Thinking somethings changed at Microgaming

[bryand]

There is an element of anthropomorphism when we play slots but if we play a slot enough we do see behavioral patterns and I have never believed this is just down to our perception.
For me it is the observable effect of dynamic weighting and becomes most apparent when scrutinising the "behaviour" of bonus triggering and wild symbols.

Rusty, anthropomorphism? I really need my eyes checked

 

[chuchu59]

As usual, my eyes are playing tricks on me. I first read anthraxpornolism. And I thought anthrax and porno dont mix especially when we are talking about slots.

 

[RobWin]

Rusty, anthropomorphism? I really need my eyes checked

Rusty is the man for the "New Word" of the day...you go Rusty...:notworthy

 

[funky_seagull]

I have stopped playing the slots and blackjack in mg casinos as have lost a lot of money. The only mg game I play is roulette. But after some small measure of success playing this I have noticed this is starting to turn nasty. I was losing so much to it I decided to test it by placing chips on the 2nd & 3rd 12s & on 2 of the 2-1 columns. This covered 32 out of 36 numbers. And it soon got to the stage were those 4 numbers I wasn't betting on appeared much more frequently than the others. Once they appeared 5 times in a row, and the zero would also appear much more frequently. At one point the zero appeared every 3rd spin. These results to me are very strange. Especially because they happened to me in more than one casino. My conclusion is there is some thing fishy going on. If mg are adjusting the payouts and tightening up. They will be shooting themselves in the foot. Cause noone is going to keep playing in a casino that is blatantly sucking their money away . If they lose players they lose business... It makes more sense to not meddle with the payouts. As the house edge means there will always be losers anyway. Making all the games impossible to win at is going to cause players to move away and go and play elsewhere. They should be holding onto players not driving them away. With the current economic climate there won't be many new players to take their place. I am currently playing in a few mg casinos. But i doubt I will continue to do so. As it isn't fun to make a deposit and see it disappear within 30 minutes. I may as well be donating my money to the casino as that is what playing seems to have become. It makes no sense to continue.

 

[vinylweatherman]

I have stopped playing the slots and blackjack in mg casinos as have lost a lot of money. The only mg game I play is roulette. But after some small measure of success playing this I have noticed this is starting to turn nasty. I was losing so much to it I decided to test it by placing chips on the 2nd & 3rd 12s & on 2 of the 2-1 columns. This covered 32 out of 36 numbers. And it soon got to the stage were those 4 numbers I wasn't betting on appeared much more frequently than the others. Once they appeared 5 times in a row, and the zero would also appear much more frequently. At one point the zero appeared every 3rd spin. These results to me are very strange. Especially because they happened to me in more than one casino. My conclusion is there is some thing fishy going on. If mg are adjusting the payouts and tightening up. They will be shooting themselves in the foot. Cause noone is going to keep playing in a casino that is blatantly sucking their money away . If they lose players they lose business... It makes more sense to not meddle with the payouts. As the house edge means there will always be losers anyway. Making all the games impossible to win at is going to cause players to move away and go and play elsewhere. They should be holding onto players not driving them away. With the current economic climate there won't be many new players to take their place. I am currently playing in a few mg casinos. But i doubt I will continue to do so. As it isn't fun to make a deposit and see it disappear within 30 minutes. I may as well be donating my money to the casino as that is what playing seems to have become. It makes no sense to continue.

You could use a fun money account, and repeat this experiment a number of times to generate a large enough sample to rule out chance variance.

Autoplay can be set to play Roulette VERY fast indeed, and the stats will produce a table of numbers hit & how often during the session.

Bet on different sets of around 32 numbers and see if you can repeatedly see long sessions (9999 spins - overtype autoplay field) where the uncovered numbers hit more often than they should. By chance, it should balance out and some sessions will see the uncovered numbers hitting less often than they should. The bigger the sample, the more significant any results will be.

With 37 different outcomes, the required sample is pretty large in order to rule out natural variability.

