VIP payout scale I'd guess no Q&A was performed either.

Not good signs

 

[vinylweatherman]

Taking a look over at Link Removed ( Old/Invalid)

I see that "is 100% owned and operated by Mega Media Holding S.A, San Jos, Costa Rica."

Yet at the footer it states "interXcasino. Licensed by the government of Curacao, Netherlands Antilles".

As far as I'm aware if your licensed by the government of Curacao then your casino operations must also run out of this jurisdiction.

I've aways held the belief that casinos need (should) to be fully transparent. Using a hotmail account spells trouble. Include the whois info that's obviously bodgy makes me question the validity of the entire operation.

(whois inof same as Registrar of domain)

Administrative Contact:
messios, constantinos gkgkgk69@hotmail.com
honey child
P.O. Box 20483
Lefkosia, Maryland 2152
Cyprus
35722460446

They seem to move around alot!

That aside, InterX are not related to Casino Lobby, which is the subject of this thread. InterX are Futurebet:-

You mentioned some excellent points, and unfortunately not owning our own software, we simply dont have control of everything.


We have tried to make the process of playing as comfortable as possible without the software having a complete downloadable version, by creating a downloadable application that will launch the casino from your desktop the new link has not been configured, but heres a sneak preview - Link Removed ( Old/Invalid) , so soon you will receive an email to download the casino again from our homepage with the new version.


Our software provider is futurebet systems, and yes, they did have some sites that went bad. The good news is that they learnt a hard lesson from that experience and a new site has to go through a much more stringent process in order to get a license. InterXgaming is actually being looked at to bring them back into the good operators books by simply doing the right thing; we also take responsibility for all withdraws so we pay our players!

I ONLY played there because they were promoted by GoneGambling at the time, and I trusted that they would have done due dilligence that this casino would pay up. I cannot vouch for this either way, as I did not win, and I stopped playing once they left GoneGambling.

The Casino Lobby rep insists they have have nothing to do with Futurebet, and are Total E-soft, and they offer me very fat bonuses which I have been ignoring for a while. The drawback is that WR are only met with real funds, and you have to keep on depositing to chase the bonus balance in the account. You cannot even bet with the bonus balance. (This might have changed as it annoyed players at the time).

For some odd reason, both these casinos are "partners" of Intercasino according to their website, first noticed through backlinks in Google. There are a whole bunch of other casinos also partnered with Intercasino, such as Goth Casino (or something like that). They give the impression of being a bunch of "white labels" from the Total E-Soft brand, the ones they advertise for sale as "kits" on the Total E-Soft website.