TheLastCylon
Banned User - violation of rule 1.19
Hi all.
I'm creating this post as half catharsis and half attempted-activism.
I've been posting for only a couple of months, but I've been “lurking,” I think I used that term right, for about a year or so. And in that time, I've become increasingly agitated with the ongoing nasty behavior in the industry. Similarly, I've become agitated at a constant, pulsating, anti-player sentiment both in the industry and on these forums. The behavior of some companies just blows my mind, and it's frequently treated with a shrug and “that's how things are.”
That's how things are? No! That's not not how things are! These behaviors are awful and a simple wave of the hand only allows these casinos to continue their anti-player behavior. I'm not saying that everyone does that. My hat goes off to Vinyl Weatherman for being one of the most adamantly pro-player, anti-casino people I've come across.
What blows my mind is that this stuff that I am just now discovering, all you old salts have discussed ad nauseum in the past. Has anything changed? I mean, really? I know that I sound kind of like one more skip on a broken record that's been played by a hundred people before me, but I'm really taken aback that this stuff hasn't been addressed and been done with.
For example, I found MaxD's blog post about the ICE show in the UK earlier this year. The casino operators were literally saying that they hate their customers. Is this new? Old? What progress has been made?
I am grateful to have found Casinomeister so early in my online gaming experience. I think that very much because of them, my time has been 100% positive. I found Net Entertainment and Nordicbet, which provides T-RTP's for every game and fulfills every need I have. Their casino is non-download, well-made, secure, transparent, and the T-RTP's on their slots, which I play every now and then, are the best in the industry. I don't like that they still have TOS, but since I never opt for bonuses, these don't affect me. And importantly, the games do not appear “tuned” to cater to those with bonuses, thus making it mathematically stupid for non-bonus users to play.
We have a great list here with the accredited casinos, but even there, many of those casinos do not release their T-RTP lists and pull “tricks” like long wait periods to get money in the hope that the player reverses. That is unacceptable. Yeah, most of it isn't terrible, but if a car company pulled similar stuff, we would have a mass-exodus. Actually, that's a great example. Car dealers DO pull tricks like this... which is why they are universally loathed. It's also why car companies lean so hard on their dealer networks to keep them in check.
(On a side note, Nifty29 beat me to the punch with a post requesting more thorough information on the Accredited List. He pretty much nails what I wanted to say. You can find the post here.)
I want to pressure companies to stop being a massive, rambling horde of used-car dealerships, which seems to be the current state of the industry. There are no super-stars. We do not have a Ford, Volkswagen, or Opel of the online casino world. Hell, even most of the websites appear to be designed by someone who was kidnapped from 1998. The bulk of the industry feels like it's being run by interns. The Accredited List only emphasizes the silliness of the industry, where we throw accolades at companies simply because they aren't being crappy.
I want to stress that I am not calling for regulations. This is the internet. You can't regulate it. What I am saying is that I will never gamble at a casino that is not perfect. That means no casinos that do not display T-RTP's, aren't completely transparent, or pull any of these ridiculous stunts like slow-pay, TOS tricks, and “accidentally” incorrect numbers. If a company does any of these, I'm gone. Never to return. I use Net Entertainment and NordicBet and that is all that I will ever use. RTG may as well have the plague. Microgaming could be covered in chocolate and pheromones and I wouldn't use them. I don't care how nice some of their products might be. I demand perfection.
Vinyl Weatherman mentioned here how if people cared enough to vote with their wallets, for something that is in the grand scheme somewhat trivial, this behavior would change. We all need to demand perfection to get perfection, and the slightest infraction results in a 100% removal of business until the end of time. While this might seem unrealistic, we're going up against an industry perspective that is apparently highly antagonistic to its customers.
OPENNESS:
One of the biggest elements of perfection is being open about numbers. If these aren't available, sorry, I will never gamble. I already know that the odds are against me, and I want to know specifically how against me they are.
As Kasino King said here, when we are given the choice, we will usually choose the highest payouts. If we choose the highest payouts, all casinos will eventually be forced to meet each other, bringing payouts to a maximum. Any higher wouldn't even pay for the server charges. This is undoubtedly the reason why the companies do not want this to become standard practice.
Again, I don't want regulations, but precisely because there aren't any is why being open is important. I could walk into a casino in Vegas and have the knowledge that they have to follow Vegas' rules. Granted, that can mean T-RTP's on slots of something absolutely awful, like 85%, but hey, someone has to pay for those shows with flying, laser-shooting tiger-dragons and flaming dancers.