 

[AudiManinBoro]

with the recession and credit crunch happening in many parts of the world i expect the online casinos are also feeling the strain, with fewer people depositing
they have to make there money from somewhere, they still have the same overheads to pay and if people are not depositing where are they going to make there money from to pay the bills ect,

cutting down on the payouts is one way they keep a revenue coming in, they have to make there money from somewhere or go bust

peopel are not depositing cos they are FED UP with never winning, not so much winning as never even being able to have a decent run for their money. Ive made several deposits this month and all gone in hours. Go back a few years i used to play to play for days sometimes weeks on a single deposit at an mg casino!

Casinos are shooting themselves in the foot and im not surprised that their customer base is growing smaller and smaller. There is only so long people will feel ripped off before they do something about it, so if your listening MG, RIVAL, PLAYTECH, Pull your FINGERS out and do something before you lose many more, cos i for one am fed up to the back teeth about it.

 

[Jasminebed]

There are a lot of reps for Microgaming casinos on this board. Do any of them care to comment? We can speculate, but MG would have to inform the casinos of changes to the software.

 

[funky_seagull]

You could use a fun money account, and repeat this experiment a number of times to generate a large enough sample to rule out chance variance. Autoplay can be set to play Roulette VERY fast indeed, and the stats will produce a table of numbers hit & how often during the session. Bet on different sets of around 32 numbers and see if you can repeatedly see long sessions (9999 spins - overtype autoplay field) where the uncovered numbers hit more often than they should. By chance, it should balance out and some sessions will see the uncovered numbers hitting less often than they should. The bigger the sample, the more significant any results will be. With 37 different outcomes, the required sample is pretty large in order to rule out natural variability.

This will take a bit of time but would be worth it to set my mind at rest.

I have really gone off casinos at the moment. And noticed a decline in payouts and when you check a casinos payouts the most recent months aren't available. When I checked the most recent payout data was from january which isn't good enough.

I am getting more into sportsbook betting and trying to understand how forex works practising with a demo account. I know real life events can also be rigged but feel this only happens occasionally. I have lost my trust in the software casinos use. I think when it comes to playing against a computer programme it is just too easy for it to be rigged against players. My experiences have made me feel wary of where I put my money. Roulette was one game that was good for working out new betting strategies. But it just seems to me when you work out a strategy it works for a while and then the server seems to cotton on to what you are doing and the strategy won't work anymore. Which makes me think results are possibly fed back to a team of programmers whose job it is to look out for advantage play. And actively change the programming to stop the strategies the advantage player is using from working anymore. This would enable casinos to be defended against players who have worked out ways to beat them from spreading the word and them getting hit hard by lots of players using a system that works. Which I can understand but which also means they're not playing fair and random is nonsense. I hope I am wrong. But my experiences have taught me that gambling software is not random or fair. I hardly play in online casinos anymore. I am having better success with sports betting and more fun. I mean the fun of gambling is winning. If you're constantly losing, there is no enjoyment in that, you just feel financially raped. It's horrible it's like being tortured, winning very little in return and watching your money being sucked away. That isnt fun. The best way to get them back is to not play in them anymore and to spread the word. Show them that players aren't stupid and won't continue to put coins in something that doesn't play fair.

 

[AudiManinBoro]

There has always been disgruntled, disillusioned threads from people on this forum ever since i joined, but never have i see so many people so peed off at once. Seems everyone is complaining at the moment and with good cause.

Casinos are slowly but surely killing off their own market, and it wont surprise me if before long you see many a casino brand going to the winds and they will have no one to blame but themselves.

 

[Slotster!]

There has always been disgruntled, disillusioned threads from people on this forum ever since i joined, but never have i see so many people so peed off at once. Seems everyone is complaining at the moment and with good cause.

Does seem weird that someone from one of the big name MG's hasn't popped their head up to explain what is a massive and obvious change to a slot. Like someone else said, this isn't neccesarily a bad change as such... one that could even have a positive spin very easily applied.

