Rival Casino Software Auditing issues

ThePOGG

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After posting this thread yesterday - https://www.casinomeister.com/forum...ytech-rival-and-dragonfish-888.68722/?t=68722 - some interesting information's come to light regarding Rival's game testing that's followed on from this thread. There appears to be some not insubstantial links between Rival and testing company CertainKey.com. They've shared Google Analytics accounts with the official Rival site a few years ago and they still share a Google Analytics account with a few of the Rival casinos that are widely believed to be Rival owned. See
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For those who don't run websites, Google Analytics is the tool that tracks traffic coming to your website. It's very useful information for a website owner, but unlike things like sharing a hosting provider there's not really any good reason that I can think of that you'd have sites owned by different people tracked to the same GA account. Just because I can't think of it doesn't mean there's no possible justification for this, but a testing lab should be an independent 3rd party so this does look very odd.
 
Thanks CM - was only posted there as that was the original source for the CertainKey info.

NP - just don't want people to start quoting others in the thread who may have dormant accounts.

Interesting info though. I'm not sure I ever checked into CertainKey - having it in the same analytics account is quite the schoolboy error.

So it is truly not a 3rd party as they claim - unless they have the same webmasters and that's where the relationship stops.
 
Could it not be a bit of 'lateral integration' whereby they simply own the site and don't run it? A bit like eBay when they owned Paypoo?

Then again, it is Rival we are talking about and they above all are aware of their past reputation so I am inclined to believe that if not an error in the technical way Bryan was referring to, it is certainly an 'error of judgement'.....:oops:
 
Could it not be a bit of 'lateral integration' whereby they simply own the site and don't run it? A bit like eBay when they owned Paypoo?

Then again, it is Rival we are talking about and they above all are aware of their past reputation so I am inclined to believe that if not an error in the technical way Bryan was referring to, it is certainly an 'error of judgement'.....:oops:

Where you're marketing an online company knowledge of your traffic is essential to being successful. Unless both Rival and CertainKey were outsourcing the management of their websites and the online marketing of their product it's difficult to see why you'd have someone else with access to your GA data.

For Rival, a group that specifically focused on marketing an online only product, it'd be a very strange decision (imo) to hand the their site over to a 3rd party to market.

CertainKey are a game testing lab and they'd logically want to ensure that no-one could question their independence from any group that they were testing. This would be a hell of an oversight/coincidence to not check that the 3rd party you outsourced your website to isn't also working for any of your clients, never mind one of your major clients.
 
I remember talking to a Rival rep about 2 yrs ago about getting the games tested he at that time implied they were going to be using a standard 3rd party site to test the games.
I also know he complained about the cost you need to pay per slot with some of the larger RNG testers ...

Guess they decided to take the cheap way out and created their own testing company..:rolleyes:
 
The Rival people had responded to Bryan, he asked me to post from their reply since he's away this week:
As for 'Certainkey', it was a company that helped design and test the RNG for the slot games. (emphasis on RNG, so not the same as 'full game testing' that would encompass the accuracy of game graphics etc). Upon development in 2004, the RNG for the slot games was built via the Fortuna Implementation (or
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CSRNG). The test for the RNG was designed by CertainKey and was " deemed sufficient in meeting the principle design goals defined by
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and
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in their original treatment of the algorithm." " No anomalies were found". At the same time the RNG was tested using the United States National Institute for Standards in Technology Statistical Test Suite Verification which provides a randomness test tool. Again, no anomalies were detected. Since then, the RNG has never been altered, replaced or changed in anyway.
 
Great news that Rival have changed their position on the Baccarat game. I'm disappointed with the response I received at first, but when a group does the right thing they have to be given credit for that.

The statement regarding the RNG doesn't really tell us much though. Previous statements (via CM) had acknowledged that CertainKey were involved in RNG testing for Rival, that doesn't explain why a testing company would be sharing a GA account with Rival or continue to share a GA account with several Rival casinos. This group have been represented as 3rd party testers of some form or another in the past. Independence from the party they're testing for is crucial.

I am very glad to see SQS acknowledge as their testing party (see the Baccarat thread) and somewhat intrigued as to why they're not stating that more openly (though I'm confident that there's legitimate legal reasons for this decision).
 

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