News Flash for Ganchrow and Taco

bigboydan · 05-09-06, 02:06 AM

heres the content of the post:

Mathematical Proof that English Harbour is cheating

I was suspicious of the fairness of the doubling on English Harbour's video poker. So I deposited and carefully recorded data for over an hour, doubling after every win, except I collected any large wins, and recording for each double the result, win, lose or push.

I played until I lost all my money (playing 4 line, single coin, recording wins, losses and ties on the doubling game (I did not record the video poker itself - I was only concerned with the double).

According to my data, it is 99.999% certain that English Harbour is not offering a fair doubling game in their Tens or Better video poker game.

Although nothing is completely certain, 99.999% would be good enough to convict a man and sentence him to death, so I think it is good enough for any reasonable person in the world to be satisfied that English Harbour is a cheating casino.

Here are my results:
84 wins
151 losses
19 ties

Ignoring the ties (which push and therefore have no effect), there should be an equal number of wins and losses on the doubling game.

As you can see from 84 wins vs 151 losses, there were not: the results were hugely skewed in English Harbour's favour.

By use of the binomial theorem in Excel, =binomdist(84,84+151,.5,true), it appears that the chance of only 84 wins out of 235 trials with a fair (50/50) game is only 0.0000074.

Accordingly I recommend you AVOID this casino and the others in its group, as although I did not find any problems with the other games, I did not feel inclined to test, and a cheating casino is a cheating casino, so if they are cheating here, they could be cheating anywhere else.

natrass · 05-09-06, 02:09 AM

Sorry, BBD, I did wonder about putting the link in ... but its 26 pages long to copy and paste.

If you want to remove the link, thats totally fine as the post you copied is the jist of it. But its the casinos response which is the most damning and the stats analysis.

bigboydan · 05-09-06, 02:11 AM

na, leave the link bud.

Ganchrow · 05-09-06, 02:57 AM

Originally posted by natrass

Remember how we had this debate as to whether casinos would cheat? I said they did and you were saying they dont because they dont have to?? It went on and on and then went off on a tangent.

I don't think you had that debate with me. Perhaps it was with Taco or isetcap? I certainly do recall our Martingale discussion, and I also recall having said that hardware exists (and is widely in use) that can generate data more mathematically random than that available from physical rolls of dice or shuffles of cards. But I don't think I'd ever suggest that no online casinos engage in cheating.

However, what I do find ... bothersome ... are those claims made after a single losing session that casino one-or-another simply must be cheating.

natrass · 05-09-06, 03:17 AM

Originally posted by ganchrow

I don't think you had that debate with me. Perhaps it was with Taco or isetcap? I certainly do recall our Martingale discussion, and I also recall having said that hardware exists (and is widely in use) that can generate data more mathematically random than that available from physical rolls of dice or shuffles of cards. But I don't think I'd ever suggest that no online casinos engage in cheating.

However, what I do find ... bothersome ... are those claims made after a single losing session that casino one-or-another simply must be cheating.

Must have been taco then.

Or maybe I dreamt it all, I dont know. i did have a 'debate' with someone who kept saying 'they dont because they dont have to'. Im sure I did.

tacomax · 05-09-06, 07:07 AM

Originally posted by natrass

Remember how we had this debate as to whether casinos would cheat? I said they did and you were saying they dont because they dont have to?? It went on and on and then went off on a tangent.

Well it might not have been Ganchrow but it might have been me. Although, I'll specify that I wasn't meaning software such as OddsOn which the English Harbour group use. I meant the big industry players; Microgaming, Boss Media, Cryptologic etc. - software platforms which are used across a number of different enterprises. English Harbour's software is proprietary and an in-house software will always, always be easier to "tweak".

What is most worrying is that the VIP group own Engish Harbour.

natrass · 05-09-06, 07:41 AM

Yeah, I read that VIP owned them.

Its a shocking thing for an online casino to do though. Absolutely appaling.

Their greed caught them out. Cant believe they thought no one would notice a 33/66 split on what should be evens.

My online casino paranoia is now fully fledged again.

