Question roulette - is this normal?

[cncas2123]

playing roulette today on an accredited site, and i had 17 numbers covered at various stakes. i went on a run of hitting 1 number in 20 spins, my balance went from 1800 to 850 during tjis run.is this normal, and what are the odds of it happening?

 

[spoton]

If theres 1-36 numbers and one zero, then the chance of you not hitting would be (20/37). The odds of you not hitting 20 times in a row would be (20/37)^20=0.0004%, if my calculations are correct. So not a very big chance, but it will happends once in a while.

 

[goatwack]

Was it live roulette or the Megadrive version?

Because if it's the latter, I'd say the gameplay was dubious at best

 

[Spinson]

Sounds like a very cold run,

If European Roulette with 36 number and a single 0, you cover 17/37 so you should hit every 45.9% of the times.

My math is not great but a quick google gave me that flipping a coin 20 times (50/50 chance head vs tail) and getting heads 20 or tail 20 out of 20 is a rough 1 in a million chance. So you have experienced a very sick thing if you say you didnt have a single hit on any of the 17 numbers you picked in 20 spins

 

[cncas2123]

Was it live roulette or the Megadrive version?

Because if it's the latter, I'd say the gameplay was dubious at best

it was double spin bonus roulette, and i had one hit in 20 spins, i think this was part of a series of spins where i had 25 spins and 3 hits in total. i stopped and withdrew after another run off 14 losses in a row with 12 numbers covered - surprisingly when i had a sequence of 8 numbers covered i ept hitting the one number i didnt cover!! i had a similar run last night, and went from 1200 to zero in 10 minutes, and the casino responded to say i had 72% RTP which was in the normal range.
as a gambler, i dont expect to win, but i do hope to get a fair run and this seems like a very unfair run to me.

 

[goatwack]

Those figures are dismal indeed. Roulette is usually a 'safe' game and this is why bonus wagering is normally so low for it. Having about half of the numbers covered or even a third of the board should really entail more than 1 in 20 wins.

Of course strange sequences can occur, but come on, you'd have to have had broken several mirrors for this to happen to be honest

So I say firstly, unlucky, and secondly, stop playing there. Roulette is best played in an b & m casino

 

[cncas2123]

Those figures are dismal indeed. Roulette is usually a 'safe' game and this is why bonus wagering is normally so low for it. Having about half of the numbers covered or even a third of the board should really entail more than 1 in 20 wins.

Of course strange sequences can occur, but come on, you'd have to have had broken several mirrors for this to happen to be honest

So I say firstly, unlucky, and secondly, stop playing there. Roulette is best played in an b & m casino

yes, time to stop their, but ive emailed them to get my rtp and asked them if they consider this run fair game play. i checked with their support, and they refused to give me the rtp, they read from a script that said rtp worked over millions of spins and my lifetime rtp is average,but they just wouldnt answer the question as to what my rtp was,and how was it possible to have 17 numbers covered and hit only one number in 20 spins, i think their response was incredible " you cant win all the time" "its just a run of bad luck" "these things even themselves out" etc.
but yes, i will vote with my wallet and play elsewhere, but i will be interested to see the reply to my email.

 

[dunover]

I've never trusted any online roulette or BJ games. Not because they aren't random or don't pay the correct 97+% but the algorithm they use looks suspiciously like a slots one. The streaks of wins and losses are similar to those of slots, and IMO bear little resemblance to the B&M 'natural' games. Variance tends to be far gentler in B&M games (as you would expect with the limited number of outcomes 37 in the case of roulette and 169 in the case of 2 cards dealt in BJ.) but I often wonder if the casino programs are made with bonuses in mind and the variance therefore favours the casino rather than gentler variance would favour the bonus taker. Just my slant...

I played online BJ once and immediately saw the dealer's run of 'luck' getting into the realm of exceeding the number of atoms in the visible universe-1. The smell of manure was overpowering, never ever played again.

 

[cncas2123]

thanks to all for your responses, and they all back up my concerns - a 97% variance game shouldnt have such a run if its playing to a true random RNG. ive emailed the casino with my concerns, and checked with livechat whether they got the email and whether a manager would be dealing with it, but they told me that it will be dealt with by customer support, even though i have pointed out that it must be a technical issue if the possibility of getting the run i had was 0.0004%. idont hold out much hope of getting a cohesive response!!!

 

[cncas2123]

update - i was wrong, ive checked my game play, which i dispute, and in 17 spins i hit 2 numbers, 1 with a split chip, 1 with a full chip, and the casino deems this as normal. to me on a 45% chance i think i should be hitting more often, or maybe im just completely wrong??

