What is the liklihood of Casino cheating at VP?

[Tedlark]

  edog the skull is ALLEGEDLY the hardest bone in the human body. I think I remember reading that somewhere or else an EX-girlfriend told me.

[spxChrome]

Yea hindsight is 20/20 and no I won't be returning to that casino. Actually quit going 2 months ago and I was a 2x a week player, 8-10K hands per session. After no hand pays for a month+ I became a believer. Like DA was saying it was just trash after trash after trash. I once played 47 single line hands without a paying pair. Not impossible I suppose but it has to be highly improbable given the alleged randomness involved.

[ko king]

Yea hindsight is 20/20 and no I won't be returning to that casino. Actually quit going 2 months ago and I was a 2x a week player, 8-10K hands per session. After no hand pays for a month+ I became a believer. Like DA was saying it was just trash after trash after trash. I once played 47 single line hands without a paying pair. Not impossible I suppose but it has to be highly improbable given the alleged randomness involved.
I play $2 DDB at max play and I remember a stretch of going to the casino and not hitting a single handpay for 15 straight trips, never in my 18 years of previous play had I ever seen anything like it. Hindsight is 20/20 but I just keep thinking this has got to stop sometime, it can't stay bad forever. On the 16th trip I finally hit quad Aces for $1,600, walked out right after that hit then went the next 5 trips without hitting another handpay. I won't tell a lie and say I won money playing a few years back but the losses WERE in line with the advertised payback percentages, some years a little below and a few above. With the exception of one casino I can't come close to 98.98% and it's changed the way I play in a pretty big way. Before the play got so tough I would have multiple handpays on good trips, the most I ever had in 1 night was 8 and 3-5 handpays was very common. The way it is now getting 1 handpay is asking a lot, if I had been playing far less hands it would be understandable but that wasn't the case, I was putting the time in.  

[BillyJoe]

  edog the skull is ALLEGEDLY the hardest bone in the human body. I think I remember reading that somewhere or else an EX-girlfriend told me.
I thought that was the femur.

[BillyJoe]

   What I think has happened is that preflop the cards are random as outlined by the gaming commission. But are controlled to a certain payback % beyond that. I only say this because it seems the only way to get a handpay these days is to have it dealt. I went on a streak of 93, 128 and 118 having dealt trip Aces and not connecting. That is 3 connections where it should have been around 14.

Well, if that was true, it would violate most of the gaming regulations that I have seen, which cite that the cards must be presented as if they have been dealt from a randomly shuffled deck, and that the player must be presented adequete information (ie the pay table) to determine EV with perfect play.
 
I do beleive, though, that today's "continuous shuffling" within the modern VP machine accounts for a feeling of differentness in VP play. I do not know if that by itself would change the overall results, but that technology change seems to coincide with most folk's observations.  

[ko king]

[QUOTE=spxChrome]   What I think has happened is that preflop the cards are random as outlined by the gaming commission. But are controlled to a certain payback % beyond that. I only say this because it seems the only way to get a handpay these days is to have it dealt. I went on a streak of 93, 128 and 118 having dealt trip Aces and not connecting. That is 3 connections where it should have been around 14.

Well, if that was true, it would violate most of the gaming regulations that I have seen, which cite that the cards must be presented as if they have been dealt from a randomly shuffled deck, and that the player must be presented adequete information (ie the pay table) to determine EV with perfect play.
 
I do beleive, though, that today's "continuous shuffling" within the modern VP machine accounts for a feeling of differentness in VP play. I do not know if that by itself would change the overall results, but that technology change seems to coincide with most folk's observations.  [/QUOTE] 
 Most of us didn't even know there was new technology, we just knew something was different, so wouldn't it be fair to say the new technology may have changed the game?

[BillyJoe]

[QUOTE=billyjoe][QUOTE=spxChrome]   What I think has happened is that preflop the cards are random as outlined by the gaming commission. But are controlled to a certain payback % beyond that. I only say this because it seems the only way to get a handpay these days is to have it dealt. I went on a streak of 93, 128 and 118 having dealt trip Aces and not connecting. That is 3 connections where it should have been around 14.

