Some ppl ITT unjustifiably giving the OP a hard time. It's pretty clear a lot of online casinos are running some bent games.

Answer this, who, how, and how often is the software being checked by each online casino's respective regulator or licensing body? Well I checked into this some years back and from memory software was supposed to be checked annually or maybe biannually and again as far as I remember, even when checks were done (which is doubtful they are/were IMO) the online casino operator was given prior warning of the date the checks were going to be carried out on.

And let's face it, even without any prior warning, the online casino with a single click of a mouse could switch their slots software from a 85% payout to a 93% payout and then straight back again after the regulator or licensing body has left their offices.

The online gaming industry: There is much actual and anecdotal evidence that it is an extremely crooked industry, not in all of the products that they offer, but certainly in some of the products mentioned in this thread, and more.

And just because someone plays such -EV "gambler games", well it does not necessary follow or mean that a) they are unintelligent, b) that their analysis of data is flawed, and c) that they are not a credible person.

Unfortunately because gambling, especially casino gambling, is looked down upon by society, and has been deregulated far too much (turned a blind eye to) by many countries' governments, it means that it is a license to cheat customers for those online gaming operators so inclined.

The person you're replying to understands that. His answer is still correct.

Quote:
Originally Posted by d2_e4
He's comparing his RTP in one casino were he hasn't won jackpots (93%) to his RTP on Stars (81%), where he also hasn't won jackpots.
The person you're replying to understands that. His answer is still correct.

No it is not, his answer is 100% incorrect.

Firstly I need to say, that I personally am making no accusations whatsoever against Pokerstars (Amaya/Stars Group), I have no grievance against them whatsoever, nor do I have an active account with them.

I am merely commenting on the data that the OP has put forward, and for sake of argument, of discussion, I am building in the assumption that the data is accurate and genuine.

Secondly, the responses ITT which are trying to debunk the OP's assertions are one of two things; they are either from posters who don't understand the math(s) behind how incredibly slowly the Jackpot total builds up (most likely because they haven't observed it), or they are plain and simple shills and/or employees within the gaming industry. I am not going to assign one or the other reason/category to any of the posters ITT because I have no idea which reason/category any of the posters fall into.

So on to one of the OP's key "facts", supporting his belief that the Jackpot is being run in a crooked way on the site he mentions and/or the software is set up in such a way that the RTP is below what it legally/regulatory wise should be.

He states that his RTP (return to player) is 93% in a non Pokerstars online casino but only 81% in the Pokerstars casino, in both instances over a similarly fairly significant sample size of play, and very importantly in both instances he has never won the Jackpot.

My guesstimate of how much a player's RTP is reduced in the long run by never winning the Jackpot is in the 0.1% to 1.0% range, a widish range yes, but a range centred around a small number ~0.5%, and a range that is way, way off the 10% that someone ITT suggests could be a reality and that some other posters have by default supported, or at least not disputed, challenged or asked for an explanation of.

So how do I guesstimate 0.1% to 1% as the range (the additional loss of RTP) if one never wins the Jackpot?

Well, if you have ever played an online slots game that has a Jackpot that continually builds over time until won, you will have observed that the Jackpot figure rises at the rate of a trickle.

Typically the Jackpot will be displayed in large font above the slots game you are playing and will be formatted as $232,157.32

It will be live updating all of the time and even at busy times for slots play, let's say for example at 7.30 pm in the time zone where the bulk of players on a particular site play, you will still only see the .32 (so the cents in the number) move around semi-fast and the 7 (so the $7) move around quite slowly.

In other words, even with multiple players likely playing either the same slot game you are playing or playing a different slot game but where the Jackpot is pooled across more than one slots game, at peak playing time the Jackpot is still only progressing at quite a slow rate.

So it doesn't take a high level of extrapolation to work out that the Jackpot fund cannot possibly be taking anything like 10% of RTP away from players to fund such a tiny increase in the Jackpot, particularly as spins per minute are quite high, and are as fast as ~5 seconds per spin if you chose to switch to turbo spin mode.

Stakes offered for online slots are typically from $0.20 up to $100 per spin.

Even if we were to assign a very conservatively low average stake per player of $1 and a conservatively low estimate of 10 players all paying towards the Jackpot at peak playing time, a resultant reduction of 10% of RTP is still far too high a number to be possible given how slowly the Jackpot total rises.

If you apply more realistic figures, the reduction in RTP will I believe come out in the range I previously stated, of 0.1% to 1%.