 

[itsover2014]

If you were playing double bonus roulette you need to keep in mind the bonus can pay around 1200x I think so that will clearly affect the rest of the gameplay and results

 

[cncas2123]

Those figures are dismal indeed. Roulette is usually a 'safe' game and this is why bonus wagering is normally so low for it. Having about half of the numbers covered or even a third of the board should really entail more than 1 in 20 wins.

Of course strange sequences can occur, but come on, you'd have to have had broken several mirrors for this to happen to be honest

So I say firstly, unlucky, and secondly, stop playing there. Roulette is best played in an b & m casino

i think i must have broken all the mirrors in the world!! i got an email to say that £100 bonus was in my account, so i tried it on the same roulette. im still convinced that yesterday was 1 number in 20 though the gameplay says 2 in 17, but todays is even worse. 15 numbers covered, £5 total stake and 1 hit for £5.40 in 22 spins. for something like that to happen once is a bad run, but twice in a row, its setting off alarm bells in my head. oh and thy replied last night to say my longest losing run was 6 numbers, but that was bollox as it was 2 hits in 17 spins, they are sticking their heads in the sand.

 

[goatwack]

i think i must have broken all the mirrors in the world!! i got an email to say that £100 bonus was in my account, so i tried it on the same roulette. im still convinced that yesterday was 1 number in 20 though the gameplay says 2 in 17, but todays is even worse. 15 numbers covered, £5 total stake and 1 hit for £5.40 in 22 spins. for something like that to happen once is a bad run, but twice in a row, its setting off alarm bells in my head. oh and thy replied last night to say my longest losing run was 6 numbers, but that was bollox as it was 2 hits in 17 spins, they are sticking their heads in the sand.

Well that definitely proves that it wasn't a one-off. A rather expensive experiment I might add!

Maybe it's best that you stop hemorrhaging money there for now and play elsewhere or something other than roulette!! You'd be better off using the money as rizlas at this rate

 

[cncas2123]

TBH i wouldnt deposit at the site again, but as it was bonus money that wouldnt be withdrawable i decided to have a go and see what the result was. i hit a £60 bonus round on immortal romance to take me to £150 so i had nothing to lose really, and it just confirmed to me that théres something not quite right with this game play.
ive asked them for a response to todays session, and also asked them to let me have their thoughts on yestrdays session,which was still abysmal whether it was 1 hit in 20 or 2 hits in 17, but as yet they havent responded, im just interested to see ẃhat they think.
ive learnt my lesson, to stick to slots, and better still stick to my usual sites as theres never runs like that.

 

[ThePOGG]

I think there's some questionable maths going on here so I figured I'd pitch in and try and clear things up.

Double Bonus Roulette uses a 00 wheel meaning there are the numbers 1-36, 0 and 00 making 38 bins. There's also a 'B' bin which is defined as 1.5x as likely to be selected as other bins. To make the numbers easier to get you head around double all the figures. So we have 38 bins each with a chance of 2 of being selected and the B bin has a chance of 3. So the chance of hitting any individual number is 2/79 and of hitting B is 3/79.

If you were betting straight up on 17 numbers (no 'B') the chance of hitting a no winner is (79 -(17*2))/79 = 45/79. For this to occur 20 times in a row we'd do (45/79)^20 = 0.00012933 or 1 in 77319. This isn't actually all that unlikely. If we drop this to 19 spins in a row without a win (assuming that the 20th was the winner) the odds are (45/79)^19 = 0.000022705 or 1 in 44043. When playing Jacks or Better Video Poker the odds of drawing a Royal Flush when playing optimum strategy are approximately 1 in 44k.

There are other factors here that make this analysis the worst possible condition. Firstly it's been stated that the real data set is actually 17 spins with 2 hits rather than 1 - if you look at the figures about you can see that the odds almost double for each extra spin without a win (which makes sense as the chances of a no win are a little over a half), so knocking it down to 17 spins with NO wins would give us odds of 1 in 14290 and if we said 15 spins with no wins it would be 1 in 4636 - suddenly things aren't really all that unlikely at all. And that's 15 spins in a row, not 16 with 15 losses and 1 win somewhere within which again changes the odds.

Secondly, taking a data set and selecting a subset based on a pre-existing hypothesis leads to selection bias. For instance, if I think that a roulette wheel is bias and is resulting in the number 32 occurring too often and go and record 1000 spins worth of data then and see 100 spins where 32 occurs 8 times, specifically withdrawing that 100 spins and analysing them would NOT give mathematically valid results. It ignores all the rest of the data set where 32 didn't occur more often than it should have. In this instance the OP suggests this is was "20 spins out of series of 25 with 3 hits". Selecting the worst subset of results doesn't paint a fair picture.

Not having a go at anyone here - it's a loss that sucks - just pointing out that the actually likelihood of this happening isn't nearly as remote as has been suggested.

