Is internet gambling 'doomed'?

[DepositSpinLose]

all i know is that i am doomed. i have not won anything for near 2 months and no less than 40 deposits. friggin u.s gov!!!!!

 

[Rusty]

Ha ha try over 300 deposits without a cashout all software. Of course I have been ahead a few times in that lot but usually shortly after a deposit or ona bonus where I couldn't cash out.

Here are two typical sessions in the last week.

IGT 338 spins zero bonus rounds 38% RTP

MGS 550 spins zero bonus rounds 42% RTP

Those stas would of been impossible a few years ago which tells us just how low the RTP is being set at some casinos or just how much the weighting goes into overdrive when the casino is on the take.

If you are very lucky you will get some play time and entertainment but who wants to play at high stakes with those odds?

I have not got over 90% return with any software playing slots yret they all advertise over 90% and up to 97%.
Maybe my millions (billions probably) of game instances are too smaller sample size though

As for the industry dying, nah.
They have obviously calculated that they make more money by ripping their customers off than having them enjoy more playtime - whether that is short sighted or not I don't know but those of us who played from the early days probably still play (maybe less but still play) and we all know the slots play nothing like they used to.

Anyway if out and out rogues can turn a profit I am sure big brand names can.

 

[takethemoney]

Rusty, even the most riskiest stocks pay better than casinos lately. I'm headed back to day trading. My rtp on that was running over 96% when I quit. I lost 78k one day and that was just too big of a blow for me to keep going. It's looking much more attractive now!

 

[DiamondGeezer]

Ha ha try over 300 deposits without a cashout all software. Of course I have been ahead a few times in that lot but usually shortly after a deposit or ona bonus where I couldn't cash out.

Here are two typical sessions in the last week.

IGT 338 spins zero bonus rounds 38% RTP

MGS 550 spins zero bonus rounds 42% RTP

Those stas would of been impossible a few years ago which tells us just how low the RTP is being set at some casinos or just how much the weighting goes into overdrive when the casino is on the take.

If you are very lucky you will get some play time and entertainment but who wants to play at high stakes with those odds?

I have not got over 90% return with any software playing slots yret they all advertise over 90% and up to 97%.
Maybe my millions (billions probably) of game instances are too smaller sample size though

As for the industry dying, nah.
They have obviously calculated that they make more money by ripping their customers off than having them enjoy more playtime - whether that is short sighted or not I don't know but those of us who played from the early days probably still play (maybe less but still play) and we all know the slots play nothing like they used to.

Anyway if out and out rogues can turn a profit I am sure big brand names can.

Rusty I still find it very hard to take onboard you lost 300 deposits yet I know you are a sincere and thoughtful poster. And why would you make something like this up?

It's very difficult to work out what is going on without knowing if you take bonuses and also what your target cashout is. Like if you are taking 100/75 coupons and going for a 7x cashout then you are going to have a 80-90% failure rate. But if you were depositing 100 without bonus and trying to double it then 300 failures would be impossible.

It would be interesting to test your target and fail rate in excel as they have some excellent function keys for this sort of thing. If you put in target and HA it can return a SD figure I think. I know this sounds somewhat vague but excel can be a useful tool is what I am saying.

Could another explanation be that early in your career you went on a very hot streak beating HA by a coonsiderable margin and this is a process of rebalancing?

Slots are just so hard to get a grip on. When I look at H1_Roller's screenshots in winners threat they are jaw dropping with their regularity. I mean I went about two years without a big slots win after hitting about 900x on Hitman. I've lost thousands in slots in this period but done well from VP which has covered a lot of the shortfall. Then in the last couple of weeks I have had a bunch of good slot wins, a 550x, 200x and about three +100x's. So in my experience slot wins can be very clumpy, it does seem to be a feast or famine situation.

The gold medal one for me has to be Scary Rich. About a year ago a poster here went on a mental run posting incredible screenshouts. Well I've pumped sick amounts into that game and haven't even hit 100x. Infact most of the time it would be hundreds of spins before a feature and then a 6x win. Once at $2 spins I lost $1000 in $2400 wagered.

Slots are definitely wacky. To get the amount of wins H1_Roller gets I would have to employ a couple of people to play for me! I honestly think I could play 24/7 and not generate the amount of wins she gets (and good luck to her I love seeing them btw).

Rusty from my end I would say that although I personally have not done well from slots I am still convinced the RTP's are correct and fair. From what I've experienced the worst it gets is one bonus every 500 spins and a short term payback of 40% when running badly. These runs can last a fair while too.

If you are depositing a smallish amount like 100 and playing say 2 unit spins then I guess 300 losses could be plausable. Someone somewhere will be running at SD-3 over a long period and maybe that unlucky person is you.

If we take a sample of 1000 players doing 300 deposits you would expect a large diversion in outcomes. The interesting thing is that even if you put RTP down to say 90% without telling anybody there would still be a significant number of winning players out of the 1000 who would still believe they were playing at 95%. If you play around with the numbers I think you could prove that luck is a bigger factor that RTP. In other words you could still have 200 overall winners say but the other 800 would have bigger losses.

