How much do we still not know?

[shadowman]

Dreamcard is a very volatile game. For example, in one of the recent contests playing Dreamcard I had 8 Royals in 10K hands (none of them dealt). It was crazy. Now, I don't think vp.com messes with the RNGs (although lots of people think the games pay worse than in casinos). It was just one of those streaks. So much is dependent on the deal with games like Dreamcard it's easy to see very bad and very good streaks. 67K hands is simply not enough to base anything on. Sorry.
 


However, if a person does not feel comfortable with a game they should not play. The game may be perfectly legit but there's no sense in taking a chance even if it's a small one. Find something else to play. I've done it before.
 
In fact, I had a losing streak in one particular casino. I pretty much stopped going there for several years. I ended up going back there to try it out again and ended up having my best year ever. I don't think they did anything to the machines, it was just the streakiness inherent in games with a high variance.

[ginfre]

At this point, what comes to mind is the words of Zig Ziglar, whom I had the privilege of being in a relatively small audience of about 150 people in Merrillville, Indiana, in 1970.  Zig said, "the half a minders and the gonna doers wind up being the never doers".  That stuck for me.  It's stuck with you.

[SaraTG]

I don't think the evidence presented here would want me to spend time doing a deposition.

 
  As Bruce Lee once said.."Don't THINK.....FEEL!"

[BillyJoe]

Earlier this year at CAesars AC, from March thru early june, on a bank of four Five Star machines, I KILLED the dreamcard games there 
 
After June 15, things came to a DRASTIC halt and over the next 6 months until last week, the same four machines have literally SUCKED me, and my associate co-players dry.... 
 
Also, I feel better now that Billiejoe has joined the conversation.....I dont know about anyone else, and I dont know if he thinks I am a whackjob or an annoying turd, but I feel whenever billiejoe joins a thread, the tension dissipates and things become more goodnatured.   Unless Bob Dancer jumps in with another pearl of wisdom on the role of stop-loss dynamics in a married couple's sex life.....
Well, Burglar, I appreciate the acknowledgement in your post. I will tell you that I was @ Caesars AC in mid-June for a few days this year (the Caesars' 7Star event), and I played those four Five Star machines that you mentioned, including DreamCard, quite frequently. I liked the fact that TDB was one of the game options. I felt as though the DreamCard came up quite frequently, and while never getting several block-buster hands, I had some very positive playing sessions on them. I hope that I am not the reason that a change was made to them when I left, if what you say is true. 
 
But I agree with Shadow. I feel as though streaks, both good and bad, are just that - streaks. I just came back from Biloxi, where my VP success for this trip was non-existent. I hit my 'Loss Stop' point on virtually every playing session. At one point, as I hopped to a different machine, I watched a lady sit down on the machine that I just vacated, hold a lone Ace, and draw an RF.   
 
Now, as far as applying a 'Win/Loss Stop' approach to a married couple's sex life, I can honestly say I have not (yet ) given that approach a try. It would be hard for me to imagine setting a stop point.   

[bpoker]

EDOG743....tribal casino's don't come close to resembling vegas casino's if you're talking about payouts and state laws. The Nevada Gaming commission states that the minimum payout a machine can have is 92% and if its advertised to be more than that, such as 96% as you see in some progressive banks of machines, vegas must pay out 96%....if its in a bank of 12 machines it can come from one machine or a combination of all of them. Last time I checked tribals minimum payout could be as low as 82%......which is why you lose at reservations if you play consistently there.

[OTABILL]

Let me change the paradigm
of this thread somewhat. We have found that at certain casinos buttons stick and sometimes cards do not hold. One night, I was dealt 4 to a straight flush. Held all four but when I hit the deal button, one of the cards did not hold. Naturally, the straight flush would have hit. Called management over. They checked the machine and acknowledged the fact that I was indeed dealt four to an outside straight flush. However, the supervisor said the machine was working properly and insinuated I had not held the card in question properly refusing to pay me. Naturally, we stopped playing immediately and have not returned to that casino.  There have been occasions at other casinos where we have lost paying hands due to sticking, non-functioning hold buttons. In most cases, a pair. Usually we switch to touching the screen and continue playing. Nevertheless, it adds up.So there is more than one way for casinos to get an extra advantage.  

[ko king]

EDOG743....tribal casino's don't come close to resembling vegas casino's if you're talking about payouts and state laws. The Nevada Gaming commission states that the minimum payout a machine can have is 92% and if its advertised to be more than that, such as 96% as you see in some progressive banks of machines, vegas must pay out 96%....if its in a bank of 12 machines it can come from one machine or a combination of all of them. Last time I checked tribals minimum payout could be as low as 82%......which is why you lose at reservations if you play consistently there.