Also, if you play on a slot with a progressive Jackpot at a time when hardly anyone else is, e.g. 3.30 am CET on a site that has almost exclusively CET/or Euro region customers, you will notice that the progressive Jackpot barely moves up or doesn't move at all. And this I have observed playing <$1 per spin, the Jackpot remaining static or going up by less than 1 cent (because the Jackpot display is reel based so can visually move by less than 1 cent).

So if the loss of RTP was really 10% and you were the only player on the site playing a Jackpot slot or Jackpot pool slot and playing the minimum stake of $0.20 you would/should still see the Jackpot go up by $0.02 per spin. It doesn't, it either doesn't go up at all, or it goes up by a fraction of a cent.

The only variation to all of the above is that if after the Jackpot is won a new Jackpot appears that has for example $100,000 in it, it is possible that the $100,000 is then retrospectively funded by a reduction in RTP from players' future spins. However, this would still not support the loss of RTP being anything close to 10% but it does support the figure being higher than the ~0.5% I mentioned, and incidentally the OP I think mentioned that his RTP is 93% on a site that advertises a 95% RTP, so a difference of 2% does make sense if a newly created starting Jackpot figure gets retrospectively funded by players.

s7yokosito,

I guess ultimately, if you think you're the victim of fraud here, you should post your data. I thought some friends of mine were victims of fraud in online gambling, posted my data, and it helped to prove the online operators were cheating over their denials.

Regarding the actual Jackpot winners themselves.

Do the regulators and/or the gaming licence granters check that real people, that are in no way associated with the gaming operator, win the Jackpots? Is this properly checked and audited by the regulators and/or the gaming licence granters?

Mikey_D, thank you for such detailed analysis. You did it perfect!


I have only RTP number. What can I do with it?

Btw it's not main theme of this thread. I just share information with players.

NP, s7yokosito, you deserve a fair hearing,

After 10 years of playing on PokerStars, including 3.5 years on PokerStars Casino (where I lost more than $250,000) my account was blocked on March 18, 2020.

Before this date, my ex-manager Mila Atanase threatened me to stop posting here. I refused because I believe that sharing information with people is not a crime.

Now, almost a week passed since the blocking, but I didn't receive any official mails from Pokerstars where the reason would be clearly stated. Only on March 20, Mila herself wrote by WhatsApp that my account was blocked due to "business discussion" and blacklisted me (lol wat?).

So, in couple days, I turned from VIP player into nothing

Hope that Pokerstars representatives have the courage to give detailed explanation of this situation. Interesting, how long will you do business if you ban old loyal customers so easily?


PS. Players think twice before continuing to play on PS and don't keep large amounts of money on your accounts there.

250k on casino.....yikes

Yeap. But it's over 3 years.

Btw almost 2 weeks have passed, and Pokerstars still silent. Be courageous and write me official letter with reasons of my blocking. I know you are reading my threads carefully

They likely won't reply. Most/all online gaming companies will do their utmost to squash/deflect/ignore such complaints.

Again, I have NO evidence against Pokerstars (Amaya/Stars Group) and no complaint against them.

What I will say though as a general observation is that over a big sample of observing people play roulette on FOBT machines (Fixed Odds Betting Terminals) in UK betting shops (I used to do a lot of sports betting arbitrage, as well as exploit +EV bonus offers), I never once saw anyone go on a proper heater, or even a minor heater. What I did see was people regularly doing their brains and in very quick time. The FOBTs are basically identical to online roulette, slots and table games as they are video games fed into the physical shop machines by some kind of online database/server.

However, in live casino roulette (my excuse for observing this is that there are roulette tables at many poker venues) I have seen some players go on massive heaters. It could be like ~1 in 40 times that it happens, but it does happen. Yes they tend to give it back, usually in the same session, but they did achieve heater status first.

I repeat I have NEVER seen it happen on an FOBT in a UK betting shop.

So I'll leave readers to work out why there is such a disparity between FOBT roulette and bricks and mortar roulette.

As already stated ITT, my instinct is that many/most/perhaps all online Blackjack operators are deploying an RNG (card RNG) that is skewed (fixed) in their favour, so above the normal Bricks and Mortar edge to the house.

Thirdly, my instinct is that many/most/all online gambling games run by many/most/all operators have some software programmed into them that will give neutral or +EV results to the player while they are playing at low stakes and then the EV drops sharply into its advertised negative, and beyond, as the player increases the stakes.