Rusty I know the crux of your argument is that RTP is being lowered on you causing your losses but while that could be possible I think the explanation lies elsewhere personally. But keep working at it because even if you were proved wrong it's a very valuable exercise. And while I personally believe RTP's are correct at MG say there is always room for error deliberate or accidental so it's good to keep on top of these guys.

 

[ksech]

A lot of good reading and opinions in this thread!

I am hoping that sometime in the near future online gambling for the US player will become a workable reality. Although, with our governments' track record of finances lately, I'm not sure anything they come up with will be good for the cybergambler. Instead of spending millions of dollars on some of the "crazy" committees/sub-committees. yadda yadda yadda...They could spend OUR tax dollars to try to figure out how to make online gambling lucretive. Just possibly, regulating (not dictating) online gambling could generate enough money over a period of time to pull the US out of this near devastating financial crisis we are in.

In my opinion, we will see a big change in the "atmosphere" of how online gaming will survive and operate. It is probably a pipedream to think the likes of some of the roguest casinos will disappear forever, but one can always hope and dream The loss of US gamblers will hurt, BUT it doesn't seem to have had an adverse effect on the MG casinos when they pulled the rug out from under US players, the more reputable MG casinos seem to still be thriving.

Another question(s) could be asked...For the casinos still catering to the US players, if they slam the door shut on the US players, will they change the way they deal with their player base from the countries they are still taking? Will things such as withdrawal problems decrease? Will better bonuses be tossed out?

 

[Rusty]

Rusty I still find it very hard to take onboard you lost 300 deposits yet I know you are a sincere and thoughtful poster. And why would you make something like this up?

It's very difficult to work out what is going on without knowing if you take bonuses and also what your target cashout is. Like if you are taking 100/75 coupons and going for a 7x cashout then you are going to have a 80-90% failure rate. But if you were depositing 100 without bonus and trying to double it then 300 failures would be impossible.

It would be interesting to test your target and fail rate in excel as they have some excellent function keys for this sort of thing. If you put in target and HA it can return a SD figure I think. I know this sounds somewhat vague but excel can be a useful tool is what I am saying.

Could another explanation be that early in your career you went on a very hot streak beating HA by a coonsiderable margin and this is a process of rebalancing?

Slots are just so hard to get a grip on. When I look at H1_Roller's screenshots in winners threat they are jaw dropping with their regularity. I mean I went about two years without a big slots win after hitting about 900x on Hitman. I've lost thousands in slots in this period but done well from VP which has covered a lot of the shortfall. Then in the last couple of weeks I have had a bunch of good slot wins, a 550x, 200x and about three +100x's. So in my experience slot wins can be very clumpy, it does seem to be a feast or famine situation.

The gold medal one for me has to be Scary Rich. About a year ago a poster here went on a mental run posting incredible screenshouts. Well I've pumped sick amounts into that game and haven't even hit 100x. Infact most of the time it would be hundreds of spins before a feature and then a 6x win. Once at $2 spins I lost $1000 in $2400 wagered.

Slots are definitely wacky. To get the amount of wins H1_Roller gets I would have to employ a couple of people to play for me! I honestly think I could play 24/7 and not generate the amount of wins she gets (and good luck to her I love seeing them btw).

Rusty from my end I would say that although I personally have not done well from slots I am still convinced the RTP's are correct and fair. From what I've experienced the worst it gets is one bonus every 500 spins and a short term payback of 40% when running badly. These runs can last a fair while too.

If you are depositing a smallish amount like 100 and playing say 2 unit spins then I guess 300 losses could be plausable. Someone somewhere will be running at SD-3 over a long period and maybe that unlucky person is you.

If we take a sample of 1000 players doing 300 deposits you would expect a large diversion in outcomes. The interesting thing is that even if you put RTP down to say 90% without telling anybody there would still be a significant number of winning players out of the 1000 who would still believe they were playing at 95%. If you play around with the numbers I think you could prove that luck is a bigger factor that RTP. In other words you could still have 200 overall winners say but the other 800 would have bigger losses.

Rusty I know the crux of your argument is that RTP is being lowered on you causing your losses but while that could be possible I think the explanation lies elsewhere personally. But keep working at it because even if you were proved wrong it's a very valuable exercise. And while I personally believe RTP's are correct at MG say there is always room for error deliberate or accidental so it's good to keep on top of these guys.

You're right DG it is not really about the number of deposits without a cashout as you suggest, that is just a nice little statistic to emphasise how tight the games have become, it is really about whether the RTP is lower than it used to be or if the slots are weighted and the RTP can be altered through this weighting.