Well, if that was true, it would violate most of the gaming regulations that I have seen, which cite that the cards must be presented as if they have been dealt from a randomly shuffled deck, and that the player must be presented adequete information (ie the pay table) to determine EV with perfect play.
 
I do beleive, though, that today's "continuous shuffling" within the modern VP machine accounts for a feeling of differentness in VP play. I do not know if that by itself would change the overall results, but that technology change seems to coincide with most folk's observations.  [/QUOTE] 
 Most of us didn't even know there was new technology, we just knew something was different, so wouldn't it be fair to say the new technology may have changed the game?[/QUOTE]
I don't know if it changed the game, Ko, but the continuous shuffllng helps ensure that no card pattern exists, and no timing of deal/draw can be determined that would work to the player's advantage. 
 
The casino's have also done that with table games like Blackjack. They now use a fresh, shuffled deck on EVERY hand, so card counting is impossible.   

[ko king]

[QUOTE=ko king][QUOTE=billyjoe][QUOTE=spxChrome]   What I think has happened is that preflop the cards are random as outlined by the gaming commission. But are controlled to a certain payback % beyond that. I only say this because it seems the only way to get a handpay these days is to have it dealt. I went on a streak of 93, 128 and 118 having dealt trip Aces and not connecting. That is 3 connections where it should have been around 14.

Well, if that was true, it would violate most of the gaming regulations that I have seen, which cite that the cards must be presented as if they have been dealt from a randomly shuffled deck, and that the player must be presented adequete information (ie the pay table) to determine EV with perfect play.
 
I do beleive, though, that today's "continuous shuffling" within the modern VP machine accounts for a feeling of differentness in VP play. I do not know if that by itself would change the overall results, but that technology change seems to coincide with most folk's observations.  [/QUOTE] 
 Most of us didn't even know there was new technology, we just knew something was different, so wouldn't it be fair to say the new technology may have changed the game?[/QUOTE]
I don't know if it changed the game, Ko, but the continuous shuffllng helps ensure that no card pattern exists, and no timing of deal/draw can be determined that would work to the player's advantage. 
 
The casino's have also done that with table games like Blackjack. They now use a fresh, shuffled deck on EVERY hand, so card counting is impossible.   [/QUOTE]

Interesting info and I've heard and seen stories of people who had figured out ways to cheat or increase their odds of winning on some games but I've never heard of a player being able to influence the game of vp. I knew that the casinos had made changes to games like Blackjack but I thought vp was considered to be random in the first place. Maybe I should have paid closer attention because I never picked up on anything that would have increased my chances to win.

[dredwing]

Let's try looking at this another way.  Everyone talks about the machines, RNGs, casinos, etc...  Let's start with the board/comission.  We can just assume they are keeping things strictly in check and doing it an honorable sense.... WHY?  When this new phase of crappy poker started I thought I was gonna be a good tax payer and report all the crap to the board.  This was a few years ago but I'll never forget how rude and wisecracking the girls working the phones were.  So next I would try bringing it to casino workers, even slot managers.  Of course at first, they toed the industry line.  But eventually they told me some shocking things.At a certain large local chain they were blunt about it, "yeah, our machines are OFF and so is everyone elses."  Another one said, "some days we wished we could loosen more, but that's no longer in our hands."  But it goes further then that, I think it involves what machines they could put in, what promotions they can offer, eating options, etc.....  This entire industry is now being micromanaged from the top down.Casinos ain't stupid, they know how much a bank pulls in over a time period regardless if it's paying or not, they tracked popularity.  Now I've lost count of how many popular banks were pulled only to be replaced with new crap that NOBODY EVER plays.  And do you think the casino switches em back?  NO!  It does not make any sense.

[chucknorris5]

I just question (because I don't know and because I have no confidence in casino management integrity) whether state gaming officials are competent to regulate the manipulation of video poker. Does anyone know what the process and oversight is for a video poker machine to placed on a casino floor? Also, how do (if they do) gaming regulators monitor video poker pay outs once installed?