Singer's evidence of VP non-randomness and betting system

Quote: EvenBob

Anybody wanna bet it never happens? This is all just part of the 'big tease' to keep Singer's name in constant play. He can't buy publicity like this in the gambling community.

I'll be happy to admit that I'm wrong if it can be demonstrated to be the case, but for Singer, the stakes are too high - the entirety of his so-called "undeniable truth" product line would come crumbling down if he put his theories to my proposed test. So yes, I'd bet it never happens. He won't take me up on my challenge to disprove his "safety-net programming" assertion, and he won't provide any evidence to support the existence of the alleged confidential regulations. But Mr. Singer, I'm happy to be shown otherwise. The floor is yours...

Quote: EvenBob

Anybody wanna bet it never happens? This is all just part of the 'big tease' to keep Singer's name in constant play. He can't buy publicity like this in the gambling community.

It'll get pretty far along, because part of Singer's shtick is to pretend to answer "challenges" and then weasel out of them somehow at the last minute. If the interview just consists of he said/it said, though, he might go through with it, because he wouldn't be called upon to provide any kind of proof of his nonsensical, fraudulent fairy tales--he could just chirp "I've won a million dollars with my magical sure-fire system!!!!" over and over again.

The trouble is, the math that refutes Singer actually takes a couple of minutes to explain, requires a reasonably competent intellect to understand, and isn't nearly as interesting as some clown claiming "I wins all duh time, and YEW KIN TOO!". So such a public forum may be exactly what Singer wants, and I don't think that ignorance should be fostered. More people will hear the nonsense and become converts than will see the math and become skeptics.

Quote: MathExtremist

So you've said before -- and to paraphrase, your claim is:
1) All VP machines in Nevada are programmed intentionally with non-random, "safety-net programming".
Please provide your evidence for this claim. "I'll re-state what I know" is not evidence.

And what exactly are the "high & low end hold%'s" that the safety-net programming restricts paybacks to? Are we talking between 65% and 120%? 40% and 150%? What's the range?


I intend the word "secret" to have the same meaning as "confidential", so please don't assert that there is such a thing as a confidential, non-secret regulation. You claim that there are regulations that the public is not privy to, regulations which make legal the behavior in Claim 1 (above), whereas such behavior is plainly illegal under Nevada Gaming Regulation 14. To paraphrase, your claim is:
2) There are confidential regulations which countermand the public regulations, including Regulation 14, and which permit non-random "safety-net programming" in VP machines.
Please provide your evidence for this claim. Suggesting that you "took a real world look at issues" is not evidence.


It could be that your standard of evidence is meaningfully less rigorous than mine. When I say "evidence", I mean a demonstration that would stand up to peer review and scrutiny. For example, source code of the alleged "safety-net programming" or copies of these confidential regulations. What you have presented so far is mere conjecture, unsupported by any objective, verifiable facts.

This is your opportunity to provide the evidence that supports your claims that (1) all VP machines in Nevada use intentionally-programmed non-randomness and "safety-net programming", and (2) there exist confidential regulations which allow such behavior.

Do you have any such evidence to present?

I'll go thru these two threads' posts one at a time, and then if anyone wants anything further in the form or a bet, a challenge or a debate, e-mail me. Two days watching some people make fools of themselves is about all I like to see anymore.

A) The low end is 75% in Nevada/the high end is private between the manufacturers and the casinos and must be disclosed to the state. It cannot be changed without first informing the state in writing which must be approved. I was told the only time the state would not approve a request was for the Reserve, 3 months after it opened.

B) You may intend secret to be the equal of confidential, but the standard for their interpretation is the US DoD. SECRET is a great deal more restricted than CONFIDENTIAL.

C) The rest has to do with the 'evidence' that you appear not to be able to operate without. Where did you ever read that I had confidentail paperwork on what I write about? Use your head--who would give that out to anyone? Publishing articles about it is about as far as it goes. I've never been 100% positive about any of it until I actually went out and TESTED it. Now I know how it all works and that what I was told is true. You'll just say because of a lack of some kind of evidence then you won't believe it. A true scientist, once given unconfirmed information and if they were really interested, would go out and do all he or she could to confirm it. I did that because I've been a big time vp player, but something tells me you're a very infrequent player who gets off more on talking about the game's theory from behind your computer than actually going out and getting involved in the game.

