I had refrained from doing any posting per Bryan's guidelines while I was in the middle of a pitch-a-bitch, but I don't believe Bryan is pursuing it any further at this point, and has not recovered any money for me. I understand he's a busy guy and I'm a relatively small problem, but it is still disappointing given that I was fleeced by this casino specifically because it was recommended by him.
However, I do note with some satisfaction that Bryan has apparently removed Slotland from his Reputable Casinos list sometime during the last month, so I at least accomplished something. It shuts the proverbial barn door too late for me, but at least Bryan is no longer adding sheep to Slotland's flock.
Anyway, I thought I'd post an e-mail I sent to Bryan during my pitch-a-bitch that might be of general interest to Slotland players, or anybody crazy enough to think they might want to become one.
It is also applicable to those considering ANY gambling site with proprietary software.
Excerpt from my E-mail to Bryan follows...
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While I understand and respect that you try to see things from the casino's perspective as well as the players', I am frankly puzzled as to why you seem to be giving Slotland so much benefit of the doubt as compared to other casinos that I've seen you discuss in the past.
If Slotland was YOUR casino, would you hide the critical video poker information in a "technical tips" section? Even if it was not intended to be buried (which stretches the imagination), would you have waited (at least) several months from becoming aware that players were being misled to do anything about it?
Or after receiving irrefutable evidence that it was misleading players (from my post on your forum, and others' replies to it) would you wait around for your web designer to return rather than figuring out a way to temporarily provide SOME disclaimer (after all HTML ain't rocket science)?
Finally, would you put a blatant lie about conforming to Nevada Gaming Rules right on the game screen?
As a former customer-oriented business owner myself, I sure know that's not how I would operate. And if I inadvertently created such a problem, I would THANK the person letting me know, refund their money, and immediately fix the problem. It's a no-brainer if you truly want to operate an honest business.
As far as the people affected, despite the immense popularity
of your site, that represents only a tiny fraction of players. And players that actually read or replied to my thread an even smaller fraction. We have no idea how many people have complained to Slotland directly. And we don't know how many people found out the game was not what they expected, and took no further action.
And even more important and frightening, we don't know how many people have played -- or CONTINUE to play -- these "video poker" games assuming they work like a real video poker game and have NEVER found out differently. I almost didn't find out myself.
When a good video poker player plays Slotland games assuming it works like a real video poker game... they get SCREWED. Badly. Just how badly, I'm not sure because we don't know how Slotland decides if you get the jackpot.
The problem is if you play the game "correctly" thinking that the natural royal pays off as it should, you make all kinds of horrible plays. I even bought a copy of Video Poker Calculator 2.0 (gamblecraft.com) specifically for my play at Slotland. The software allows you to enter custom payoff tables and get correct strategy on specific hands.
Normally in Double Joker Poker it is correct to hold a pair in favor of two to a royal flush. But with a big jackpot, just the opposite is correct. At the time I was playing ($60K+ jackpot), holding two to a royal was calculated by VPCalc to usually return something like 105% and the pair only 75%.
Being a smart (d'oh!) player I repeatedly threw away the pair -- which was of course throwing money away since the royal does not pay out at correct odds. Getting three to a royal happens less frequently but can result in even more dramatic errors. Even just ONE to a royal, which of course happens very frequently, usually results in a strategy error of about 5% expected return. With a larger jackpot (it is dramatically higher now at $97K) then the errors are even worse.
The net effect: Slotland's jackpot lures video poker players into playing a bad pay table to start with (98.1% on Wildheart, when 99.5% or better is readily available elsewhere) and then causes them to play it poorly on top of that. The results are dramatic, as evidenced by my abysmal 78% return. Multiply the poor odds and poor play by a $15 max bet, then multiply that by thousands of bets, and thousands of players, and you are talking about a HUGE ill-gotten cash cow.
So while you are correct that I had SOME chance of winning the jackpot (I hope), I paid an extraordinarily heavy price for that chance. I would have been far better off playing one of their true slot machines.
Even if a player is aware the royal flush is artificially controlled, confusion still reigns as to how a particular hand get blessed with a jackpot win. If you're destined to win, does it just deal you a pat royal flush? If so, does that mean that drawing ANY cards to a royal flush is a waste of money, because it ain't going to happen? Or is some other mysterious method used?
There is really NO intelligent way to play the game with the available information, and as such the game should not even be offered in the current state. How can a casino legitimately offer a game where the player can't determine the risks and rewards?
And frankly, I think artificially controlling the cards in this instance casts doubt elsewhere as well. What is to prevent them from keeping non-jackpot royal flushes from happening as often as they should? Who would possibly know (other than Slotland) that a royal only pays off 80% as often as normal? Are you going to play 500,000 hands to find out?
Or let's say their marketing research shows that a bigger jackpot attracts substantially more players. What's to stop them from artificially preventing ANY jackpot win until it's over $50,000, for example?
Which leads me to my final concern... should a proprietary software company be on your recommended list at ALL? It seems that Slotland is on your recommended list primarily on the strength of their reliable payouts and customer service.
But... put on your cynical cap for a minute and consider this -- if you were running a crooked casino, and were doing it smart, a good strategy would be to just slightly alter the odds in your favor. Let's say skim an extra 1% or so from all your players by randomly re-dealing some cards now and then when a player would have won. Or any of a number of methods that would disguise what is happening. That extra 1% results in a HUGE payout right on the bottom line.
Then to keep the scam going, offer lots of nice bonuses, reliable payouts, and good customer service. You come across as one of the good guys and laugh all the way to the bank. It's very difficult for a player or group of players to prove a 1% drop in payout.
I'm not accusing Slotland of that, although they have (in my opinion) deliberately misled, or at least grossly neglected to inform, their video poker players. And that fact alone accomplishes some of the same monetary gains that a purely crooked casino would.
But if Slotland (or any proprietary software site) *wanted* to be crooked, it would be trivial to do so. And trivial to hide the ill-gotten gains, even if they were in a jurisdiction that cared about that.
It is a scary thought. More scary, it seems to me, than concerns you have had in the past about other casinos such as RTG licensees. At least with those casinos, any problems are evident to players (casinos not paying) instead of hidden (rigged games).
I know that personally my experience at Slotland has ensured that I will never again play at any proprietary software casino. There are enough risks associated with gambling when you know the game is fair!
'software'