 

[Westland Bowl]

....I know real life events can also be rigged but feel this only happens occasionally. I have lost my trust in the software casinos use......Roulette was one game that was good for working out new betting strategies. But it just seems to me when you work out a strategy it works for a while and then the server seems to cotton on to what you are doing and the strategy won't work anymore. Which makes me think results are possibly fed back to a team of programmers whose job it is to look out for advantage play. And actively change the programming to stop the strategies the advantage player is using from working anymore.....which means they're not playing fair and random is nonsense. I hope I am wrong. But my experiences have taught me that gambling software is not random or fair.......players aren't stupid and won't continue to put coins in something that doesn't play fair.

In the case of blackjack, I've been saying for a looong time that online casino software appears to add betting pattern analysis to their random number generators, which in effect doesn't make them by definition "random." If that doesn't work, it appears that they are just outright negating larger bets after you have some winning sessions. I've had many 20s and 21s beaten or pushed on my larger bets since mid-June. Just how many times does your 20 gets beaten by a 4-,5-,or 6-card 21 in a brick-and-mortar casino? Very often if you go by what you get at these Microgaming online casinos! I'm tired of this sheet!

In the brick-and-mortar casinos, you can see the cards are not moving around inside the shoe in response to your winning betting pattern. With online casinos, they depend on you giving them the benefit of a doubt that the card are drawn randomly. The benefits has run out!

 

[Westland Bowl]

There has always been disgruntled, disillusioned threads from people on this forum ever since i joined, but never have i see so many people so peed off at once. Seems everyone is complaining at the moment and with good cause.

Casinos are slowly but surely killing off their own market, and it wont surprise me if before long you see many a casino brand going to the winds and they will have no one to blame but themselves.

I've usually didn't give much attention to "complainers" who don't know how to play casino games or just want to bad mouth each and every losing experience. They come and go.

But lately it's the skilled players who are noticing something different in the air and it's poison. We desperately want to believe that the online casinos are still being honest and are not manipulating the RNG and/or software payouts, but our intuition and evidence gathered so far is telling us otherwise.

 

[slotplayer]

I've usually didn't give much attention to "complainers" who don't know how to play casino games or just want to bad mouth each and every losing experience. They come and go.

But lately it's the skilled players who are noticing something different in the air and it's poison. We desperately want to believe that the online casinos are still being honest and are not manipulating the RNG and/or software payouts, but our intuition and evidence gathered so far is telling us otherwise.

this has been going on for months. I first noticed this in April after the 5 Million jackpot win at MegaMolah. First I though it was just the season.(spring/summer)

then I saw this post
https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/casinos-turn-off-switch.25654/

in july from someone that noticed exactly what I was experiencing.

They've gone downhill ever since. The $1,000 mentioned in the link post above is a thing of the past, lucky to win $100 now.

 

[vinylweatherman]

I've usually didn't give much attention to "complainers" who don't know how to play casino games or just want to bad mouth each and every losing experience. They come and go.

But lately it's the skilled players who are noticing something different in the air and it's poison. We desperately want to believe that the online casinos are still being honest and are not manipulating the RNG and/or software payouts, but our intuition and evidence gathered so far is telling us otherwise.

And the BLEEDIN' OBVIOUS (just take a look at Mega Moolah).

Perhaps the reps are on a long weekend, after all, they are always asking us to be patient when issues come up over a weekend, and to let some working days pass before accusing them of failing to respond.

Well it's the weekend (almost) now, so maybe they will just have a "normal" one, and be back at work Monday.

I DO remember seeing an odd announcement last week in the All Jackpots lobby though, a list of slots were experiencing "technical difficulties", and were expected to be fixed by MG. Maybe Mega Moolah was one of these, but it still isn't fixed (or is it ).

 

[Rusty]

How does a slot with no mechanical parts experience technical difficulties?
It either works from the off or it is bugged and gets patched.
Many of these slots have been around fro ages with no problems.
It is not like the code rusts with time

Another one for MG to answer. Oh, its the same one, told ya that was a biggie.

pssst MG, say you were upgrading for VISTA.

 

[NASHVEGAS]

In the case of blackjack, I've been saying for a looong time that online casino software appears to add betting pattern analysis to their random number generators, which in effect doesn't make them by definition "random." If that doesn't work, it appears that they are just outright negating larger bets after you have some winning sessions. I've had many 20s and 21s beaten or pushed on my larger bets since mid-June. Just how many times does your 20 gets beaten by a 4-,5-,or 6-card 21 in a brick-and-mortar casino? Very often if you go by what you get at these Microgaming online casinos! I'm tired of this sheet!

