Playtech rigged slots?

[Richas]

Hi all,

This is the Playtech response I just received:

'Back then (2004 and earlier), it was very usual that the reel sets of games were modified several times before the game actually went live – to fine tune the probabilities...'

As suspected, the deviation occurred prior to the game being released, and therefore the performance of real play is as advertised from the game's launch.

Regards,

Aaron

Are they really sure?

It stretches credibility to believe that for 9 years this has gone unnoticed by every site that hosts these games and was not picked up by every site starting to host these games over that period. I'd love to see that list of sites who have hosted these games and when they started to host them, it would include a lot of firms wouldn't it? Every single one failed to check the software as required by their licence (GRA are not the only ones who would object to this) when they first started to host it? I don't think so.

It is far more credible to hypothesize that sites trust Playtech to make minor s/w upgrades after they have assessed the games and as many other sites are using them too the value of reviewing and testing those upgrades by each site looks like little or nothing compared to the cost of a thorough review for every s/w upgrade seem excessive.

Do Playtech really want to throw all their partners to the wolves on this as every licenced site has due diligence requirements on starting to host games and reviewing their games regularly. Do they really want to say that nearly the whole industry does not do basic tests of regulatory compliance for new games, that when the GRA started to licence people many sites went live with a non compliant game so that for pretty much every day that they have been licenced they have been breaking the regulatory rules?

Do Playtech really want to say that when they agree to host Playtech software Playtech fail to check that the software they deploy to their partners meets regulatory rules?

This response from Playtech, which I suspect is an aside rather than the outcome of a proper review says everybody else failed and Playtech failed..... for NINE YEARS.

Plus of course it really did not take long for a player to detect it post the Finsoft incident and they looked at the play versions so it is hard to believe it could go unreported for so long.

A much more credible theory is that the reels on long established games are changed from time to time. This either alters the t-RTP, the optimal play or both. I can understand the motive for that, it seems possible.

That every site that has ever hosted these games failed to check them and that no site had the fault reported to them by a player and that Playtech never checked the play game either on launch or at any stage since including when passing the software to new partners.....that's not a tale the industry wants to be close to true.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Hi all,

This is the Playtech response I just received:

'Back then (2004 and earlier), it was very usual that the reel sets of games were modified several times before the game actually went live – to fine tune the probabilities...'

As suspected, the deviation occurred prior to the game being released, and therefore the performance of real play is as advertised from the game's launch.

Regards,

Aaron

I hope Playtech realise that this reply makes their development team look highly incompetent. One would expect that just before release, both the real and fun versions would have been recompiled to ensure both matched and were up to date.

This reply indicates that the fun version was essentially a beta version, and during the pre release testing and tweaking, was never revisited to ensure that changes to the real and fun versions matched.

Given that there is a requirement for real and fun versions to behave the same, it seems that Playtech made the most fundamental error of all, releasing the games in a state of non compliance right from the start in 2004 (or earlier). Since fun play is never recorded on the server, no audits can be performed on it's outputs, so there is no way for operators to check that they are in compliance with the regulations. This means that the only way such a problem will come to light is when a player spots it, and presents their evidence.

This method of checking for errors is going to make the software supplier and operators look bad, as something has to make players suspicious, and it seems to have been the Finsoft incident that triggered players to lose enough trust in the softwares to start looking to see whether other softwares had similar issues.

Perhaps ALL operators should review their games, especially the older ones, for they too may have a non compliant setup just waiting to embarrass them that has yet to be noticed by players.

One good thing, the RTP is a shade over 99%, which is very good for a slot game, and shows that this was not an attempt to screw over players by dropping the RTP to an unacceptable level and trying to keep this hidden, which seems to be what worried players thought to be the motive for changing the real money version.

 

[Richas]

One good thing, the RTP is a shade over 99%, which is very good for a slot game, and shows that this was not an attempt to screw over players by dropping the RTP to an unacceptable level and trying to keep this hidden, which seems to be what worried players thought to be the motive for changing the real money version.

That's the theoretical rate. I would still like clarity that between 2004 and now neither the t-RTP or the optimal play has been altered in the real game. I am not convinced that Playtech have said without doubt that neither has been altered since 2004.

Having a game with a high theoretical RTP and then changing the optimal play without notification once players start to play the game better would be a rip off. It is also a credible reason for the mismatch arising, a more likely situation for a mismatch than "it was launched by us with a mismatch and no firm hosting it ever noticed for nine years and we didn't notice either".

The game must have a version history, with dates of when it was updated. How many updates to the s/w have happened in nine years? When were they and what did they do if none of them altered the optimal play or the RTP?

 

[Richas]

The UKGC is about to have a consultation on their Licence Conditions and Code of Practice (LCCP). It will focus on remote gambling.
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I am doing it a bit of prep in order to respond to the consultation and will likely use this Playtech case as part of the submission (a bit of an aside really my main focus will be poker and player fund guarantees). Anyway this thread seems to have died with the play versions having been fixed and the games relaunched. This leaves outstanding questions on

• Was the play money game realy faulty for nine years on multiple sites?
• Was the optimal strategy of this high T-RTP game changed?
• was the RTP changed without notice or recertification?
• what, if any, regulatory action resulted from this clear breech?

Did any new information come to light on this Playtech issue? Any other announcements, maybe in a new/different thread, which I have missed?