Sean · 05-09-06, 09:06 AM

I'm no math professor; however, in my mind, some 250 hands of video poker hardly represents a statistically relevent sample. In fact, note that the original poster states the following:

Also note that I did not take a very big sample. It often requires many thousands of trials to prove a discrepancy: the fact I could show cheating with less than 250 is very telling.

The only thing "telling" with regards to this poster's assertion is that he knows absolutely nothing about the Law of Averages. Also, anyone who plays the "double-or-nothing" feature on any video poker game fails to realize that they are swinging the odds tremendously in favor of the house ... it's one of the worst plays you can make on any video poker game.

With that being said, I found the following related article: http://wizardofodds.com/software/eng...-doubling.html. While there does appear to have been some anomalies in the software at English Harbour over several days, I stand by the idea that 250 hands is not a significant sample size.

natrass · 05-09-06, 10:12 AM

Originally posted by Sean

I'm no math professor; however, in my mind, some 250 hands of video poker hardly represents a statistically relevent sample. In fact, note that the original poster states the following: The only thing "telling" with regards to this poster's assertion is that he knows absolutely nothing about the Law of Averages. Also, anyone who plays the "double-or-nothing" feature on any video poker game fails to realize that they are swinging the odds tremendously in favor of the house ... it's one of the worst plays you can make on any video poker game.

With that being said, I found the following related article: http://wizardofodds.com/software/eng...-doubling.html. While there does appear to have been some anomalies in the software at English Harbour over several days, I stand by the idea that 250 hands is not a significant sample size.

Without getting into the whole mathematical argument, i think the thread amply proves the sample size is more than sufficient. A point which all sides (and the wizard) accept.

Seems bizarre i know, but sample sizes dont need to be that large in many acses. If English harbour had tweaked the software to give themselves a false 48/52 advantage then the sample sizes wiould indeed need to be massive.

juuso · 05-09-06, 10:27 AM

Originally posted by Sean

Also, anyone who plays the "double-or-nothing" feature on any video poker game fails to realize that they are swinging the odds tremendously in favor of the house ... it's one of the worst plays you can make on any video poker game.

Actually the double or nothing feature in video pokers most online casino software platforms are using has no house edge and is a true 50%-50% bet. Doubling some of your wins will reduce the house edge of the game and gives you better return theoretically.

BuddyBear · 05-09-06, 10:53 AM

of course online casinos cheats.....let's see you go to a real physical casino there is a very high probability you are going to lose b/c nearly every game in there is tilted in the house's advantage...

Now you want to play online where the casino is located in some third world carribean country that has no regulations and no way for you to verify the veracity of anything that occurs....not to mention the games are already in their favor....good luck winning and getting a fair deal.

But I agree with Ganchrow's main point that people have a tendancy to blame others when they lose discounting their own decision making process. If you ever do an in-game thread you see people begin to talk in total seriousness about games being fixed and players taking bribes and such...total nonsense...so it's not suprising people reach a similar conclusion in games of chance.

The Great One · 05-09-06, 11:06 AM

Anyone that thinks an online casino is not cheating is just crazy and naive to the world we live in. I didn't even read the article or anything because I already know this. That is the most obvious thing in this bsuiness.

Come on, they could have 20 or a black jack on 9 out of 10 hands and what will be your argument. "Nuh uh" Geeze. Come on, use your brain. THERE ARE NO ACTUAL CARDS. That would be just like my playing an imaginary game of blackjack with a member here and we just I.M each other with the cards we turned over.

If someone has the opportunity to cheat you, especially a stranger, they will take advantage of it. Not to mention, when there is a 100% chance nothing will happen to that stranger, what do you think they will do?

Amazing that anyone on here thinks there is any doubt in this. Sometimes this world is even dumber than even I realized it was. Thats pretty bad.

BuddyBear · 05-09-06, 11:09 AM

damn TGO and I are agreeing on something (a pretty obvious thing but agreement nonetheless)...the apocalypse is near

tacomax · 05-09-06, 11:38 AM

Originally posted by Sean

I'm no math professor; however, in my mind, some 250 hands of video poker hardly represents a statistically relevent sample.

