Lottery scandal

[DaBurglar]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/programmer-p ... 05.htmlFor those of you out there who have insisted.....INSISTED that casinos could never ever be compromised, even at a high level.....this is sobering.In this day and age, with people in general (all people, not just one group, or one religion, or one political party.....everyone) getting more and more morally bankrupt and warped and bent, it should not surprise us or be totally out of our minds that the likelihood and possibility of a casino or casinos becoming compromised in various ways is getting more likely, and may be occurring.     The scandals that plague high finance, wall street and corporate america are testament that when certain people see an opportunity to potentially make a bundle by cheating or dishonesty or graft, some go for it....and in today's super tech world, a single motivated smart person can indeed wreak havoc.   As more and more casinos switch to servers, the capacity to do just that is an everyday possibility now, more than ever before.    Combined with the spirit of "deregulation" and smaller government that is a central theme of Republicans,  I am aware of the possibility that at the very least a few casinos, or parts of the casino, may be bent or unfairly warped against players.

[billryan]

I don't know of anyone who has said casinos cant be compromised. What many people have said is a casino would never cheat. This was a rogue operator working for personal gain, not a lottery cheating people.

[DaBurglar]

I don't know of anyone who has said casinos cant be compromised. What many people have said is a casino would never cheat. This was a rogue operator working for personal gain, not a lottery cheating people.

Geez. You really get off on splitting hairs....and once again you need to go back a couple years to prior 2015, plenty of people on this site refused to even conceive of any casino doing any malfeasance without being swiftly caught by the ubiquitous and infallible regulatory cocerns nailing them!

The point is this supposedly highly regulated and trusted institution, the friggin lottery of all things, had this "rogue operator" screwing everyone else. I'm critical of the blind, unthinking faith people put into things like casinos or lotteries, etc. and the oversight they are supposed to undergo....

In many markets, like Vegas, that oversight is superb, but it can easily and suddenly become not....all it takes, as you just said, is one rogue or sociopathic individual on the inside. Other markets, like AC, are obviously flirting with problems by virtue of the political elements overseeing the activity of gaming, namely an administration that gutted the oversight in the name of smaller govt and deregulation.   What's more a casino does not have to "cheat" in order to CHEAT!

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=DaBurglar]Geez. You really get off on splitting hairs....and once again you need
to go back a couple years to prior 2015, plenty of people on this site
refused to even conceive of any casino doing any malfeasance without
being swiftly caught by the ubiquitous and infallible regulatory cocerns
nailing them!
[/quote]There was a time when I believed casinos were properly regulated and policed, the games were all fair and video poker math was infallible.  Nothing surprises me any more. If a State lottery official can rig a game of that magnitude, it shouldn't be hard to rig a server based video poker machine and program it to pass a "software" test run by a State salaried official.  I have no proof any VP games are rigged or that they aren't completely random, but I agree with DaBurglar.  The possibility definitely exists.  If you are a corporation teetering on bankruptcy, all options would be on the table. 

[Chicagoan]

Corporations are not faceless entities. They are powered by humans. Humans, unfortunately, lie, cheat and steal.

[asteroid]

   What's more a casino does not have to "cheat" in order to CHEAT!Precisely DaBurglar. A perfect example of this is the slew of new bonus games which have such complex optimal play strategies that they can legally get around the regulation which states that the payout of such a game must exceed the base game from which it is derived. The casinos realize that no human being will ever play these derivative games with perfect strategy so that the hold is quite often much greater than the base game of which many players can play close to perfectly (thanks IGT).Yet simultaneously it is hard for many to believe that there can't be clever loopholes with regards to RNG regulations which put the casinos or vp machine makers in no legal danger.

[spxChrome]

There is a loophole to everything and you can bet your last dollar VP has found its way through starting in 2010. Deny it all you want but until you can see the program personally which will never happen how can you be 100% sure what it does.

I base it on 22 years of play, multi-millons of hands, things changed in 2010.

