When is enough enough?

[weekendplayer]

No, this is not a joke. The money I lost was real.  I would love to be assured I'm playing a fair game. I've read that some internet casino vp games are rigged. I haven't heard of any rng manipulation in any brick and morter casinos, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. I admit the scenario I layed out earlier is probabily way off base. Even Bob Dancer says he's 99.99% certain that vp machines are fair. But what about that last .01%? I suppose if I wanted to pursue this further I should contact my states gaming commission, but who's to say they would take this seriously?
 
I guess what I'm looking for, from this forum, is how many hands would it take to seriously question the integrity of a machine? Based on NSUD with a 99.7% return, -0.1% error cost, and a single coin variance of 25.78.
 
It's been many years since I studied applied statictics, but I know these numbers can be calculated.  I just don't remember the machanics of doing so. I would imagine skilled players are generally numbers people. I would think someone who reads these post would be able to answer this question. 
 

[cddenver]

I haven't heard of any rng manipulation in any brick and morter casinos, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. I admit the scenario I layed out earlier is probabily way off base. Even Bob Dancer says he's 99.99% certain that vp machines are fair. But what about that last .01%? I suppose if I wanted to pursue this further I should contact my states gaming commission, but who's to say they would take this seriously?

 
I'd agree with Bob Dancer.  One of the forum members (rascal?) pointed out a long, long time ago that when a casino is licensed to offer negative return games the state is basically allowing them to print their own money.  All they need are randomness and negative return paytables.  If they're after more money they can simply (and legally) lower paytables.   The penalties for doing it illegally run from fines to loss of license to jail time.
 
If I owned a casino and was considering doing something like that I'd do it in conjuction with HIGHER paytables to attract more players, and make up the money thru volume.
 
 
 
 

[shadowman]

One more thing to keep in mind. The casinos do not have access to the internals of the machines. In fact, it's possible the machines are rented. IGT utilizes checksums and seals their game chips. To modify them would require bringing in someone to extract the chips, reverse engineer the programming and acquire their own EPROM writer. Why would a casino do this when they can simply lower the paytable? And, if they were going to do it, why not put out FPDW pay tables or better.  



 
Finally, as already mentioned, they would be risking their gaming license in most states. You should read the compact between your state and the Indians (usually online). Most likely it states that the games must be fair and random (class III).
 
I guess we should mention that some states still have class II gaming which is not fair. What state are you from?

[weekendplayer]

I'm from Wisconsin.
 
Let me throw in a little tid-bit about the gambling climate here. Residents here are required to pay income tax on all gambling wins. Back in 2000 the state emliminated the "gambling losses" deduction from the income tax laws. I found this out the hard way, that being a year I accumulated 14k in WG's. I was able to deduct my loses on my federal taxes, but was required to pay about 6% to the state. Of course I only claimed the amount reported on the WG's, but I saw no indication that limited "gambling winnings" to just the WG's. I've read Dancer's "Million Dollar VP" where he says he accumulates over 1 million dollars in WG's a year.  If he was a resident here, he would owe over 60k in taxes reguardless of his loses. To my knowledge this is the only state that does this.
 
I'm not suggesting there's some sort of conspiracy going on here. For all I know class II gaming may be allowed here. Does IGT produce class II games? If so, would they look any different from class III games?

[faygo]

I'm from Wisconsin.
 
Let me throw in a little tid-bit about the gambling climate here. Residents here are required to pay income tax on all gambling wins. Back in 2000 the state emliminated the "gambling losses" deduction from the income tax laws. I found this out the hard way, that being a year I accumulated 14k in WG's. I was able to deduct my loses on my federal taxes, but was required to pay about 6% to the state. Of course I only claimed the amount reported on the WG's, but I saw no indication that limited "gambling winnings" to just the WG's. I've read Dancer's "Million Dollar VP" where he says he accumulates over 1 million dollars in WG's a year.  If he was a resident here, he would owe over 60k in taxes reguardless of his loses. To my knowledge this is the only state that does this.
 
I'm not suggesting there's some sort of conspiracy going on here. For all I know class II gaming may be allowed here. Does IGT produce class II games? If so, would they look any different from class III games?
 
You are not alone. North Carolina also unjustly enriches itself.  Gambling losses are not deductible.

[shadowman]

Wisconsin has class III gambling.
 
I've been to Ho-chunk a few times and Oneida a couple of times. Went to Black River Falls once, Turtle Lake and Hole-in-the-wall a few times (I'm from MN). The games have always seemed fine to me.

[weekendplayer]

Years back there was a story (more like a rumor) circulating about a WI casino that was fined for not complying with gaming regulations. According to the rumor, the casino willingly paid because their increased profit more than covered the cost of the fine. Urban legend, I figure.
 
I wonder if any WI casino has ever been fined for non-compliance?

[weekendplayer]

This is all getting away from my original question. Let me rephrase it.
 
If you sat down to a new game in any casino, played 8000 hands, and determined your outcome was in the bottom 2% of possiblities, would you continue to play?

[pryan67]

yes...because 8000 hands is WAY too small of a sample to get a real idea of what the payouts are...
 
now...if you had played 800,000 hands...and knew you didn't make any mistakes, then you might have something to go to the gaming authorities about

[cddenver]

Years back there was a story (more like a rumor) circulating about a WI casino that was fined for not complying with gaming regulations. According to the rumor, the casino willingly paid because their increased profit more than covered the cost of the fine. Urban legend, I figure.
 
I wonder if any WI casino has ever been fined for non-compliance?
 
Casinos here in Colorado are fined regularly for non-compliance with regulations and orders, but there's much more to the regulations than just standards for randomness.  Here, the fines are for things like not having machine upgrades made by a certain date (bill validators, component shielding and such), not catching kids under 21 who sneak in, etc.  I remember a bunch of fines here after Katrina for some casinos that had bought machines from that area and set them up before they'd been certified by the state.  
 
I did a quick Google for Wisconsin casino violations and just found one in the first few pages of hits.  That was for a casino that hadn't turned in its quarterly fees statement on time.  I didn't see anything about any WI casinos being charged with violating randomness provisions.
 
I don't know what the casino situation is up there as far as competition goes, but if a casino here was caught rigging machines it would be dead.  Probably from having the state revoke its license, but even if it kept its license we have enough places here that players would go elsewhere.  I certainly would.