This is effectively the same trick that the age old 3 card trick (3 balls under a cup) street hustlers use to reel in a mark. They have a stooge that is appearing to win. The online gaming operator's "stooge" is to let you win at small stakes and then punish you if you increase stakes.

I must emphasise that all of the above is my instinct and my only actual non observation with the eye data that I have is in online Blackjack.

If I am correct about all or much of the above then one day all of this will come out but by then most or all of the personnel will have moved on or have retired and those who remain will stall the legal cases for years and years and eventually when prosecutions are made those left to face the charges will use the two classic defences of "I wasn't aware of what was going on", or, "I was only following orders".

Don't play any online non skill games is my advice to everyone.

All Stars have to show to Malta Gaming Authority or whoever is that the funds were transferred to a separate lottery or promotion which benefited players.

Under their Terms and Conditions this is permissible.

What is not permissible is consistently misleading consumers on the nature of such promotions constantly. They are breaking the implicit agreement that any lottery would either be continued or liquidated.

As regards the commissions the UKGC has become insanely strict on money laundering but that's it. If it's a consumer based violation it's a slap on the wrist.

I believe sites simply tell the commissions they are moving promotional funds. They simply have to show the players are benefiting and not the site itself. Now of course you could argue that redistributing such lottery funds for promotional reasons is very unfair to the players that paid the fee.

All of these sites have extremely broad terms and conditions. Look at GGpoker with the "bumhunting" restriction or Betfair's infamous "spirit of the game" proviso. It is up to the commissions and others if these terms and conditions are unfair to the player, but like I say the commissions do not seem to be concerned with harm to the consumer. Money laundering is what is bringing the big fines ATM, at least in the UK.

Return money to Jumbo Jackpots? Frankly, I prefer Return of the Jedi.

Mikey_D, could you please be more specific? What games and providers are you writing about? Do you also mean blackjack with live dealers or one that looks more like a computer game?

If PokerStars doesn't give any comments in the coming days, the next step will be MGA and other authorities. But I don't expect a breakthrough from these companies because PS feed them.

The main hit will be to close Russian market for them, where casino operates semi-legally. And the complete destruction of reputation in other markets.

I am not referring to the live dealer Blackjack games, just the computer type games, as you describe them.

I will add though, that for live Blackjack I have seen at least two operators who make it possible for players to hit (take another card) when they are on 18, 19 or 20. This is clearly ludicrous as anyone who does so, and it does occasionally happen, has either mis-clicked, has misread their hand, is under the influence of some kind of substance, or doesn't know the rules of Blackjack. 18+ should auto stand, or have a pre-determined switchable on option for the player to auto-stand, or a warning pop up "are you sure you want to take a card" should appear. None of these are available on more than one site that I have seen.

Furthermore, and I am heavily criticising gaming regulations/the gaming regulator in the UK now, someone can open an account for poker (often in response to TV/web/print advertising or marketing that mentioned only poker), start playing small stakes poker, e.g. NL 25, but on the same screen there is a link/button to Blackjack and live Blackjack, and when it opens up they can stake up to 10,000 $/£/€
per hand. In fact, not just per hand but on multiple spots. Yes ten thousand.

This is completely ludicrous that this is possible and proves that the UK Gambling Act is an utter joke and not fit for purpose.

The previous Labour party in power UK government, who legislated the current Gambling Act, Blair/Prescott/Jowell (now deceased), should be utterly ashamed of themselves and any future Labour government should amend the act or completely replace it with something new that stops this kind of blatant exploitation/attempted exploitation of players/customers, as well as puts controls and checks in place that prevent operators from doing the kind of things that you allege and that I have observed myself.

I don't want to name the specific operators who my experiences are with, for the reasons that I gave in one of my previous posts, #14.

Depends what you class as a FOBT heater because the stake was limited to £100 so it's all relative. I've seen people hit 2-3k from £100 on many occasions but you're never going to see £20k because of the stake limit.

With regards to online blackjack, I've seen some crazy **** that you wouldn't think possible but then again I've also seen similar at the casino. I've also run up a big score from a small deposit (before losing most back) so I'm not sure whether it's rigged as such, does it need to be? I do think some of the rules that online casinos offer are ridiculous though and players should definitely shop around for the best game.