In the brick-and-mortar casinos, you can see the cards are not moving around inside the shoe in response to your winning betting pattern. With online casinos, they depend on you giving them the benefit of a doubt that the card are drawn randomly. The benefits has run out!

Westland Bowl, I have a question per se about MG BJ without getting into 2 card distributions, my definiton of correlated and takedown modes,yada yada,,,,,,,,I would always look at my MG BJ stats (need to find some old screenies) after a session of which I have had many. MG makes stats available (which I will not get into my opinion why but it is a known fact that only 2% of BandM BJ players know proper Basic Strategy so there is a hint why MG may have no fear) but it does make it easier to check actual play against many easily known expectations.

Many stats I would look at were consistently skewed towards the house but the most bizzaire stat in my play of AC BJ was the dealer bust rate. Only once in all my MG play did the dealer's overall bust rate meet overall expectation of 28% and never once iirc exceeded expectation. More than the majority of sessions, the dealer's overall bust rate was between 20% and 22%. Of course, this could get into the randomness of the dealer's upcard being fair (among more complicated issues) where a 2-6 upcard should bust at a higher rate (i.e. a 5 and 6 around 42%) and a 7-ACE at much lower rate (an ACE around 17% after checking for BJ).....not sure if you play AC (single hand) but if so do you check this stat and your experiences?? If not, may want to glance at and I also understand you may wish to remain silent. Also FTR, I rarely play MG BJ anymore (maybe since January 08) so my experiences and stats are aged.

 

[NASHVEGAS]

Funky,
Looking for some old screenies, I found some European Roulette Stats from late 2006. I feel your pain. I was betting on one of the outside 12's so I will let you guess which one although the 1-18,19-36 is not pretty either. I did not even begin taking the screenies until after this kind of bad luck began to occur daily so I have more during this same time period that I have never mentioned on this forum. There was no reason although it became pandemic I did not have enough of a sample size to label as anything more than a strange day after day coincindence of bad luck........now my sample size for BJ play is in the hundreds of thousands of hands among the various platforms I have played. I even posted about a week or so ago parts of a 48,000 hands of BJ spreadsheet that was played over a 2 week period. G/L on your sports betting

 

[Westland Bowl]

Westland Bowl, I have a question per se about MG BJ...... Only once in all my MG play did the dealer's overall bust rate meet overall expectation of 28% and never once iirc exceeded expectation. More than the majority of sessions, the dealer's overall bust rate was between 20% and 22%. Of course, this could get into the randomness of the dealer's upcard being fair (among more complicated issues) where a 2-6 upcard should bust at a higher rate (i.e. a 5 and 6 around 42%) and a 7-ACE at much lower rate (an ACE around 17% after checking for BJ).....not sure if you play AC (single hand) but if so do you check this stat and your experiences?? If not, may want to glance at and I also understand you may wish to remain silent. Also FTR, I rarely play MG BJ anymore (maybe since January 08) so my experiences and stats are aged.

I always played Vegas Strip Blackjack and I never kept statistics on dealer bust rate. I *might* be able to get this from a fellow forum member to whom I've sent my player logs from mid-June to early August, along with some logs from April. I've yet to hear from him regarding anything he found statistically but I plan on emailing him soon.

What I *have* been doing is keep track of the winning hand percentage: overall, 5-session average, and 10-session average. Now the various versions of blackjack would have a player winning percentage of around 43%, give or take 1%. So I keep a tally on my winning percentage with that casino. When my 5 and 10-day moving averages are low, like 38% to 40%, I would expect some high percentage sessions to come in and I be more aggressive in my betting amounts.

For the past year, up until mid-June (and a bit in April), I've been over $10,000 in profits but since then I've given half of that back. I just can't win anymore at MG and it can't be explained away to "variance." I got the sinking feeling that a conditional programming statement in the casino software has been entered to keep me from winning larger betting hands. I get some weird hands like blackjack pushes (we both get blackjacks) BACK TO BACK where I've bet the same higher bet amount! Now you get these in brick-and-mortar casinos too BUT they are very far in between unlike what I've been experiencing online recently.