NOTICE: I am not saying casinos are cheating regulations. I am saying they have exposed a loophole regulations do not and maybe will not ever know about.

[Vman96]

NOTICE: I am not saying casinos are cheating regulations. I am saying they have exposed a loophole regulations do not and maybe will not ever know about.

For most states, I disagree due to their regulations. If they are written well-enough, either casinos are running "fair" VP or not. Looking at your previous posts, I would predict one of these things being the case:

1. The casino is breaking the law
2. The casino is running an unfair game (1 and 2 often connected)
3. You miscollected the data you have posted here
4. You, along with a few other posters, are some of the unluckiest players on Earth.

And considering you discuss Mississippi in previous posts, Mississippi is one of the states where the law is clear. At least for the state-run casinos, either the casinos are obeying the law, or they are not.

Edit: But the way it is written, there actually is a clear loophole in Mississippi. Ugh. But I don't think it's big enough to explain your dismal results.

"2. For gaming devices that are representative of live gambling games, the mathematical
probability of a symbol or other element appearing in a game outcome must be equal to
the mathematical probability of that symbol or element occurring in the live gambling
game. “Equal to” shall mean within the thousandths of a percent – i.e., .001% to .009%.
For other gaming devices, the mathematical probability of a symbol appearing in a
position in any game outcome must be constant."

But I'm not sure if I'm willing to do the math to see the actual effects of this rule on return if the casinos (and IGT!!!!) fully exploit it. Alpax?? Why did those asses redefine "equal to"???

I would expect IGT to not bother with this rule for video poker. But then again I never have experienced anything for me to believe the game was "rigged". It's easier to program each card to be 1 in 52. It's actually a bit harder to program bias in the cards.

As for me...

4 of 8 of my Royals (all Royals after 2010) came in Tunica...have I played half of my hands overall in Tunica since then? Questionable. Since I have started keeping track of any quads or better in late 2013, here is the breakdown of quads/SF/Royals by metro area since that point:

Quads:
Tunica: 122 (31.22%)
Vegas: 90 (22.96%)
STL: 82 (20.92%)
CHI: 80 (20.41%)
KC: 15 (3.83%)
Other: 3 (0.77%)
Total: 392

So much more likely I have played closer to 1/3rd of my hands in Tunica.

non-Royal Straight Flushes:
Tunica: 11 (52.38%)
CHI: 5 (23.81%)
Vegas: 4 (19.05%)
STL: 1 (4.76%)
Total: 21

Royals:
Tunica: 3 (60%)
Vegas: 1 (20%)
STL: 1 (20%)
Total: 5

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=vman96]1. The casino is breaking the law
2. The casino is running an unfair game (1 and 2 often connected)
3. You miscollected the data you have posted here
4. You, along with a few other posters, are some of the unluckiest players on Earth.[/quote]The reason players are reporting widely different results is obvious.  After you get past optimal odds and play strategy, your results are determined by chance.   This means luck is a big part of VP even if some people don't wish to admit it.   This also means some people will win long term and many more will not.  If you are among the winners, you are convinced the games are fair and will resist anyone telling you your gains were not legitimate.  If you are among the losers, you may suspect the games are rigged.  The idea that a RNG is a calculator that always produces the same result over a human lifetime is contrived.   If the games are not rigged, results should vary across the board and that is exactly what is being reported.I do believe something has changed in the way video poker games work over the last five years or so.  Whether this is due to a conscious effort or a byproduct of faster processors, I do not know.   To me jackpots seem rarer and seem to bunch up more frequently.   Many more hands are nothing hands that produce no opportunity for improvement.  Frankly, I don't think most recreational players care if the games are rigged or not.  They see the games as a lottery and will play no matter what they think.

[Chicagoan]

Phil wrote: To me jackpots seem rarer and seem to bunch up more frequently.

Exactly my experience! Definitely I am seeing much, much more of the bunching up.