That's fair enough if you have occasionally seen someone actually win on an FOBT but that isn't a heater as such, a heater would be if someone started by loading £50 in total on the machine and who staked £5 to £10 on the table per spin and turned it into 2 to 3K. I have never seen anything like this happen on an FOBT but I have seen it live bricks and mortar. I've also seen people staking £25 to £50 per spin getting up to 10 to 15K live, yes by pressing up their bets when on a streak, which I agree is not possible from a base of £100 bets on an FOBT but is possible from a lower stake.

But what I have seen multiple times is FOBT players banging their fists in fury on to the glass/Perspex of the machine, cursing what unbelievable bad luck they are having. Every bone in my body tells me that players are far more "unlucky" on FOBT roulette than they are on brick and mortar roulette. One player smashed every single TV set in the shop with a sledge hammer that I believe he went home to get the hammer after losing his money on the FOBT machines. I didn't see it happen but was shocked when I walked in. The counter staff told me what happened. I said will he be prosecuted. They said probably not. I wonder why?

Let's face it, if the UK Gambling commission were really interested in this kind of thing (maybe they are but are not aware of what could be going on), it would be very simple for them to in consultation with some maths boffin academics at a UK university, send a small team of mystery shoppers into UK betting shops to play a decent sample size of roulette, and FOBT blackjack which is also a bent as nine bob note, and analyse the results.

They could do exactly the same for online roulette and blackjack. Slots would be a bit more complicated but still possible.

All of this could be done surreptitiously, which is how I would do it.

Or if the current or a future government (Gambling Commission) want to police such things they could write into gaming law that they can and will be doing ongoing spot checks with mystery shoppers, notifying the gaming operators after the event, and claiming back their losses! Either way would work. The first method I believe would catch a few operators at it. The second method would be a huge deterrent.

No it doesn't have to be rigged and you would think that a ~3% edge to the house on UK betting shop FOBT's would be a nice enough edge for the bookmaking companies who own and operate these machines. However, it is a business fact that these betting shops' traditional horse/dog/sports betting revenue has been in terminal decline over the last few years.

A subtle additional reason why a betting shop's FOBT machine might be deliberately rigged to crush a player by way more than a 3% edge is that it will often put a player on tilt. They will put more money into the machine to chase their losses and if that doesn't work well then 6 feet away in the same betting shop is a big bank of about 12 large screen TVs with a big selection of very -EV horse racing and greyhound racing bets on offer. Greyhound racing typically is a ~125% over round book, British horse racing ~112% depending the field size/type of race, Irish racing a little higher and USA racing of which there is a lot in UK betting shops, higher at ~120%

Think too about the kind of people who start gaming businesses in the first place, not all, but the vast majority are not people who believe in fair play or providing something that is productive or good for society. When you have such people in charge of gaming operations and they are given an easy opening to bend or even break the rules due to having very loose regulation which IMO is not even policed properly, if policed at all, a weak and mainly toothless regulator, and the operator (not all, but many) is licensed by Gaming Licence operators that are based in Mickey Mouse financial territories, usually primarily as it's beneficial for tax, but also because the licensing organisation there is also Mickey Mouse, very likely bought off or easy to buy off and therefore tantamount to a fake organisation, then these are the combined factors that make it possible, probably easy, for a gaming company to rip off its customers and get away with it.

If you've missed all the recent news about Malta have a look at this link and other related news about Malta
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...galizia-murder
A large number of gaming companies are registered in, licensed in, or both, in Malta.

I am not aware of any corruption in Alderney, although I have never researched into it, but what I do know is that it is absolutely tiny at 7.8 sq km and has a population of ~2100 people. Should a place like this really be where many gaming companies are licensed?

Gaming companies operating in a country should also be registered and licensed in that same country in my opinion, or if not in the same country then somewhere that has a much stronger, more reliable and long standing political and legal system.

These types of games (computer BJ, roullette and etc) have the maximum potential to be rigged. It was in these games on Pokerstars that my percentage of RTP was much less than promised. And the most correct indicator was in Blackjack with live dealers, where the shuffling of cards was manual. In fact, this is a great reason for investigation, but who will do this?

Yeap, you can even double on 20 - they will not warn you. Even more, some of providers practice "mis-click trick" when the hit button is supposedly not pressed due to connection problems (although the video is broadcasting in HD quality at that moment), and then it turns out that the player clicked the hit button 2 or more times and made his hand "too many".

This is especially interesting for Russia, where PokerStars is allowed to provide only poker services. But any Russian poker player can download .COM client in a couple of minutes and start to play in PS casino.

You might think that this is network globalization problem, but they even have Russian-speaking casino managers who know very well on what territory you play in. So this is the deliberate violation of the law.