TP

 

[dunover]

I think there's some questionable maths going on here so I figured I'd pitch in and try and clear things up.

Double Bonus Roulette uses a 00 wheel meaning there are the numbers 1-36, 0 and 00 making 38 bins. There's also a 'B' bin which is defined as 1.5x as likely to be selected as other bins. To make the numbers easier to get you head around double all the figures. So we have 38 bins each with a chance of 2 of being selected and the B bin has a chance of 3. So the chance of hitting any individual number is 2/79 and of hitting B is 3/79.

If you were betting straight up on 17 numbers (no 'B') the chance of hitting a no winner is (79 -(17*2))/79 = 45/79. For this to occur 20 times in a row we'd do (45/79)^20 = 0.00012933 or 1 in 77319. This isn't actually all that unlikely. If we drop this to 19 spins in a row without a win (assuming that the 20th was the winner) the odds are (45/79)^19 = 0.000022705 or 1 in 44043. When playing Jacks or Better Video Poker the odds of drawing a Royal Flush when playing optimum strategy are approximately 1 in 44k.

There are other factors here that make this analysis the worst possible condition. Firstly it's been stated that the real data set is actually 17 spins with 2 hits rather than 1 - if you look at the figures about you can see that the odds almost double for each extra spin without a win (which makes sense as the chances of a no win are a little over a half), so knocking it down to 17 spins with NO wins would give us odds of 1 in 14290 and if we said 15 spins with no wins it would be 1 in 4636 - suddenly things aren't really all that unlikely at all. And that's 15 spins in a row, not 16 with 15 losses and 1 win somewhere within which again changes the odds.

Secondly, taking a data set and selecting a subset based on a pre-existing hypothesis leads to selection bias. For instance, if I think that a roulette wheel is bias and is resulting in the number 32 occurring too often and go and record 1000 spins worth of data then and see 100 spins where 32 occurs 8 times, specifically withdrawing that 100 spins and analysing them would NOT give mathematically valid results. It ignores all the rest of the data set where 32 didn't occur more often than it should have. In this instance the OP suggests this is was "20 spins out of series of 25 with 3 hits". Selecting the worst subset of results doesn't paint a fair picture.

Not having a go at anyone here - it's a loss that sucks - just point out that the actually likelihood of this happening isn't nearly as remote as has been suggested.

TP

I concur with the math, it's the player's perspective. Funnily enough as I mentioned I found I was a 'victim' of one of these '44k/1 bad-luck runs' when I first played online BJ. There have been numerous threads started here with a similar vein to the 44k, but not many brags (more likely) of players claiming to have had those odds in their favour at their first visit.
If we take BJ, it's an easy algorithm for the RNG to have says a 16-pack shoe and a single RNG value selected for dealer, player 1 player 2, dealer, player 1, player 2. This would be identical to a B&M table. To increase the variance and still maintain the games' 97% there is nothing stopping a dealer having a 'favourable' shoe and the 2 players a crap one, then switching this so the player has the favourable one for a period and so-on. The overall RTP would be the same but the variance notably different.
The streaks would be far more pronounced both in favour of the dealer and the player and may explain the outrage some express when they compare the games to B&M ones. The high RTP of BJ and the relatively slow turnaround compared to say slots may be why the casino table programmes are like this (if I am correct).

What I do know is that while I have a hole in my a$$ I will never accept the online table games are an exact copy and work the same as the B&M ones - they just don't.

 

[ThePOGG]

There wouldn't be much of a purpose to rigging decks to be player/dealer favourable and switching them round as you rightly point out this wouldn't increase the House Edge and if caught would open the provider up to claims of cheating and loss of license. Increasing variance isn't enough motivation to do that. Even if it doesn't change the RTP a) most licenses carry terms concerning representations of physical devices (cards/dice/roulette wheels etc) functioning in the same manner as their real life counterpart and b) no matter how you tried to explain this away every player would call "rig". There's just no upside to this - it would be a lot of extra programming for no extra return and significant extra risk. It could however be deployed to flat out cheat (i.e. increase the House Edge beyond that dictated by the rule set).

I've played a huge amount of Blackjack both on and offline and have seen amazing things on both, but the biggest factor in player perception of different results is speed of play. Offline if you can get a couple of hands/minute you're doing well. Online I could probably play 10+ hands/minute without breaking a sweat. Because of that increase in speed of play the swings that you would expect to see offline in 5 or 6 hours can occur in 1 hour online.

I wouldn't encourage anyone to play games that they don't trust - a fundamental core of having a good time gambling is trusting you've been treated fairly so regardless of evidence if you're not happy don't play. However, imo it's highly unlikely that the table games produced by any of the major providers deviate from their offline equivalents in any intentional fashion. I've also seen significant independent samplings of data from a number of games at various major providers that would support that line of thought.

