Do Gamblers Have Rights? Blackjack Question

[Hazard1]

Hello, this site is fantastic, so glad I found it. I am new to online gaming and I enjoy it. I did however have one bad experience. I played BJ on a site and lost 24 hands in a row. I asked could I see the logs and they blocked them from me. Is this normal behaviour? Do we gamblers have any rights?

 

Just wondering....

[cocopop3011]

Hello, this site is fantastic, so glad I found it. I am new to online gaming and I enjoy it. I did however have one bad experience. I played BJ on a site and lost 24 hands in a row. I asked could I see the logs and they blocked them from me. Is this normal behaviour? Do we gamblers have any rights?

 

Just wondering....

 

Hi Hazard well yes I would say your certainly entitled to see the logs, what reason did they give you for closing your account? Any reputable casino would not have done this!

 

But in my opinion you should steer clear of BJ anyway 

[ValDes]

Hi there @hazard1, 

 

Of course we have rights as gamblers and part of it is to have an access to our game logs automatically OR by request to the casino support. If such access was refused by the relevant casino you'd better consider using the AGCCS and submit a formal complaint against that operator. 

 

Let us know in case you need further assistance. 

[raverbabe]

24 hands in a row does seem like exceptionally poor luck, although I guess it would depend if you are playing perfect strategy, if it's a particularly volatile variant IE what the house edge is ... if you name the game/casino we can check the odds of losing 24 hands in a row, it still won't prove anything - a 1 in 100,000 chance still does happen occasionally, afterall - but it might give you a better feeling of if you were ripped off or just terribly unlucky!

[LilianInThaHouse]

I used to play BJ on RTG software. Had many negative runs, it was like 15 'lost hands' but sometimes it was 15 wins one after another.

[cocopop3011]

I used to play BJ on RTG software. Had many negative runs, it was like 15 'lost hands' but sometimes it was 15 wins one after another.

 

Did you ever win more than you lost?

[LilianInThaHouse]

Did you ever win more than you lost?

I am afraid I can't give exact answer to this question. All in all it should be around 50% - 50%. I don't know how does it look when playing with Live Dealers but if you are playing software version I noticed that large winning session as well as loosing sessions are possible.

[MacdoniS]

Yes, of course you have the rights! The question is that does the online casino that you have played was legitimate and credible casino? I think if it was blacklisted (that majority of the bogus casinos acted like that and will definitely remove your rights) you can't supplicate for your rights. I just want you to know that the BJ do have algorithm and this can possibly happen but in a rare chance, so if you doubt you can check the log files of it and the most intricate thing about it is that they blocked you it's not FAIR!   

You can find it here on askgamblers blacklisted casinos. (The link below)

http://www.askgamblers.com/casino-blacklist-p5156

[Hazard1]

Instead of just moaning, I monitored every hand - 8,000 hands since I started this thread. Here's what I found:

If my bet was less than £25, my RTP was 101.44%, I play the strategy with the (very) occasional bold bet.

If my best was £25 or greater then my RTP was 86.24%, playing the same way.

Over the 8,000 hands, I had a winning streak of 5 (my best) and the house had streaks of 7-10 a good few times, and once 24 (as mentioned at the start).

When you bust on 12, i.e. You have 12 and then hit, there is a very clear pause when the next card is a 10. Also, the chances of the next card being a 10 are 4/13, but for me it was 6.37/13

I would also point out that when I had 13 and hit, there is a clear pause when you get an 8.

My penultimate observation is that having two 7's gives you a statistically very high chance of getting the third 7!

Finally, and this for me is the big one - I tracked the number of times that the dealer gets another 10 when they already have a 10. It should be 4/13. It's in excess of 7/13.

It is my opinion therefore that the software operates the theory of marginal gains, increasing the house odds slightly by certain behaviours that are impossible to prove because an ordinary punter cannot play 1,000,000 hands. I am sure that I will get replies saying that 8,000 hands is nowhere near enough a sample, but some things I have seen are not explicable in a truly fair and random game. And there is no true independent testing is there? All roads lead to the same funding. Perhaps others have better experience at other Casinos, all I will say is that the Casino I mention is not a great scoring one on AskGamblers, though it claims to be 'registered and checked' etc etc just as much as the ones with higher scores are.