Not at all, it depends on what you're trying to prove.

If you think that a software is dealing less Royal Flushes than it should then 250 hands is nowhere near sufficient. The odds of a Royal Flush are something like 40,000-1 so you need to make millions of hands in order to conclusively proved that the software is rigged.

However, the doubling up feature on VP should be a 50/50 shot and I believe that it's a 0% house edge option. In essence, it's just like flipping a coin. If you flipped a coin 100 times and you got 100 heads then you can be pretty sure that you've got probably got a double-headed coin - and you don't need 250 flips to prove that.

Originally posted by Sean

In fact, note that the original poster states the following: The only thing "telling" with regards to this poster's assertion is that he knows absolutely nothing about the Law of Averages.

The poster is a pretty smart guy and he's got a decent grasp of statistics most of the time. You personally might not think that he could prove a rigged game on that amount of hands but he did and he ended up being right.

Originally posted by Sean

With that being said, I found the following related article: http://wizardofodds.com/software/eng...-doubling.html. While there does appear to have been some anomalies in the software at English Harbour over several days, I stand by the idea that 250 hands is not a significant sample size.

The WOO has analysed the data and proved that, in the period of time under analysis, the doubling option was rigged. There's no doubt about this at all. English Harbour has admitted this as well and they are repaying all players their lost money plus an additional 20% bonus.

The question is whether they specifically did this or whether it was simply a software glitch. Personally, I couldn't imagine that a company with the history of English Harbour could think in a million years that they could ever get away with rigging the games to that extent. But stranger things have happened, I guess.

totobernal · 05-09-06, 11:38 AM

that's exactly why I don't play online casino, or slot machines, just live tables at the casino

natrass · 05-09-06, 11:46 AM

Originally posted by tacomax

Personally, I couldn't imagine that a company with the history of English Harbour could think in a million years that they could ever get away with rigging the games to that extent. But stranger things have happened, I guess.

Taco, for all you like to put out this hard-nose, public showers abusing image ... you are really a very trusting person deep down.

I think the general response to this fiasco has been that English harbour cant explain it away (hence the time it has taken for them to respond).

The cards are supposed to be random, there are no parameters to be set or glitches to effect that. That is, there are no 'rules' coded in other than the software recognising the value and place order of the cards drawn.

For there to have been a glitch then there must exist the capability for the game to be non-random. This would beg the question "why would a casino or software supplier produce a game in which the outcome of dealing random cards can be manipulated?" There is no answer to that one I dont think.

Is VIP in anyway connected to this do you think? i mean, do they have managing control of the company?

tacomax · 05-09-06, 11:51 AM

Originally posted by natrass

Taco, for all you like to put out this hard-nose, public showers abusing image ... you are really a very trusting person deep down.

It's not that I'm trusting, I just can't imagine that someone sat down and came up with this way of making an extra buck.

Like you said, if you want to rig a game then change a 50/50 game into a 48/52 game - that's much less likely to be noticed over the short to medium term. Don't make it a 33/67 game which incredibly easy to uncover, as has been proved here.

natrass · 05-09-06, 12:26 PM

Yes, it was so dumb ..

Can you see any other conclusion than they were either cheating or were (at the very least) employing software in which the ability to cheat was an active option?

tacomax · 05-09-06, 12:50 PM

Originally posted by natrass

Can you see any other conclusion than they were either cheating or were (at the very least) employing software in which the ability to cheat was an active option?

That's the thing, you can't really come to a conclusion and this is the dangerous thing about employing in-house software. Whether or not you think online casinos are actually rigged or not is another debate. What there can be no debate about is the fact that they can be - show me someone who says they can't and I'll show you a fool.

English Harbour formulated the software and they run the casinos - that means that if they do rig all their games, then they themselves get the money in the bank. And since they wrote the software, they know exactly what to do. Compare this to a company like Microgaming which licenses their software to lots of companies - if they rig their software, they don't see the same benefit and any "quirks" in the software won't hit the casinos, Microgaming themselves will get crucified. Simply licensing a Microgaming software product running off Microgaming servers means that the licensee doesn't have access to the code to rig the games.

natrass · 05-09-06, 01:27 PM

But thats the thing. Why develop software in which supposedly random numbers can be dealt in a non-random way?

