casino integrity

[notes1]

i am a first time poster here or on any site. Please excuse the long winded post.  I have been playing video poker since 2006 and like the rest of the posters, I love the game. Been playing the same amount (quarter) and the same games(mostly DDB) the entire time. I have been to vegas about a half dozen times but, the vast majority of play has been on the east coast.There is no doubt in my mind that the payout for VP have changed, since approx 2009. I understand the paytables have been reduced, but I believe there is more to it. I have NO computer background and i am NOT  a math whiz. I just know what i have witnessed. No one should expect to go to a casino and come a winner, I look at it as my entertainment. But, for the last 5 years, the cost of each casino trip on average has risen, beyond the paytable reduction.    Nearly every week we hear about some auto recall, or some food product recall, we hear about insider trading on wall street, and the list goes on. And, i am not even counting all the government screw ups. Nearly all events were the result of greed/money. All these industries are much more regulated, than the gaming business. With that in mind, why does it seem inconceiveable that casinos would not take advantage of us, via tampering with the machines. After reading posts on this site for the last few months, i know that many find this heresy, to even mention the possibility.  I would love to hear others opinions.      

[spxChrome]

There is no doubt about it, I have been playing for 20 years and play over 1+ million hands a year. No way no how is it remotely close to what it was a few years ago. And I play 10/6 DDB and 9/7 TDB. I normally average 18-24 royals a year for the longest time. This year I have had 5 - 2 of which were dealt. Its no secret you can ask anyone who plays regularly. Not people who go once every 2 or 3 months playing nickel and dimes for an hour or two. But the people who go once a week or more and play 6-8 hours sessions. They will all say the same thing.

[olds442jetaway]

Ditto....At least a 3 percent drop since 2010. I play over one million hands a year also and have been playing well over 20 years. The only thing I notice an increase in is some premium hands for certain games, but Royals are way, way off. One of my earlier posts this year speaks to my going well over 500k hands without a Royal. It went back on schedule for a couple of months, and now seems like it is starting up that Royalless streak again. I haven't kept close tabs this time, but this streak is well over 150k hands already. I am not counting Royals that may have hit on multi line games on other than the deal line which I doplay about 10 percent of total hands played. I have been tracking job separately since 2011 and with over 2 million hands played just on that game, results are in the 96-97 percent range on a 99.54 percent game with almost perfect play.

[DaBurglar]

first off, welcome oh welcome to the forum, you made a great first post....No doubt some of the posts you read over the past few months were mine, and I admit I killed this issue with my numerous posts on this trend especially in Atlantic City.I totally agree with your logic about the "state" of integrity across all industries and areas of life.....people are greedy, they screw up and around, get themselves in trouble or over their head or they just plain lack a conscience, and inevitably someone somewhere in some industry or business or governmental department or political position THINKS they can pull off some type of scheme, etc. etc. ..... it is unnerving to say the least, and it requires renewed faith each day just to function and remain in the game.....My feeling(s) right now are clearly things have changed with VP over the past 5-7 years....casinos are no longer the "guaranteed" moneymakers they once were, mostly due to distorted market coverage, bloated and excessive compensation, and of course, excessive and extensive competition (heck, people do not need to leave their home or get dressed to gamble!)    All this translates into extremely slim profit margins, and in response, casinos have felt compelled to squeeze every penny they can out of the machines on their floors.The paytables have been lowered as far as they realistically can be without killing more business than what they take in from stingier paytables.   Gaming regulations for VP have not changed, but what has definitely changed is the technology......faster and faster RNG and sorting/shuffling seems to give way to increased "random-randomness" which seems to cause longer and longer streaks of dead or dud no value hands in VP......the advent of server based systems means one guy can now oversee all the machines on a casino's floor, and perhaps, unbeknownst to us players, this allows casinos to manipulate things in their favor while STILL being in compliance to the regulations of their states.......I have no definite idea of what or how this takes place, but I have lots of theories and bits and pieces I have learned and heard over the years.Bottomline, I still CHOOSE to believe there are more legit games out there than there are rigged games......but  if you cannot afford what is currently happening to you then you really need to come down in your play (doesnt sound like that is your issue though, but still good advice.)    I recommend at this point, save up a larger Bankroll (maybe stop playing for a few weeks or month) and then try again and stick to one or a few machines when you play next time....see if that does not help.If you have been frequenting Atlantic City, try limiting your play to Borgats, harrahs or Golden Nugget.....avoid the boardwalk joints.