Moreover, I put pressure on the makers of the games since they choose their clients. I rely on them to maintain the quality and integrity of their games, since there are so many little casinos littering the internet, I can't possibly keep track of their reputations. Compounding this issue are the so-called “white label” operators that are little more than front pages.
This was illustrated with my recent investigations into IGT's T-RTPs. They give numbers for only some of their games, a span of numbers for others, and these numbers sometimes don't line up with the numbers provided by their clients, like Virgin. It is the game makers that need to maintain the veracity of the numbers and maintain consistency across their clients, because it is their brand and reputation that is at stake. We need respect and consistency from the top-down.
Again, I look to Net Entertainment, which had a pretty poor reputation not that long ago (or so I have read), with many of its licensees going belly-up. They appear to have really turned things around and now have a selection of casinos that are stable and honest. I demand that of all companies. I think that we should all demand it and forever turn our backs on operators who don't meet these standards.
While I understand that this is a bit pie-in-the-sky, I would like to see numbers telling me things like hit percentage and variance, giving me an immediate, quantifiable analysis of a game. I don't need to simply play a game, and thus lose money, to find out if it's the kind of game that I like. I can tell JUST from the numbers.
Currently, even with T-RTP posted, a slot can go completely cold for players for LOOOOONG periods of time and have it be expected. It's much harder for a player to pick out when numbers might be a lie. But if a slot lists its T-RTP, variance, and hit percentage, any problems will be much harder to hide. It is the ultimate in mathematical transparency.
Much of this only applies to slots, but having these numbers available is a show of good faith. The casino is telling us that they are an honest business. Yeah, we don't actually know that for sure, but when enough numbers are published, if anything doesn't line up, it will be more apparent to hard-core players... who are precisely the kind of people who visit and post at Casinomeister.
I don't really expect any casinos to provide these numbers, since I don't think anyone ever has, but it would go a long way toward making me hold that particular casino above others. Again, in the online casino game, appearances matter.
I would also like to see a casino eliminate the doubt associated with them being the ones who provide the numbers to accreditation providers, meaning that they could (easily?) fudge the numbers. I've read a few things about this issue. Has anyone ever really addressed this?
And the final element of openness that cannot be ignored is “fake” openness. By this I mean casinos that post information, but then contradict it elsewhere in the TOS. For example, a casino lists a particular T-RTP for its games, but then has a “Maximum payout.” That means that their T-RTP's are actually a complete lie. They only work if the game is allowed to operate as exactly expected by the mathematics.
TOS, BONUSES, AND CASINO LOGIC
I hate terms of service/terms & conditions. I don't accept bonuses, so they rarely affect me, but they could. For example, while casino game makers understand that maths is maths, the operators seem to sometimes be as superstitious as the players. So we have casinos with rules against “pattern betting” and other such nonsense. I might go into a casino that meets my requirements, win big, and have that win voided because I was using a “pattern.”
For those who use bonuses, the TOS are the devil. They are the source of “spirit of the bonus” garbage, and all other vague reasons for voiding winnings. But even here, Terms Of Service should not exist. There is no reason for them to exist.
You want to give someone a bonus? Give them a set amount of money after they have gambled an amount. So when a casino says “Double your deposit!” instead of being trapped, you simply get $100 for every $1000 you bet, or something like that. And it doesn't matter how far up or down you are. This has the same effect of extending play time but doesn't require bizarre and asinine rules to make sure that you adhere to “the spirit of the bonus.”
Moreover, the vague language that frequently litters TOS not only hurts the users, but does a disservice to the casino if it is otherwise upstanding. If there is an issue, explain it in plain language! “I'm sorry miss, we can't process your transfers like that because we are charged per transfer. As such, you need to have more than X in your account.” Yeah, some people will find that annoying, but the plain language makes it understandable and reasonable.
As I mentioned, and as is well known, TOS exist almost solely because of bonuses. And because of bonuses, we have fodder for this seething anti-player perspective, as evidenced by posts like this from Nifty29 where players who milk bonuses are seen as parasites that ruin it for everyone else. Um, no! If a system can be played in a particular way, it should be. It is up to the designer to figure out a promotional system that doesn't require insane restrictions.
Gambling works as we expect it to work. I give someone money and hope to get more money back. In a real casino, there is no way to be “fraudulent” unless you are hacking the programming. So even if behavior is banned by the TOS, I don't care. Those terms shouldn't be that way. There are no “bad ethics” in gambling. There are no “rules” to break. Unless you are in a physical casino with cards up your sleeve, it's impossible.