The very fact there was a 'fault' which led to such a non-random outcome, by definition, has only one conclusion. The software was developed with the ability to manipulate results.

Surely the only thing any software needs to do is recognise the card values and their orderings.

Anyway, i cant wait to see how English Harbour are going to try and explain this one away.

isetcap · 05-16-06, 05:49 PM

Originally posted by natrass

But thats the thing. Why develop software in which supposedly random numbers can be dealt in a non-random way?

The very fact there was a 'fault' which led to such a non-random outcome, by definition, has only one conclusion. The software was developed with the ability to manipulate results.

Surely the only thing any software needs to do is recognise the card values and their orderings.

Anyway, i cant wait to see how English Harbour are going to try and explain this one away.

I may be the biggest online casino advocate of anyone in this forum, and I apologize for not opining at an earlier date but I have been vacationing in Rio. In the quoted portion of this post, Natrass has identified that which is the genuine concern generated by this whole situation. What good is a RNG if the random number provided is further manipulated prior to the point of contact? This is more than a black eye for OddsOn. It should in fact be a TKO. I'll even go further to say that Michael Shackleford (The Wizard of Odds) is quickly defiling his reputation by not addressing the obvious issue which Natrass has so eloquently raised. Nobody can play at OddsOn anymore without having a notion in the back of their minds that something could be wrong, even if the intentions of OddsOn aren't qualified as foulplay (which any person of online casino expertise would think is the case). The problem is that if it's a genuine mistake once, it can be a genuine mistake again.

The OddsOn group of casinos long ago fell out of my favor but not because I felt they were cheating. Their software simply is not nearly as good as the industry leaders (Microgaming, Playtech, Boss, and Cryptologic). Taco's point about these software providers is also valid in that it is in their best interest to provide a "fair" game.

Ganchrow · 05-16-06, 07:32 PM

In relation to this issue Shackleford posted the following statement on his website:

Originally posted by Michael Shackleford (The Wizard of Odeds)

May 5, 2006

To the Internet Gambling Community, from Michael Shackleford (the Wizard of Odds)

As a professional mathematician, one of the services I provide is evaluation of the logs of online casinos to ensure fair play, though I stopped taking new clients for this service a few years ago. One of my existing clients is Odds On, which provides the software for English Harbour casino among others. On April 29, 2006, a player posted at CasinoMeister.com that he lost more frequently than expected on the double-up feature when playing video poker at English Harbour. This was brought to my attention on May 2 by both Bryan Bailey of CasinoMeister and English Harbor Management. As soon as I found out about this I immediately requested detailed logs from English Harbor in order to analyze them. In preparing the log files for me, Odds On themselves discovered anomalies in the double-up records. When I received the logs and analyzed them I was able to confirm that the double-up on video poker did indeed pay out less than it should have between April 13 and May 2. According to English Harbor problem was caused by a buggy software update on April 13, which was automatically corrected by a subsequent update on May 2.

Readers might understandably wonder how English Harbor can claim that I review their logs for fairness if a problem like this can arise without my knowing about it. The answer is that I do the analysis monthly, and though players noticed the problem in April, I would not normally see the April data until mid May. This underscores the important point that my auditing service can not guarantee that players will get a mathematically fair game at every given instant. I can only attest to the fairness and return percentages in the past.

Although both English Harbor and myself believe that April 13 to May 2 was the only period affected we will be scrutinizing earlier logs to make sure, and will be monitoring future play closely.

The following table shows the results of all double or nothing bets in real play mode from April 1 to May 3.