[Lucky Larry]

Welcome to the forum. I've reviewed our number since 2007, what I see is just normal RF streaks. Our play hasn't changed significantly over that time. While pay tables have come down we've seen a decrease in paying hands but we've had some of our best years since 2011. Counting only 25¢ or greater RF we've averaged 16 per year with highs of 28 (2011) and 24 (2014 so far) and a low of 7 (2007 the year we began to play VP). During that same time we've had as many as 80-100 RF on multi-hand 5¢. These multi-hand have come in streaks as well. Three weeks ago I hit 7 RF in one evening and haven't seen one on the past two trips.

[Vman96]

Ditto....At least a 3 percent drop since 2010. I play over one million hands a year also and have been playing well over 20 years. The only thing I notice an increase in is some premium hands for certain games, but Royals are way, way off. One of my earlier posts this year speaks to my going well over 500k hands without a Royal. It went back on schedule for a couple of months, and now seems like it is starting up that Royalless streak again. I haven't kept close tabs this time, but this streak is well over 150k hands already. I am not counting Royals that may have hit on multi line games on other than the deal line which I doplay about 10 percent of total hands played. I have been tracking job separately since 2011 and with over 2 million hands played just on that game, results are in the 96-97 percent range on a 99.54 percent game with almost perfect play.

10% of your time playing is on multi-line? How many lines are you playing when you play multiline? Because if you don't "count" these multiline royals, but still count ALL those hands in your total hand count (I dunno if you do), then that's very misleading.

I'm praying to God I do not get my next Royal on a multiline game unless I'm playing Ultimate X.    Earlier this year I bricked 9 4 to a Royal draws playing pennies. I would have taken it...but I wouldn't be thrilled about it.

[notes1]

DB, thanks for welcoming me to the forum. Yes, i noticed some of your posts and admit I have been amused by the interaction between you and one of the other members. I may not have been as clear as I intended, I believe most people and businesses do try and do the right thing. I am simply pointig out that other industries and government agencies, under much higher levels of regulation, have sometimes done questionable actions in the name of greed/profit or survival. The prevailing opinion appears to be that no casino would risk losing their license. All i know is that the cost of visiting a casino, playing the same game, at the same denomination, has increased over the past 4 years or so. I have no idea, has any casino lost their license and been forced to close, due to a gaming violation? This year i went to casinos in Atlantic City, Biloxi, Tunica, Niagara Falls, Tampa and my nearest casino Cherokee. What i saw in many cases was the same, the inability to draw the payoff card on premium hands. Is this just bad luck? When it happens so many hundreds of times, it raises my concern. Regarding Atlantic City, from 2006-2012, I made a junket trip there every month. It was great, mostly the same folks, some who had been doing this for decades. Of course, we mostly lost, but the amounts were resonable. But, around 2009, things started to change. There were very few winners, the losses got bigger and slowly, people got fed up and took their business elsewhere. I would agree, the Borgota is the closest casino to those in Vegas, but, after a couple of visits, gaming results appeared the same to me, as the other AC properities. I appreciate your suggestion, but, bankroll is not a problem. To me, it is all about getting a fair return for my recreational dollar.      

[Tedlark]

notes1 the single biggest reason that casinos don't tamper with the machines is because they don't have to. Long term probability tilts in favor of the casino.

Couple this with the scandal it would cause if a casino were found to be tampering with machines; customers wouldn't step foot into the place ever again. For a company like CET or one of the other major casino company's who may be found to be tampering with machines, this would be utter disaster for them. Besides the civil ramifications there would definitely be crimminal penalties as well.

Welcome to the forum.

[DezJeep]

What this amounts to is legalized theft on an industrial scale and we're all victims. After reading that article last week about the two guys who found the fault in the IGT machines, it was clear. They figured out how to win by doing nothing more than exploring a fault in the programming and the gaming industry tried to put them in jail. I enjoy playing VP as much as anyone on here but I'm getting real tired of getting my a$$ handed to me every time I walk into a casino.

[notes1]

Tedlark, thanks for the welcome. I agree with you 100%, no busy, growing casino should need to tamper with any machine. Every game favors the house, the math is on their side.But, what happens when your business model requires a certain amount of revenue with expected returns to meet expenses and suddenly, that revenue starts dropping. Of course, you can start cutting expenses, staff, comps, etc. What happens if those cuts are not enough, revenue keeps dropping. If one is in business, they need to survive and they just might do something, anything, to stay afloat. From 2006-around 2012, i made monthly trips to AC. In the early years it was extremely busy, but, by the time i stopped making regular trips, you could go to most any boardwalk property on a friday afternoon, throw a bowling ball down the middle of the casino floor and not hit anyone. There was hardly anyone there. So, you have this large property where many of the rooms are comped, you are giving away free booze, a lot of free food, costly planes flying people in to play and there is not enough gambling going on, with expected returns, to support all of this....what does one do. All i know is when all of this happened, the cost of going to a casino began to rise for me.