I think that this shift away from the “inherent” logic of a casino – i.e. I give them money, they give me some back, maybe more – is what is causing most of the problems. Instead of going to a casino, it becomes a game of going to a quasi-casino that offers weird bonuses or free chips or other such odd promotions. The promotion becomes the reason to play, not the game.
Kasino King even mentioned bonuses as a privilege and not a right. I found this shocking from a business perspective. That's like saying that when I go into Starbucks, my coffee is a privilege. No, my patronizing of the Starbucks is the privilege. The coffee is what I rightfully expect for my money.
In MaxD's post about ICE 2012, where casino reps were literally saying that they have two business plans for different players. High-rollers get good service, bonus-seekers get crap service. This blows my mind. MaxD said that accepting the insane bonuses brings the poor treatment upon yourself. Again, I take extreme issue with this.
Yes, “too good to be true” is something that should always be heeded, but if we are otherwise assuming an upstanding operation, then there IS NO “too good to be true.” There is upstanding business practices that we rightfully expect.
Just because I go to a burger joint because its burgers are cheaper than another joint's does not mean that if I get food poisoning that it is my fault because I chose the cheaper burger. That means that anyone who ever bought a Wal-Mart brand product should be rightfully left to the wolves if that product performs poorly. Shampoo caused all your hair to fall out? Too bad! You bought the cheap stuff, after all!
The anti-player sentiment that fuels arguments like this is appalling. The thought that the casino at which I am gambling thinks of me as the scum of the Earth simply because I'm not laying down $1,000 bets pisses me off, and I want to know which ones think that so I can avoid them. Again, I demand perfection.
There was an interesting clash between Dogboy and VWM some time ago that I read through, and this kind of perspective I think explains the conflict. Dogboy was trying to justify RTG's behavior, and he couldn't because the behavior was based on the company considering their customers to be scum. This revelation actually explains a great deal of the seemingly counterproductive behavior on the part of the casinos.
QUALITY
And finally, why isn't quality being discussed more often? I've read multiple threads here complaining about weekly updates to software and the immense pain in the arse associated with uninstalling crap software from the likes of Microgaming. In any other industry, this level of quality and engineering issues would be unacceptable.
Perfection. Demand, and ye shall receive.
I'm creating this post as half catharsis and half attempted-activism.
I've been posting for only a couple of months, but I've been “lurking,” I think I used that term right, for about a year or so. And in that time, I've become increasingly agitated with the ongoing nasty behavior in the industry. Similarly, I've become agitated at a constant, pulsating, anti-player sentiment both in the industry and on these forums. The behavior of some companies just blows my mind, and it's frequently treated with a shrug and “that's how things are.”
That's how things are? No! That's not not how things are! These behaviors are awful and a simple wave of the hand only allows these casinos to continue their anti-player behavior. I'm not saying that everyone does that. My hat goes off to Vinyl Weatherman for being one of the most adamantly pro-player, anti-casino people I've come across.
What blows my mind is that this stuff that I am just now discovering, all you old salts have discussed ad nauseum in the past. Has anything changed? I mean, really? I know that I sound kind of like one more skip on a broken record that's been played by a hundred people before me, but I'm really taken aback that this stuff hasn't been addressed and been done with.
For example, I found MaxD's blog post about the ICE show in the UK earlier this year. The casino operators were literally saying that they hate their customers. Is this new? Old? What progress has been made?
I am grateful to have found Casinomeister so early in my online gaming experience. I think that very much because of them, my time has been 100% positive. I found Net Entertainment and Nordicbet, which provides T-RTP's for every game and fulfills every need I have. Their casino is non-download, well-made, secure, transparent, and the T-RTP's on their slots, which I play every now and then, are the best in the industry. I don't like that they still have TOS, but since I never opt for bonuses, these don't affect me. And importantly, the games do not appear “tuned” to cater to those with bonuses, thus making it mathematically stupid for non-bonus users to play.
We have a great list here with the accredited casinos, but even there, many of those casinos do not release their T-RTP lists and pull “tricks” like long wait periods to get money in the hope that the player reverses. That is unacceptable. Yeah, most of it isn't terrible, but if a car company pulled similar stuff, we would have a mass-exodus. Actually, that's a great example. Car dealers DO pull tricks like this... which is why they are universally loathed. It's also why car companies lean so hard on their dealer networks to keep them in check.
(On a side note, Nifty29 beat me to the punch with a post requesting more thorough information on the Accredited List. He pretty much nails what I wanted to say. You can find the post here.)