Code:

Summary of Double-Up Bets
Date 	Wins 	Losses 	Ties 	Win Ratio
Apr 01 	1225 	1245 	177 	49.6%
Apr 02 	763 	794 	89 	49%
Apr 03 	588 	580 	74 	50.34%
Apr 04 	1293 	1232 	156 	51.21%
Apr 05 	951 	918 	108 	50.88%
Apr 06 	1015 	996 	119 	50.47%
Apr 07 	950 	989 	127 	48.99%
Apr 08 	759 	735 	90 	50.8%
Apr 09 	818 	862 	111 	48.69%
Apr 10 	1203 	1168 	152 	50.74%
Apr 11 	529 	524 	64 	50.24%
Apr 12 	1199 	1195 	121 	50.08%
Apr 13 	194 	266 	27 	42.17%
Apr 14 	212 	424 	43 	33.33%
Apr 15 	284 	607 	73 	31.87%
Apr 16 	314 	602 	98 	34.28%
Apr 17 	139 	304 	45 	31.38%
Apr 18 	143 	317 	29 	31.09%
Apr 19 	141 	307 	42 	31.47%
Apr 20 	89 	169 	28 	34.5%
Apr 21 	134 	295 	42 	31.24%
Apr 22 	72 	128 	23 	36%
Apr 23 	52 	112 	21 	31.71%
Apr 24 	138 	322 	41 	30%
Apr 25 	66 	121 	16 	35.29%
Apr 26 	75 	126 	18 	37.31%
Apr 27 	176 	399 	47 	30.61%
Apr 28 	93 	173 	24 	34.96%
Apr 29 	40 	81 	15 	33.06%
Apr 30 	96 	169 	25 	36.23%
May 01 	73 	86 	9 	45.91%
May 02 	95 	125 	17 	43.18%
May 03 	142 	158 	20 	47.33%

Win Ratio = ratio of wins to sum of wins and losses.

English Harbor management tells me that they plan to reimburse each and every player who made a double or nothing bet during the period affected with his/her net loss on those bets over affected period. This offer will apply to all casinos using Odds On software. In addition, as a show of their regret for this mistake, they will add 20% to each player's reimbursement.

Michael Shackleford, A.S.A.
WizardOfOdds.com

The following statement was posted the same day by English Harbour Management.

First and foremost, the English Harbour Group would like to formally apologize for the error in the software release that caused this situation. We hold in high regard all our players and respect for the Internet Gaming industry. We feel it is important for players to understand what happened, what went on during the investigation, how it was resolved and our compensation to affected players.

The issue was caused by a bug in the software staging release on the later part of the day April 13 and went unnoticed. On May 2 we had a maintenance release that during the course of our investigation seemed to have corrected the problem. When we were alerted of the claim, we ran through several trials and also simulations. We checked randomness of the distribution of cards in the doubling game over different time periods and nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. We then did an interim posting on Casinomeister. We continued the investigation and sought the audit services of Michael Shackleford. Michael asked for the log files and we fully complied to his request. As part of the delivery of the log files to Michael, we noticed an issue that seemed to have spanned the later two weeks of April. We mentioned this to Michael as we continued to work with him. Through Michael's investigation, he concurred with our observations and was able help quantify the variance in the odds.

Michael continues to be a key part of our governance and fair game play strategy.

We discussed player compensation with Michael and we will be refunding affected players on the net loss on the doubling game plus an additional 20% of their net loss. Players will be receiving an email as well as a message within the casino itself shortly.

The English Harbour Group would like to thank the Casinomeister forum members for bringing this issue to our attention and their patience while we dealt with this issue.

The English Harbour Group Management Team

The following addendum was made by myself on May 15, 2005.

After I made a statement about the software bug affecting the double-up feature at Odds On (the name of the software used by several casinos, including the English Harbour) casinos, players wanted to know how the bug occurred. This is an addendum to my statement to answer that question.

When players started asking for details about the bug I asked on Odds On for a copy of the source code, and they sent it to me immediately. The code is at a higher level than I write myself and Odds On made their programmer available to answer my questions in deciphering it. The problem was that the video poker double up bonus round was calling a second bonus routine that was still under development. This bonus routine is very similar to the bonus games found in their slot machines.