[MacdoniS]

Instead of just moaning, I monitored every hand - 8,000 hands since I started this thread. Here's what I found:

If my bet was less than £25, my RTP was 101.44%, I play the strategy with the (very) occasional bold bet.

If my best was £25 or greater then my RTP was 86.24%, playing the same way.

Over the 8,000 hands, I had a winning streak of 5 (my best) and the house had streaks of 7-10 a good few times, and once 24 (as mentioned at the start).

When you bust on 12, i.e. You have 12 and then hit, there is a very clear pause when the next card is a 10. Also, the chances of the next card being a 10 are 4/13, but for me it was 6.37/13

I would also point out that when I had 13 and hit, there is a clear pause when you get an 8.

My penultimate observation is that having two 7's gives you a statistically very high chance of getting the third 7!

Finally, and this for me is the big one - I tracked the number of times that the dealer gets another 10 when they already have a 10. It should be 4/13. It's in excess of 7/13.

It is my opinion therefore that the software operates the theory of marginal gains, increasing the house odds slightly by certain behaviours that are impossible to prove because an ordinary punter cannot play 1,000,000 hands. I am sure that I will get replies saying that 8,000 hands is nowhere near enough a sample, but some things I have seen are not explicable in a truly fair and random game. And there is no true independent testing is there? All roads lead to the same funding. Perhaps others have better experience at other Casinos, all I will say is that the Casino I mention is not a great scoring one on AskGamblers, though it claims to be 'registered and checked' etc etc just as much as the ones with higher scores are.

 

I'm wondering what Casino is it mate. Anyway, just to make sure that you enjoy your playing cause in my opinion that's the essence of playing casino online. 

[marathon]

Nice observation! I assume you played with software BJ, not live casino? In my experience, as written before, the software BJ behave similar to slots. You have luck/good times, where you win constantly in a row. And of course, much more often, you loose everything.

I gamble for fun, therefore I don't have statistics. However, I started to deposit more money and prefer Live Blackjack. Guess what, with the same strategy I get more wins. I still have my bad times, but much less.

Main differences on the software vs live:

Dealer has amazingly many BJ or get to 21!

Too often starts with 9 or 10 and basically every time gets another 10. While you have cards somewhere 14-16

 

Live Blackjack "seems" more rounded.

Avoid software BJ and roulette.

[Hazard1]

Thanks Marathon, it's very strange, it seems that this thing with the 10's is obvious to many people and yet there is no comeback for the Casinos.

I love playing online but shouldn't we expect a fair game? It just seems we have no rights really, which is why I asked the question at the start.

When I question the Casino they just send a standard reply 'All our games are tested by (insert company not really independent).

 

I guess the answer is we have nobody on our side.

[Hazard1]

For those of you interested I am referring to Genting

[Hazard1]

Does anyone have an opinion on what the Casino's refer to as 'independent testing'? I find that all roads had to 'testers' funded by the industry.

[ValDes]

Does anyone have an opinion on what the Casino's refer to as 'independent testing'? I find that all roads had to 'testers' funded by the industry.

 

Care to elaborate more on this one? 

[Toplivecasinos]

That is the right of every gamblers in online casino if you were block the casino is very suspicious. For me seeing the logs of my play is very important for me. I can review what mistakes I made and can make improvement if needed.

[Hazard1]

I love playing BJ and I love gambling online but I do find that the 'independent testing' thing seems rather vague. For example - eCogra are quoted at you when you suggest an error or a glitch, or some strange behaviour of the software. As far as I can tell, there is nothing independent about eCogra at all - I mean ,they must be funded by someone - isn't it just the gaming industry?

[MacdoniS]

I love playing BJ and I love gambling online but I do find that the 'independent testing' thing seems rather vague. For example - eCogra are quoted at you when you suggest an error or a glitch, or some strange behaviour of the software. As far as I can tell, there is nothing independent about eCogra at all - I mean ,they must be funded by someone - isn't it just the gaming industry?