I want to pressure companies to stop being a massive, rambling horde of used-car dealerships, which seems to be the current state of the industry. There are no super-stars. We do not have a Ford, Volkswagen, or Opel of the online casino world. Hell, even most of the websites appear to be designed by someone who was kidnapped from 1998. The bulk of the industry feels like it's being run by interns. The Accredited List only emphasizes the silliness of the industry, where we throw accolades at companies simply because they aren't being crappy.
I want to stress that I am not calling for regulations. This is the internet. You can't regulate it. What I am saying is that I will never gamble at a casino that is not perfect. That means no casinos that do not display T-RTP's, aren't completely transparent, or pull any of these ridiculous stunts like slow-pay, TOS tricks, and “accidentally” incorrect numbers. If a company does any of these, I'm gone. Never to return. I use Net Entertainment and NordicBet and that is all that I will ever use. RTG may as well have the plague. Microgaming could be covered in chocolate and pheromones and I wouldn't use them. I don't care how nice some of their products might be. I demand perfection.
Vinyl Weatherman mentioned here how if people cared enough to vote with their wallets, for something that is in the grand scheme somewhat trivial, this behavior would change. We all need to demand perfection to get perfection, and the slightest infraction results in a 100% removal of business until the end of time. While this might seem unrealistic, we're going up against an industry perspective that is apparently highly antagonistic to its customers.
OPENNESS:
One of the biggest elements of perfection is being open about numbers. If these aren't available, sorry, I will never gamble. I already know that the odds are against me, and I want to know specifically how against me they are.
As Kasino King said here, when we are given the choice, we will usually choose the highest payouts. If we choose the highest payouts, all casinos will eventually be forced to meet each other, bringing payouts to a maximum. Any higher wouldn't even pay for the server charges. This is undoubtedly the reason why the companies do not want this to become standard practice.
Again, I don't want regulations, but precisely because there aren't any is why being open is important. I could walk into a casino in Vegas and have the knowledge that they have to follow Vegas' rules. Granted, that can mean T-RTP's on slots of something absolutely awful, like 85%, but hey, someone has to pay for those shows with flying, laser-shooting tiger-dragons and flaming dancers.
Moreover, I put pressure on the makers of the games since they choose their clients. I rely on them to maintain the quality and integrity of their games, since there are so many little casinos littering the internet, I can't possibly keep track of their reputations. Compounding this issue are the so-called “white label” operators that are little more than front pages.
This was illustrated with my recent investigations into IGT's T-RTPs. They give numbers for only some of their games, a span of numbers for others, and these numbers sometimes don't line up with the numbers provided by their clients, like Virgin. It is the game makers that need to maintain the veracity of the numbers and maintain consistency across their clients, because it is their brand and reputation that is at stake. We need respect and consistency from the top-down.
Again, I look to Net Entertainment, which had a pretty poor reputation not that long ago (or so I have read), with many of its licensees going belly-up. They appear to have really turned things around and now have a selection of casinos that are stable and honest. I demand that of all companies. I think that we should all demand it and forever turn our backs on operators who don't meet these standards.
While I understand that this is a bit pie-in-the-sky, I would like to see numbers telling me things like hit percentage and variance, giving me an immediate, quantifiable analysis of a game. I don't need to simply play a game, and thus lose money, to find out if it's the kind of game that I like. I can tell JUST from the numbers.
Currently, even with T-RTP posted, a slot can go completely cold for players for LOOOOONG periods of time and have it be expected. It's much harder for a player to pick out when numbers might be a lie. But if a slot lists its T-RTP, variance, and hit percentage, any problems will be much harder to hide. It is the ultimate in mathematical transparency.
Much of this only applies to slots, but having these numbers available is a show of good faith. The casino is telling us that they are an honest business. Yeah, we don't actually know that for sure, but when enough numbers are published, if anything doesn't line up, it will be more apparent to hard-core players... who are precisely the kind of people who visit and post at Casinomeister.
I don't really expect any casinos to provide these numbers, since I don't think anyone ever has, but it would go a long way toward making me hold that particular casino above others. Again, in the online casino game, appearances matter.
I would also like to see a casino eliminate the doubt associated with them being the ones who provide the numbers to accreditation providers, meaning that they could (easily?) fudge the numbers. I've read a few things about this issue. Has anyone ever really addressed this?
