What is the liklihood of Casino cheating at VP?

[ko king]

[QUOTE=Vman96]
As for myself, I'm on a 16-month royalless streak. Thank god I don't pump a lot of volume at the casino; I may have played only ~1 "Royal Cycle" in 16 months.
That's why statements relating results (or, lack thereof) to a time period are meaningless.

I have recently endured a royal drought that was "only" three months. But, I played about 141000 hands in those three months, which makes my three month drought a lot worse than your sixteen month one.

Thankfully, the drought ended two days ago - holding only the ace of clubs, the king, queen, jack and ten rolled in on the draw.[/QUOTE]
That's a lot of hands without a royal, do you play multi line vp? I was just trying to wrap my mind around playing 141K hands of single line vp in three months time, after a few hours my back starts killing me and I have to call it a day.   

[Vman96]

[QUOTE=Vman96]
As for myself, I'm on a 16-month royalless streak. Thank god I don't pump a lot of volume at the casino; I may have played only ~1 "Royal Cycle" in 16 months.
That's why statements relating results (or, lack thereof) to a time period are meaningless.

I have recently endured a royal drought that was "only" three months. But, I played about 141000 hands in those three months, which makes my three month drought a lot worse than your sixteen month one.
[/QUOTE]

Of course, it's always hands played that matter. Took me about ten years to get my first royal at video poker. But again I may have played only about one royal cycle at the most to that point, so it was still a common swing. I didn't really play VP at all during part of the online poker heyday, 2006-2011.

[DaBurglar]

Vman, where did you play Online poker and what were your games of choice?   Did you lose any bankroll when they froze the sites on blackfriday?   what was your biggest online win or success?   Someone made a point earlier about some properties in Vegas not allowing continuous stays longer than 2 or 3 nights.....you mean COMPED continuous stays right?   i have done the following, both in vegas and atlantic city:   You book your 2 comped nights per usual (say sunday to tuesday), then when you are scheduled to check out on Tuesday morning you call first thing that morning and ask the host or reservation person to extend your stay another night......here is typically what will happen:   if your play has been good and the hotel is NOT sold out, they will usually give you another comped night, or at the very least they will charge you a reduced rate for the extra night.   IF it is busy season, then they may deny you a comped night and charge you full rate, BUT, if your play stays at expected level or even higher, when you go to check out after the extended stay you can ask your host to evaluate the situation and they probably will knock at least some of your bill off. My point here is, you can always find a way to keep staying at a property for as long as you want, UNLESS they are truly TOTALLY booked solid (which does happen rarely in Vegas these days)......but if you are a active enough player, they almost always will find a way to keep you in house.  

[Vman96]

Vman, where did you play Online poker and what were your games of choice?   Did you lose any bankroll when they froze the sites on blackfriday?   what was your biggest online win or success?

Mostly at Stars thank god. So I only got shorted about 10% of the value of my "frequent player points". If the government would have waited a couple more days to shut them down, I could have got all of it back. :( But still happy I played at one of the few "trustworthy sites".

Waiting on $120 from Full Tilt. I don't really care if it get or not.

My favorite game is triple draw lowball sadly, which hardly ever runs in casinos. I wish I liked NL Holdem more because most casino players are godawful.

I got a couple good "binks" in freeroll tourneys. Third place in the old $30k weekly Supernova tournament at got over $6k for that. And by some miracle 7th out of 8500 or so in the $100k monthly freeroll for Gold+ members. If I could have one won one more flip, I would have been chip leader at the final table, but TT couldn't hold up vs 88, blah. But I was lucky to be there anyway, I had a big suckout with 12 left to double up. I think I was dominated and I three-outted him. $2k for the effort, but I had lost about that much in cash earlier that week. That was a hell of a rollercoaster.

My biggest tourney comeback was also my third biggest cash. Was playing in the 2-7TD event, got down to about 4 big blinds with 170 to go, and was able to double through enough to get to 3rd place with ~90 left. But then I went card dead and got knocked out in 22nd place for $1k ($680 profit).

Those tourneys were a decent chunk of my overall profit sadly, although I played cash 95% of the time. I didn't beat the rake by very much at Stars.

Biggest cash loss was $5k in a ~weekend in Jan. 2011. Factoring in value of the "player points" though, I won it all back by Black Friday thankfully.

I play VP for a lot cheaper than I did with online poker obviously.