Likewise it doesn't really matter that my last two bonus rounds on Summer Holiday and Cashapillar paid around x5 bet and x 2 bet respectively, sometimes they pay more and maybe it doesn't matter that it is fairly common now to play through several hundred spins with many lines but get an RTP under 50% on so called low variance slots.
But those are nice little factoids that when compared with play years ago seems to more than hint that things have changed.
Do you not feel that free spin rounds pay less in general?
The amount of time I spin 15 blanks or close to is much more frequent IMO though I don't have the stats on that.

My play I probably play a bonus about 20% of the time and generally I flat bet and always low-roll.
If I hit a nice win or have a good run (few and far between) the general pattern is that from the zenith of my balance (the only way is down I know ) the games will turn very cold.
Now of course we are talking about a losing streak by definition so we must get a lower than expected rate of return in this period but the thing is the streaks last as long as my balance and are brutal.
You may play and lose and not get much fun but your return will probably be around 75% or so, these streaks are generally anywhere between 35% and 65% RTP.
So in a good session with a possible cashout opportunity but playing until bust it may be that the overall RTP was 96% - fair enough but what about the majority of deposits that return between 70% to 85% and how is it there is the pattern of "kill mode" in random software?

Why is it that bonus giving scatter symbols or stacked wilds simply disappear for long stretches of play after a good win or two?
This is just an observation and I have not done any analysis but try checking your gamelogs and noting how much free spin rounds paid after taking a few hundred spins+ to hit. My feeling is that they pay much less than the average which would be very strong evidence of the weighting algorithms at work but it would take forever to gather all the data and as I say it is just a perception/observation at the moment.

Anyway as I always say it doesn't really matter about my personal results either (Except to me) and you are right play style can make a difference in the short term to RTP but in the long term it shouldn't matter.
What matters is your own results and to this end you are all free to request audits of your accounts.
Whether you will get them or not is another matter but if you do I suggest you get a year by year RTP from the software companies inclusive of all your accounts or if you only play at a couple of casinos then a full casino audit will do.

In my figures my RTP is below the advertised (well below some software) in all years except the first. That is with software companies I play often, I really don't know about software that I play irregularly.
If you are getting different results to me then I have no real explanation but be thankful you are.

On the thread that got closed.
Nifty, you are a hypocrite. You ask for proof that you are a shill (It is splattered all around these boards like verbal diarrhoea) but you don't expect me to ask you for proof that I am lying as you suggest in your cowardly little snipe in the other thread.

So I will ask you now, prove that I am lying as you suggest.
That should be easy with these boards being full of Reps of casinos I have played.
If you can't and I know you can't I suggest you keep your accusations to yourself instead of proving you are the sock puppet I know you to be.

As for anyone suggesting you have been threatened with physical violence - well that is typical of the double speak that permeates all discussion these days.
Folk trying to make out I am being an internet tough guy by telling you you had better hope we don't meet personally after you call me a liar- that makes me laugh.
Anyone is free to call me a liar behind the computer screen but when they get called out and it is flipped to suggest I am the internet warrior - yeah that makes me laugh.

I am one of the people on these boards who will repeat exactly what they state here in front of your face in person, close up, nobody need worry about that.
That doesn't mean I think I am a tough guy, it makes me honest - a concept certain people seem to have great difficulty in comprehending.

I can and have had many civil arguments or discussions with people who work within or promoting the industry - several of them are decent folk I would happily do business despite any differences but you and your asinine posts I have no time for.

Anyone can question my conclusions regarding the data - there are many threads that involve such discussions and where it is integral to the discussion or the point I am making I provide the data.
You know I can back up what I post so instead of trying to suggest I was wrong about not cashing out for 6 months you tried to imply I am twisting the truth, lying essentially, which is your modus operandi - cowardly snipes.

 

[4 of a kind]

The dire economical times presently being experienced and shared through out the world have caused all forms of corrections within almost all businesses big and small.

Casinos both land and online are also under the same economic pressures. I can’t begin to tell you how many articles I’ve read exploiting the land based casinos dire financial conditions, which for some are becoming a serious concern, and have followed up with assorted cut backs like labor, perks, general overhead, and yes games.

Slot machines being the major source of income for casinos would be the first to be adjusted. One to three percentage points could change the bottom line for any casino.

Where does everyone here think the online casinos have the ability to adjust their take?

Their labor force should be minimal when compared to land based casinos. Their perks online certainly don’t mean anything. What perks are offered anyhow other then a phony looking bankroll created by a bullshit bonus. Becoming a VIP online usually means nothing more then being able to cash out more on a weekly base. At land based casinos even the once a year visitor can leave the same day with a 200K cash out in hand.

Online casinos have no choice but to pursue a better house take when the market weakens. There is no where else to make any impact.

I haven’t played online for about a year now. But prior to quitting I became convinced that from 2008 to 2010, the RTP’s were already being lowered.

I heard of the alleged rules administered by software providers that the operators can not adjust their RTP’s and all the other alleged nonsense between them; which by the way can't be confirmed one way or other unless you have confidence in the he said, she said, he said, dribble.

So where do online casinos make adjustments when things are not going so well?