How do online casinos cheat players?
In a short time online casinos have won thousands of fans worldwide. The virtual gambling is cheap, more accessible and faster than in-player games in land-based casinos. On the other hand, to many players who have got used to interiors of real casinos virtual games don`t look so captivating and atmospheric. But progress never stops, and computer graphics surpassed reality a long time ago.
The problem of online gambling is that game is not always fair. The algorithm can be “rigged” so that the casino remains the real winner.
But before speaking about how an online casino can “swindle”, we need to understand how it works.
Let’s talk, for example, about roulette, the most popular gambling game in the world.
How does online roulette work?
The working principle of roulette is based on the law of independent trials. In roulette all game results are actually independent of one another. In other words, there is no way that players can get any useful information from previous spins, so they can`t predict the results of next spins.
On the other hand, it is equally important for players to understand that the spins in roulette are statistically related to a degree. While it may be probable for Black to hit a thousand times in a row, if you make a million spins, the chance of this happening is very small.
This illustrates the action of the Law of Large Numbers (or the Law of Averages) and it stipulates that the frequencies of events tend to even out when enough trials are made. In roulette reality, “enough” stands for millions of times. Thus, if you make one million spins betting on Black, about half of the times you will get Red while the other spins will give you Black. Such evenness can`t be reached after five or ten spins.
Not knowing this may lead to a mistake known as the Gambler’s Fallacy. If you think, that after winning five times with Black the next time you will definitely hit Red, you are in for a surprise. Remember the law of independent trials? In the next spin the chances of hitting Red or Black remain equal, so the previous spins really haven`t influenced the outcome.
Now to the most important thing. The majority of online casinos work in favour of the owner, that is the organizer of games. This principle is embedded in the very algorithm of online roulette.
The house edge is made possible by the presence of the zero pocket on the roulette wheel. Betting on Red or Black, you have 18 ways to win out of 37, so the actual chance of winning is 46.37%. So to speak, when a player loses, the house wins, and the chance of this happening is 52.63%.
Fairness of winnings in online roulette is defined by a special algorithm — Random Number Generator (RNG).
It is worth knowing that these programs create the so-called “pseudo” randomness as they generate results independently of people`s participation. The program begins with an initial seed value as a starting point and then uses it to create very long sequences of random numbers, based on complex mathematical algorithms.
In practice this means that the game result depends on the number that is generated at the very moment when the player hits the “spin” button. However, as the player sees the ball rolling around the wheel, he tends to think that the result is being determined before his eyes, which is not the case.
Fairness of Online Roulette Games
Since the RNG uses formulae to generate results, some may start to have suspicions whether or not the game organizers can fiddle with the algorithms. There are special testing agencies, which check casino game algorithms, thus fighting malpractice. On the other hand, casinos undergo licensing only in the countries where gambling is legalized. But as we know, because most countries have banned gambling, 70% of the industry is illegal, so there is no way for the majority casinos to have licenses. As a rule, it is impossible to check the fairness of online casinos, all the data about game algorithm is hidden from the players and is stored on the organizers` servers, which no testing agencies can reach.
That is why the trust of the players in the online casino industry has been disrupted.
The light at the end of the tunnel appeared with the arrival of the blockchain technology, thanks to which we have the opportunity to create decentralized game platforms. One of the best platforms of the kind is the FairWin company technology. Due to the Ethereum blockchain the game process information was made accessible to all players, as it is recorded in the system, not on the organizer`s server. All the transactions are logged, and every player can see them. Blockchain roulette utilizes the same principle. Every player can make sure that all the outcomes were generated at random and weren`t changed in the process of the game, so the game outcome was not defined by the casino. On the other hand, the Ethereum blockchain technology has not yet become widespread. But it can change in the future and games on blockchain will replace traditional online casinos.
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