[DaBurglar]

well, you and I are polar opposites, since the only game I play is N/L holdem, both online and in casinos......but I do play about 10% of the time Omaha variants, usually when I am winning at Holdem, since I am still learning Omaha.     But My main online forum was full tilt, although I also had a presence on pokerstars, the now defunct Doyles Room, and Bodog/Bovada.     My only real success was on Full Tilt at Tournaments though, and I was lucky to not lose ANYTHING on any site due to blackfriday.....my brother was not so lucky, he lost about 380 bucks on Full Tilt and he has never seen a dime of that.     In two plus years on Full Tilt (Jan 2008 thru March 2010) I had 8 tournament cashouts of $1,100 all the way up to $4,200, mostly their nightly 8 pm 26 dollar tourney, which I won once for the 4200 victory and had several other top 5 finishes.    I also finished 2nd once in their infamous $10 "midnight madness" tourney fo 1500 bucks, which always featured drunks or tweakers (who else plays at midnight to 4 am?)      Full Tilt deteriorated greatly in the months leading up to black friday, which is why I curtailed my play there long before black friday and went elsewhere, which is why I didnt lose anything when it was shutdown.    But I surmise now, with 20-20 hindsight, that the cheaters and scumbags who were running the site and bilking it out of millions had started screwing with the games well before blackfriday in an effort to keep the ponzi scheme going.....a lot of players noticed this, that the site was acting very weird and it became very hard to win, and get paid right up to black friday......I need to start another thread to discuss this topic, about the degenerate gamblers that most professional poker players like Howard lederer and Chris Ferguson (among many others) are.....

[Vman96]

Yep, blind faith can bite you sometimes, so good thing you bailed out before it was too late. Many people have thousands of dollars tied up there still. I had thousands of dollars at PokerStars, so I got lucky. I was basically saved because i never seemed to do any good at full tilt (players were better slash I ran worse). Also their draw game traffic wasn't too good anyway slash their interface sucked for draw games.

It's sad that greed is an issue with many online gaming sites, so you're right to not blindly trust everything.

[onemoretry]

That's a lot of hands without a royal, do you play multi line vp? I was just trying to wrap my mind around playing 141K hands of single line vp in three months time, after a few hours my back starts killing me and I have to call it a day.   
Yes, that was all on multiline machines. There's about 8500 deals of 10 line, and 11000 deals of 5 line.

I recognize that 141000 hands of multiline is not quite the same as 141000 individual deals. There were, however, in those 19500 deals, lots of three and four card royals, and, therefore, ample opportunities to draw a royal - it just didn't happen. In fact, I am still well over 125 consecutive one card draws to a royal without hitting.

[zwaszz]

So, Da Burglar......what can WE do about this?  Your explanations are lucid, quite good, but what of Nevada Gaming Commission?  Where are THEY in all this?  Really, know, what the hell is going on with this situation? 

[DaBurglar]

So, Da Burglar......what can WE do about this?  Your explanations are lucid, quite good, but what of Nevada Gaming Commission?  Where are THEY in all this?  Really, know, what the hell is going on with this situation? 
  thanks for the compliment, and your question is really the heart of this matter......where do we, as video poker players, go from here? First, the gaming commission(s), whether in Nevada, New Jersey or elsewhere.......I have become pretty familiar with New Jersey's obviously over the past 3 years, and I have shared some info and details that show in today's situation, NJ Gaming comm is stretched thin, is NOT overly concerned with video poker fairness in AC and if anything, seems fine and even complicit with the fact AC's video poker plays out to return percentages far below what you'd expect from the paytables displayed......I say "complicit" only because the gaming rules & regs seem to allow just enough wiggle room in defining VP as "slots" so that they dont investigate a 8/5 bonus poker machine that returns 88%!    I have been more inclined lately to agree with Vman's interpretation of New Jersey regs saying "skill" games require clear flawless info to players such as accurate paytables which drive winnings, but I still think that the gaming commission either doesnt care or just looks the other way.....too many people in the gaming office and in the casinos seem fine with VP that is 88% or 90%!     As for Nevada's gaming commission, I have not dealt directly with them ever but I do have several friends who work for both Vegas Metro PD and the Sheriff in Vegas, and I know current and former Nevada casino workers of various levels (including a couple casino executives), all who have given me insight on how Nevada works.....I dont think Nevada has the systemic problems New Jersey has or other places, but I do know that like everywhere else, Nevada's gaming commission is stretched to the max, and has many pressing issues besides investigating video Poker machines!   Underage gambling and drinking in casinos is a huge issue (all it takes is one 17 or 18 year old to get drunk in a strip casino and then crash his car and kill himself and others, and BOOM .... major lawsuit and bad publicity....and the main reasons kids under 21 go to casinos is not to gamble but to drink!)   Other issues like drug money laundering, investigating employees, casino security and anti-terrorism.....these are all hot button issues the gaming commission is invloved with, and their budget has been hit hard by falling revenue, so you see the situation...... What we all need to remember too, in this day and age of desperation and financial/economic chaos, people will stoop to lower and lower measures to survive and/or get what they want.....if a casino is going down, cheating may seem a short term way to delay the inevitable, skim a few bucks before the crash, and/or just plain stick it up other peoples' arses..... The best thing we as players can do is start keeping meticulous records so we can definitely identify when VP machines are heading into statistical abyss and adjust our play accordingly.....complaining to gaming commissions is not going to help us, but sharing info on this site will.....

[Tedlark]

  I'm going to disagree with you.... about drug money laundering being a problem for Nevada Gaming Commission Daburglar. zwaszz asked about Nevada gaming but you did a wonderful job of recapping New Jersey though. You mentioned that.... complaining to gaming commissions is.... not going to help (us).... so why did you make the visit(s) to the New Jersey Gaming Commission office on Tennessee Ave?....