And the final element of openness that cannot be ignored is “fake” openness. By this I mean casinos that post information, but then contradict it elsewhere in the TOS. For example, a casino lists a particular T-RTP for its games, but then has a “Maximum payout.” That means that their T-RTP's are actually a complete lie. They only work if the game is allowed to operate as exactly expected by the mathematics.
TOS, BONUSES, AND CASINO LOGIC
I hate terms of service/terms & conditions. I don't accept bonuses, so they rarely affect me, but they could. For example, while casino game makers understand that maths is maths, the operators seem to sometimes be as superstitious as the players. So we have casinos with rules against “pattern betting” and other such nonsense. I might go into a casino that meets my requirements, win big, and have that win voided because I was using a “pattern.”
For those who use bonuses, the TOS are the devil. They are the source of “spirit of the bonus” garbage, and all other vague reasons for voiding winnings. But even here, Terms Of Service should not exist. There is no reason for them to exist.
You want to give someone a bonus? Give them a set amount of money after they have gambled an amount. So when a casino says “Double your deposit!” instead of being trapped, you simply get $100 for every $1000 you bet, or something like that. And it doesn't matter how far up or down you are. This has the same effect of extending play time but doesn't require bizarre and asinine rules to make sure that you adhere to “the spirit of the bonus.”
Moreover, the vague language that frequently litters TOS not only hurts the users, but does a disservice to the casino if it is otherwise upstanding. If there is an issue, explain it in plain language! “I'm sorry miss, we can't process your transfers like that because we are charged per transfer. As such, you need to have more than X in your account.” Yeah, some people will find that annoying, but the plain language makes it understandable and reasonable.
As I mentioned, and as is well known, TOS exist almost solely because of bonuses. And because of bonuses, we have fodder for this seething anti-player perspective, as evidenced by posts like this from Nifty29 where players who milk bonuses are seen as parasites that ruin it for everyone else. Um, no! If a system can be played in a particular way, it should be. It is up to the designer to figure out a promotional system that doesn't require insane restrictions.
Gambling works as we expect it to work. I give someone money and hope to get more money back. In a real casino, there is no way to be “fraudulent” unless you are hacking the programming. So even if behavior is banned by the TOS, I don't care. Those terms shouldn't be that way. There are no “bad ethics” in gambling. There are no “rules” to break. Unless you are in a physical casino with cards up your sleeve, it's impossible.
I think that this shift away from the “inherent” logic of a casino – i.e. I give them money, they give me some back, maybe more – is what is causing most of the problems. Instead of going to a casino, it becomes a game of going to a quasi-casino that offers weird bonuses or free chips or other such odd promotions. The promotion becomes the reason to play, not the game.
Kasino King even mentioned bonuses as a privilege and not a right. I found this shocking from a business perspective. That's like saying that when I go into Starbucks, my coffee is a privilege. No, my patronizing of the Starbucks is the privilege. The coffee is what I rightfully expect for my money.
In MaxD's post about ICE 2012, where casino reps were literally saying that they have two business plans for different players. High-rollers get good service, bonus-seekers get crap service. This blows my mind. MaxD said that accepting the insane bonuses brings the poor treatment upon yourself. Again, I take extreme issue with this.
Yes, “too good to be true” is something that should always be heeded, but if we are otherwise assuming an upstanding operation, then there IS NO “too good to be true.” There is upstanding business practices that we rightfully expect.
Just because I go to a burger joint because its burgers are cheaper than another joint's does not mean that if I get food poisoning that it is my fault because I chose the cheaper burger. That means that anyone who ever bought a Wal-Mart brand product should be rightfully left to the wolves if that product performs poorly. Shampoo caused all your hair to fall out? Too bad! You bought the cheap stuff, after all!
The anti-player sentiment that fuels arguments like this is appalling. The thought that the casino at which I am gambling thinks of me as the scum of the Earth simply because I'm not laying down $1,000 bets pisses me off, and I want to know which ones think that so I can avoid them. Again, I demand perfection.
There was an interesting clash between Dogboy and VWM some time ago that I read through, and this kind of perspective I think explains the conflict. Dogboy was trying to justify RTG's behavior, and he couldn't because the behavior was based on the company considering their customers to be scum. This revelation actually explains a great deal of the seemingly counterproductive behavior on the part of the casinos.
QUALITY
And finally, why isn't quality being discussed more often? I've read multiple threads here complaining about weekly updates to software and the immense pain in the arse associated with uninstalling crap software from the likes of Microgaming. In any other industry, this level of quality and engineering issues would be unacceptable.
Perfection. Demand, and ye shall receive.