Interesting point you bring up. I attempted to dig a little deeper into why my results were so bad and started asking questions. The casino said they would run a test to make sure the machines were operating correctly and let me know the results. I was told the machines were within the curve line for minimal payback except for a couple of the lower denomination machines. I ask what the minimal payback was and the answer was 82%, to this day I still don't understand how over a long period of time Class III vp machines that advertise 98.98% can be considered as operating within the limits as long as they don't fall below 82%. I also talked to a slot tech away from the casino one night and was told there were more than just one RNG/program that were approved and considered legal, the casino couldn't just change one without getting the okay from the gaming comm.

[rascal]

Ko King, the minimum payout setting and the actual payout are two different animals. If a machine is capable of 98% return with perfect play and some doofus sits down and misplays every hand, the casino is not responsible for making sure doofus is still covered to the tune of 98%. I have seen many vp machines with a paytable return of the upper 90's where the actual return over time is in the low 80's or even lower, due to poor play.
 
Now, as to randomness... over many years of VP, dating back to the very early 1990's, I have had incredible hits and incredible misses. Long winning streaks and long losing streaks. Had three Royals dealt in a two month period, at three different casinos, then went almost four years before I got another one. Had 4OAK on three consecutive hands at the former Grand Casino Gulfport (which disappeared in Katrina). Have won fantastically on STP only to then enter long periods of STP losses. It is the most random game on earth. If you feel like sitting there plinking away at Jacks or Better you can reduce the streakiness somewhat, but for me J or B is just like Sominex.
 
I think VP machines in REGULATED jurisdications that I TRUST are fair and are random. That said, anyone would be a fool to offer 100% trust to anything, so......eyes wide open.

[roveer]

Good, good.  We've got the creative juices flowing.  That is exactly what I wanted for this thread. I've got a few observations. 1.  Since the initial post, not much has come up about the actual "rigging".  Seems like most everyone believes that the machines play true, but some of the recent posts show data that might open the door to this possibility.  Althought it seems like it still might be in the realm of "streakyness" Especially for DDB & TDB. 2.  I've got a few of the Vp.com apps for my ipad and use them as my "trainer"  Specifically the STP app.  Pretty much gives me the exact same game I play in the casino, 10 handed DDB.  In the past 3 or so weeks I've taken it from 10k to 60k in a few really great sessions, only to drop back down into the 30k range and now back up to 45k.  All over the board.  The only reason I bring this up is that I would imagine there are no casino specific settings in my ipad app???  It's acting completly random and streaky, sometimes good, sometimes dry as heck. I've always joked with one of my casino buddies that there is a dial in the back room that governs payouts (super simplification), but sounds good when your sitting at the bar.  This past summer and fall (and most of this year really), I've really started to think it was more true than anything else.  Especially after super storm Sandy which forced the closing of the casino's.  It started to make you think that they had to recoup their losses somehow.  But after lots of discussion here, and lots of paying attention to my trainer, I'm starting to think it's more streakyness, more than just pay tables, just plain streakyness of the games.  Don't even get me started on my theories of weak and strong number strings, but I would make a bet that there are ways to trend a random number genrator if you knew the seed values (often the RTC represented in seconds from the start of the christian calendar from 0:00 on 1/1/0000.  At least that was how I was trained to seed a RNG when I used to program.  Who remembers on the TRS80 when you would use the same seed value you would get the same RNG values each time.   Now, I know it's a lot more complex than that, and who knows, but heck, I saw guys decode encrypted data packets that came from satellites for free TV.  How the heck hard could this be.  It's just math. Now of course someone would work this to death and never find any usable advantage, or maybe they could.  Some machines will work better Aug-Oct or weak strings now through January???  Seems like we all hit these really hot and cold sessions.  I for one would like to give myself any advantage I could.  Not likely to happen.  Guess I'll have to be happy with the free beer and tourister luggage they keep giving away. Anyway,  Keept the conversation cooking, I like to hear that I'm not alone. Also, one good thing could come from my long rambling post.  To those who keep "detailed records".  What exactly are you capturing?  I can't imagine your documenting every hand?  What is your document regimen?  I'd like to improve mine, which is basically bankroll, handpays, trip outcome.  Can't really glean much from that. Roveer 

[SaraTG]

1.  Since the initial post, not much has come up about the actual "rigging".  Seems like most everyone believes that the machines play true, but some of the recent posts show data that might open the door to this possibility.  Althought it seems like it still might be in the realm of "streakyness" Especially for DDB & TDB.

 
  Here's my last bit of paranoia on the subject. I honestly feel that specific games are programed so that the premium hands do not come up as often.  Here is why I think this but of course we can dismiss it as simply to small of a sampling or due to streakiness.  If I am playing a non-DDB video poker game I can hit AWAK hands all the time. I think in the past 2 months I've hit 4 aces with a kicker on 6 out of 8 visits to the casino on the Triple Ace poker game. BUT playing DDB I NEVER hit AWAK.  Same with 4 dueces. I have hit countless 4 of a kind hands with it being dueces. Yet when I get on a dueces wild machine I never hit the 4 dueces.
 
  I don't know. I asked my friend who is in the Illuminati if he ever heard anything about this and he just said, "What's a video poker machine?", and then he winked at me.