TP

 

[lockinlove]

Im one of those people that had a really outrageous run on BJ and roulette a few years ago when I first decided to try it out instead of always slots.

I remember speaking to a manager about the odds of my cold spell and it was something like 350,000 - 1. He told me he never saw such bad luck ever. He actually gave me my deposit back even though I didnt ask. If im correct it was Dino from club gold.

I remember having live chat up and saying to them no matter what or how many numbers I bet, it keeps missing. I made a bet to prove a point So I covered 35 numbers twice and both times it landed on zero lol..which I left open. Live support was like "wow very bad luck"

I will still play it but only when drunk and have a few dollars left for the most part. I would never ever again deposit or have plans to sit down and have a session with it again. I dont even know the last time I played it online.

Now that I think of it I never see or hear any success stories in regards to those games online.

I dont care what anyone says, I truly do not trust them. They feel off. But still worth a haymaker when down to a couple bucks I guess?

 

[dunover]

Im one of those people that had a really outrageous run on BJ and roulette a few years ago when I first decided to try it out instead of always slots.

I remember speaking to a manager about the odds of my cold spell and it was something like 350,000 - 1. He told me he never saw such bad luck ever. He actually gave me my deposit back even though I didnt ask. If im correct it was Dino from club gold.

I remember having live chat up and saying to them no matter what or how many numbers I bet, it keeps missing. I made a bet to prove a point So I covered 35 numbers twice and both times it landed on zero lol..which I left open. Live support was like "wow very bad luck"

I will still play it but only when drunk and have a few dollars left for the most part. I would never ever again deposit or have plans to sit down and have a session with it again. I dont even know the last time I played it online.

Now that I think of it I never see or hear any success stories in regards to those games online.

I dont care what anyone says, I truly do not trust them. They feel off. But still worth a haymaker when down to a couple bucks I guess?

Anyone would think you were playing a UK FOBT... There is a video somewhere where a player did exactly what you did but 3 times in succession. It wouldn't surprise me if the software was from the same publisher.

 

[cncas2123]

all good points from each contributor, and it looks like its an incredibly cold run that ive had, twice in quick succession. i think the most annoying thing for me is the CS attitude, that this is just normal, better luck next time, to me a run like this should never happen, as Dunover points out whats the chances of me hitting 21 times in 22 spins? id say probably nil, but if i did the casino would no doubt say malfunction, the game doesnt play like that and all winnings void!!!

as yet, no response, no explanation, no word at all from the site, not very good CS and as they pointed out in chat the other day that i had deposited 12.5k in the last 18 months, thats 12.5k they will not be getting in the next 18 months.

 

[MrSilver]

I dont care what anyone says, I truly do not trust them. They feel off.

What ever you do, stay away from online Roulette...if you still wish to play, find a casino with Evolution Live games.....one of the best Table is "Immersive Live Roulette" with a real live dealer.

about your 20 loss in a row....sadly, it will happen a lot, Roulette can be very tricky....never play against the table, if you see Red, you play red.....it can go 15 times in a row easy!..........awhile ago i've had 20 times the section of the Zero hit, while i was betting 8 number around the 23, which is completely the opposite....went from 5000k to 100 Was soo stubborn couple years ago...



But these days i'm mostly following the Table, and Pressing the winning number, this way....you can go from 200$ to 10k quickly!
(or loss quickly )

 

[Vicky]

I agree, in online casinos (only reputable ones) you always must stick to the Live roulette. I play roulette in B&M casinos when I have a chance, but I think live online roulette is worth trying.

Well about your 20 losses in a row - this kind of stuff happens in roulette

 

[goatwack]

What ever you do, stay away from online Roulette...if you still wish to play, find a casino with Evolution Live games.....one of the best Table is "Immersive Live Roulette" with a real live dealer.

about your 20 loss in a row....sadly, it will happen a lot, Roulette can be very tricky....never play against the table, if you see Red, you play red.....it can go 15 times in a row easy!..........awhile ago i've had 20 times the section of the Zero hit, while i was betting 8 number around the 23, which is completely the opposite....went from 5000k to 100 Was soo stubborn couple years ago...



But these days i'm mostly following the Table, and Pressing the winning number, this way....you can go from 200$ to 10k quickly!
(or loss quickly )

I do know from my brief foray as a croupier that funny repetitions can occur with numbers, often caused by that dealer's particular unique spin 'flick' and speed. Mine tended to be supersonic, and when first doing it on the left- handed table as a noob I'd sometimes pelt some elderly Chinese lady as the ball went flying off the wheel.

So online live roulette may be dependent on a dealer's style, I may be wrong. With the pixellated AI version, maybe not so much!