Yes unfortunately the things we are discussing are very likely to be an industry wide, and global wide online gaming issue.

I do feel, and it is only "feel", that there might be a small number of good-egg online gaming operators out there who do everything by the book, because their owners have more pride in their business offering a fair service to customers.

Certain elements of mankind will do bad stuff as we all know, and are even more likely to do bad stuff if they can get away with it.

IMO it is a political issue more than anything else, as it is politicians and therefore laws, regulations and enforcement of them that will stop bad practice by online gaming operators.

Take the UK for example. The current Conservative Party government (Conservative is similar politically to Republican in the USA) are capitalists ideologically, so any pull back of the very loose online gaming laws and any strengthening of the UK Gambling Commission's powers and of their resources to make enforcements, would be thought of as an anti free-market, retrograde step by The Conservatives. Plus the Conservative Party, as well as many individual Members of Parliament within it, are well known to have links with big business, as either past or existing board members of big businesses, likely future board members, or as business owners themselves, so it is unlikely that they would want to tighten regulations and enforcement in one of the most capitalist businesses known to mankind, gambling.

Then take The Labour Party (similar politically to Democrat in the USA). Well as I previously mentioned, it was The Labour Party whose 2005 Gambling Act has caused or at least enabled many of the issues we are discussing to have happened. Labour are not in government and when they eventually are, if they wanted to replace the terrible 2005 Gambling Act that they created, they would have to admit to its many bad parts and its many deficiencies.

The current Conservative Party government, to their (very minor) credit, have pledged to review the 2005 Gambling Act and have already made some moves, not to curtail potential cheating by any gaming operators that might be cheating, but to reduce the stakes on the FOBT betting shop gaming machines.

However, the review they are pledging and reduction in stakes has only taken place due to massive and persistent pressure from the UK media who have been reporting over the last 1 to 2 years about people who have lost everything, their house, their car, their job, their relationships, by gambling it all away on FOBTs, and these FOBTs have come to be known by the UK public as, The Crack Cocaine of Gambling.

There have also been an increasing number of stories in the UK media about female gamblers losing fortunes playing online Bingo. No doubt many of these women were attracted by warm and fuzzy style TV advertising of online Bingo which is very common on UK television and which is another major terrible thing that the 2005 Gambling Act allows to happen, along with masses of other online gaming ads that are plastered all over UK television channels.

I will add though that the review will likely look into problem gambling and better player protection protocols but it is very unlikely IMO to also look into potential crookedness in how the games are run, because either the government don't know it might be happening, or know but don't care, or know but have their own collective or certain individuals' financial interest in allowing it to continue to happen.

It should be pointed out to them (the government) that the issue of problem gambling and problem gamblers is obviously exacerbated if some online gaming operators are cheating their customers, because clearly this will make problem gamblers' losses bigger and happen more quickly and in many cases the cheating of them will be a major factor in them first becoming problem gamblers. As I alluded to earlier, in a bricks and mortar casino one does at least have a chance of walking out a winner or making one's money last a while playing when the games are operated fairly at a ~3.5% house edge, but at a dishonest online ~15% house edge it will quite clearly and obviously ruin the lives as well as the psychological and mental well being of a significant number of people.

Incidentally all forms of advertising, TV, print, billboards and online are completely banned in the UK for tobacco products and have been for many years. Also advertising of alcohol is heavily regulated which is why on UK TV adverts for alcohol there are strict rules which prohibit the advertiser from in any way suggesting that the beverage is beneficial to the consumer or good for them. The ads and their styling is restricted to only conveying brand recognition and brand differentiation, but that's all.

Yet for gambling advertising gaming companies can pretty much do what they like. So a massive gift to them by The Labour Party government in 2005.

P.S. I am a socialist so instinctively a Labour Party supporter, however what they did in 2005 was one of their worst policy decisions in their history.

s7yokosito,

If you don't mind me asking, what was your biggest win in the pokerstars casino, and did you ever make any good sized withdrawals? Did you also play a lot of poker ring games or tournaments? I'm curious if a player's chest rewards in poker would be higher if they see the player also playing sometimes in the ps casino.

Shark1980,

my wins were very rare in Pokerstars casino (couple times per year ~2-3k$), and the withdrawals were medium-sized and even more rare.

Be sure that playing in PS casino will have negative effect on chest rewards. You will often receive micro bonus money with huge wager which is very difficult to turn into real cash.