It sounds controversial to me. I knew that you're an experienced gambler and you seem to observed it. I can't judge you if you're right or wrong but I will agree from the fact that eCogra always make some good reason if you email them and I saw this from different bunch of forums online. In the end when you email them you will get the explanation as to resolve the issue and nothing more not what you expect, reality versus expectation and the reality is this. 

 

P.S what I do mean to the reality is the way that we want them to fix our complaint/suggestion and it's great that they respond.

[ValDes]

I love playing BJ and I love gambling online but I do find that the 'independent testing' thing seems rather vague. For example - eCogra are quoted at you when you suggest an error or a glitch, or some strange behaviour of the software. As far as I can tell, there is nothing independent about eCogra at all - I mean ,they must be funded by someone - isn't it just the gaming industry?

 

Strongly encourage you to have some good reading before leaving posts like the one from above, you couldn't be more wrong about it... 

 

 

Established in 2003 and based in the United Kingdom, eCOGRA is a leading independent and internationally approved testing agency, specialising in the certification of online gaming software and systems.

 

The company has been awarded the United Kingdom Accreditation Service's (UKAS) ISO accreditation ISO/IEC 17025:2005 : General Requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories, for the United Kingdom and Denmark....

 

http://ecogra.com/ata/introduction.php

[Hazard1]

So I couldn't be more wrong eh? e-Cogra was founded by the industry and even when it went private it was with the same people. You think that is really independent? Really?

Online blackjack is subject to the clever theory of marginal gains, unproveable by punters. The clearest of these is the 10 after 12 ratios for the player.

[Afi4wins]

So I couldn't be more wrong eh? e-Cogra was founded by the industry and even when it went private it was with the same people. You think that is really independent? Really?

Online blackjack is subject to the clever theory of marginal gains, unproveable by punters. The clearest of these is the 10 after 12 ratios for the player.

 

Casino business is a highly SYNDICATED business! Casinos are owned by rich establishments, with backings or shareholdings from other financial or private organisations. There are probably only a very few privately owned casinos, running on their own proprietary platform, using proprietary games. These small casinos usually have a hard time surviving, which may eventually see those syndicates buying them over in time.

 

Licensing Authorities are like the Police Force for the public. They work to keep and maintain peace and stability in the gambling business. Without them, who knows what could and might happen to all gamblers - everyone could go bankrupt in no time at all!

 

Having said all that, it is also a known fact that no money business is 100% clean! Even the Police Force itself isn't 100% clean...if you know what I mean! So where this huge gambling industry is concerned, anything can happen and anything is possible! 

[ValDes]

So I couldn't be more wrong eh? e-Cogra was founded by the industry and even when it went private it was with the same people. You think that is really independent? Really?

...

 

Oh, thanks for jumping into this thread again after 8 months... 

 

The so called 'independence' matter when it comes to online gambling has already been discussed in details in both this forum and I guess in every other major gambling community as well. The bottom line is that whether you trust an entity is really independent or not is more in the field of philosophy rather than the reality considering the modern way of how society and world order are actually working on a daily basis. As long as there are money involved and these money are changing hands one way or another, there is no one really independent unless God himself.   

 

So, you'd better quit gambling asap and spare yourself all that mental anguish as it's obvious no one is really 'independent' enough to met your standards. 

[Hazard1]

I like gambling and my RTP's are fine thank you but having a high expectation of independence, is that a weakness? Surely it is the very foundation of this site?

[ValDes]

I like gambling and my RTP's are fine thank you but having a high expectation of independence, is that a weakness? Surely it is the very foundation of this site?

 

Correct! Being unbiased, fair and honest when presenting casino related information to your members is what we have always strived to do since AG day one. Claiming we succeeded 100% of the time would be a blatant lie of course, but what I would personally guarantee we are trying and we are trying hard!

[pinnit2015]

As an auditor by trade, an often overlooked trait is not just BEING independent but the perception of it.

 

Threats to it aren't just limited to 'the oversight body is funked by the people they're policing' but can be more subtle - e.g. dealing with the same people gives rise to familiarity which will in turn lead to independence issues.

 

Same for AG - as i'm sure Valdes will acknowledge! - you need to draw clear walls between being an affiliate and offering the complaints service. Nothing wrong with having the 2 - you just need to draw a clear segregation between the 2