 

[Marcie Mac]

I definately feel something has changed at MG - I have reduced my deposits because I am lucky now to get up to double, then it all goes away rather quickly. Its not worth it even to cash out a smallish amount - by the time they are done with a 30.00 wire transfer charge, and my bank is done with their percentage charge, I seem to be left with a dollar two-eighty in winnings.

One thing I have noticed is when the new games come out every month, those are the ones that have a hot streak. But a few days later, forget it.

Its a catch 22 I suppose - I would deposit more money if I got some decent wins, but obviously they are feeling the pinch of the economy and have tightened up the slots.

Marcie

 

[RobWin]

You guys are starting to sound like conspiracy theorists...

And I thought I was the only one, but I do appear to be surrounded by good company here...

 

[chuchu59]

So you guys think that something is amiss with MG BJ, Roulette and slots. Shame on you and (myself as well) because I think this is the same with Baccarat . I have lost on bets of $50 bar one out of a dozen bets recently. A small sample but it does look fishy nevertheless.

 

[steinhaug]

The most pertinent question for MG to answer would be what is the purpose of the updates to the older slots?

We know it is not for aesthetic reasons.
We know they were no bugs to iron out.
We know the pay-tables were not altered.

Good to see all of you are finally starting to appretiate the humble truth out there. However as a programmer I can add some info here.

First of all, updating the games files can only achieve the following:
- Altering sounds og graphics

There are no reels in the game, the symbols are seperate symbols which are chained into a ficticious reel by a string of numbers representing the reel. The reel ares are fed to the game upon init when connecting to the server, so in reality the reels can change from spin to spin. Analyzing the HTTP traffic in a flash game shows this, and was how I cracked the reels in 1 second last time.

So you shouldn't focus on this really, focus on the gameplay and the patterns of features, dry spells and winning spells comparing to your overall 95% - this is where you will find the truth!

 

[steinhaug]

I have stopped playing the slots and blackjack in mg casinos as have lost a lot of money. The only mg game I play is roulette. But after some small measure of success playing this I have noticed this is starting to turn nasty. I was losing so much to it I decided to test it by placing chips on the 2nd & 3rd 12s & on 2 of the 2-1 columns. This covered 32 out of 36 numbers. And it soon got to the stage were those 4 numbers I wasn't betting on appeared much more frequently than the others. Once they appeared 5 times in a row, and the zero would also appear much more frequently. At one point the zero appeared every 3rd spin. These results to me are very strange. ...

A great example of the game I like to call "Scare the ball". I have mentioned this earlier also, and it's very easy to make the ball pop in certain places of the gameboard - just as you say - by opening up a few obvious spots.

What you should do is get mad as hell - you are far to carefull of describing something that eats your money!

I just can't win anymore at MG and it can't be explained away to "variance." I got the sinking feeling that a conditional programming statement in the casino software has been entered to keep me from winning larger betting hands.

It's that easy, Great comment by the way!

 

[Rusty]

Good to see all of you are finally starting to appretiate the humble truth out there. However as a programmer I can add some info here.

First of all, updating the games files can only achieve the following:
- Altering sounds og graphics

There are no reels in the game, the symbols are seperate symbols which are chained into a ficticious reel by a string of numbers representing the reel. The reel ares are fed to the game upon init when connecting to the server, so in reality the reels can change from spin to spin. Analyzing the HTTP traffic in a flash game shows this, and was how I cracked the reels in 1 second last time.

So you shouldn't focus on this really, focus on the gameplay and the patterns of features, dry spells and winning spells comparing to your overall 95% - this is where you will find the truth!

You are preaching to the converted here Kimss
I agree that the patterns of features and frequency of scatter/Wild symbols is very telling.
I have PM'd you.

 

[Rusty]

You guys are starting to sound like conspiracy theorists...

And I thought I was the only one, but I do appear to be surrounded by good company here...

Everything is a conspiracy, you should know that Rob