In slot machine bonus rounds the prizes are sometimes drawn from a pool, and the smaller prizes have a greater probability of being chosen than the larger ones. This is achieved by associating each prize with a weighting factor and is standard in bonus game designs. When married to the video poker game, the result was that the player had a greater probability of drawing the smaller cards. As I've mentioned before, this problem was automatically corrected in the software on May 2.

Based on what on Odds On has shared with me, their complete cooperation, and my six-year open and honest relationship with them, it is my firm opinion that indeed the problem was an accidental human error.

I absolutely do not believe that on Odds On would attempt to cheat their players in such a blatant manner, since it would be so quickly and easily discovered -- which is exactly what happened in this case. No professional casino willingly goes down that road. Besides the risk to their reputation, there is also the money they're out by paying a consolation prize to affected players on top of reimbursing their losses.

natrass · 05-17-06, 06:37 AM

I have to agree with isetcap here. Its not just Shakleford, its the whole casinomeister crowd as well.

They have now banned anyone who says EH cheat (on the pretext that we are STILL waiting for proof!!) and deleted peoples opinions, polls, etc.

At first, I thought a cheating casino ahd been caught. Now I think it has shown the whole online industry is corrupt.

What the casinomeister is doing would be equivalent to SBR defending betonstars or betroyal and banning/deleting any dissent to this.

Personally, i feel that without the wizard and the casinomeister being 'independent' anymore then there is no checks to stop any casino cheating. i mean, whats the worst that could happen?

isetcap · 05-17-06, 10:15 AM

First of all, the Casinomeister product should never even be placed in the same discussion as SBR. Casinomeister (Bryan Bailey) leaves much to be desired in how he operates his newsletter and forum and handling of player complaints. My concern is not his "independance", it is his lack of capability.

When it comes to Michael Shackleford, I don't dispute his capability (although he's not the genius many like to think he is), I dispute his motives. He obviously has a financial relationship with OddsOn (he always mentions it clearly), and I get the impression that he is trying to be their damage control agent in this situation which is very disturbing. As I stated in my earlier post, this statement skirts the issue...

Based on what on Odds On has shared with me, their complete cooperation, and my six-year open and honest relationship with them, it is my firm opinion that indeed the problem was an accidental human error.

He should be addressing how a "human error" can be acceptable as part of the equation. It simply should not be something a player has to deal with when operating the proprietary software of an online casino. Human error must be removed from the gaming aspect of casino operations. Sure, humans design the software, but thorough testing (simple algorithmic randomness evaluation) must insure that there are no odds-related errors in any part of a software release prior to it's release to the public.

I don't for a second dispute the legitimacy of OddsOn's intentions in this matter. I don't need a statement from Shackleford to help me feel good about OddsOn's intentions. Shackleford should be writing about how atrocious it is that this company, whose existence is dependant on random results, can allow a situation such as this to take place.

The next time I go to English Harbour and play a few hands of Blackjack, do I have to become concerned as to whether or not another human error has taken place if I happen to lose 15 hands in a row?

Having said that, I'm not worried about whether the major software brands are cheating. I have a decade of evidence that proves to me they are not, common sense would dictate they are not, and there is enough transparency in evaluating player results to declare they are not . Even today's blacklisted groups (Real Time Gaming, some Playtech casinos, etc.) do not get their bad reputation because of the fairness of their games. Their problems typically stem from their unwillingness to pay. On that note I would like to point out that I have documented thousands of successful withdrawal transactions from the many online casinos I have tested, but one casino has utterly failed to pay me the money they owe me ($2500) and that casino is African Palace. Not surprisingly, the Casinomeister was not capable of assisting in the matter even though he still refuses to blacklist the African Palace group.

In a only slightly related event to our original topic, an associate of mine (several years ago) requested a $6000 wire transfer from EH after a winning session. The accounts department chose to split the amount into two $3000 wires and sent the money within 48 hours. Somehow the cashout remained in their cue and they sent the same two $3000 wires on 3 more occasions in subsequent weeks. My associate was quite upset when the withdrawal finally did clear out of their system as he was starting to think they were paying him a salary. They ended up paying out $24,000 on a $6000 withdrawal, so I can certainly see how this frightening organization might be prone to human error whether it "benefits" them or not.