Quote: Wizard

I'm game for that. I would prefer it be a one on one, lest it turn into a shouting match. Again, I think MathExtremist (ME) would be the perfect opponent, if he is willing. I know him in real life well. He used to work for a slot machine maker (including video poker) so knows the regs and how they are designed. Then again, one might argue his is not privy to the conspiracy, and somebody who is changes his coding before the machines hit the casino floor (said trying to keep a straight face). Not only is ME extremely well qualified in terms his resume, but is a true gentleman. In the many years I've known him I can't recall him ever insulting anybody, using profanity, or raising his voice.

What I'm willing to do is rent out a public space, perhaps a community center in Summerlin, moderate the debate, and see to it that the whole thing is recorded and available for free viewing online. The debate would be open for all to watch. Perhaps we could include a section at the end for questions from the audience. I would work with both parties to come up with an agreeable format.

Also, if you see Jerry, give him my best.

OK Mike, please do what you're able and I'll be there if you give a month's notice. I don't doubt ME's charming personality or qualifications, but I do question his ability to remain calm based on how he goes off on my points at times here. Using a word like 'conspiracy' would be an effort to try and make this a joke, but to a true player such as me I assure you it is not. And I'm always forcefully reminded of that by how often my bets challenging the lies written about my results and play are always run away from at the last second.

I'm sure ME knows the regs and how they are designed, and I'm also sure from reading his posts that he has no idea what's in them beyond what he was told. The person I talked to was a Director and is now a VP. Either of them could re-write small batches of code without his knowledge at any time.

I also see a bit of insuation from you here and a few others about me being JL. Perhaps, just perhaps, you could put together some kind of 4 or 5-figure bet that if we do have a debate sometime, I would not bring Jerry with me, complete with his Az DL and maybe even a big rig following us to carry my ego back to Phoenix in, riding shotgun in my 91 Yugo convertible. I wouldn't even keep the money--I'd give it all to him since I don't read the lies very often and he must be subjected to them regularly.

I'm out of this unless I receive further info on a debate or bet acceptance, or that -EV $30k challenge I'd like to have a piece of.

Quote: RobSinger

A) The low end is 75% in Nevada/the high end is private between the manufacturers and the casinos and must be disclosed to the state. It cannot be changed without first informing the state in writing which must be approved. I was told the only time the state would not approve a request was for the Reserve, 3 months after it opened.

This has nothing to do with "safety-net programming" or any secret regulations which you allege exist. It would appear that your understanding of the existing regulations is flawed, and that misunderstanding has caused you to invent these secret ones which enable "safety-net programming." In the likely event that you disagree, I offer this: I can quite easily disprove the existence of your safety-net programming by playing a video poker game and realizing actual results which do not fall within the allowable range you cited above. I will gladly do this in front of you and/or any assembled audience.

Quote:

B) You may intend secret to be the equal of confidential, but the standard for their interpretation is the US DoD. SECRET is a great deal more restricted than CONFIDENTIAL.

You can't be serious. The US (federal) DoD security hierarchy has nothing to do with state gaming regulations, and you have seen no state regulatory document labelled otherwise.

Quote:

C) The rest has to do with the 'evidence' that you appear not to be able to operate without. Where did you ever read that I had confidentail paperwork on what I write about? Use your head--who would give that out to anyone? Publishing articles about it is about as far as it goes. I've never been 100% positive about any of it until I actually went out and TESTED it. Now I know how it all works and that what I was told is true. You'll just say because of a lack of some kind of evidence then you won't believe it. A true scientist, once given unconfirmed information and if they were really interested, would go out and do all he or she could to confirm it.

You misunderstand science, Mr. Singer. A single positive test cannot confirm a hypothesis. It can only provide evidence to support it. However, a single negative test can disprove a hypothesis, and that is what I propose. I submit that a single test of your "safety-net programming" assertion will be sufficient to demonstrate that such safety-net programming does not exist as you suggest it does.

Would you be open to accepting the results of such a test, regardless of what they may be?

Quote: thlf

I for one would also like to here argument again over how you never use your own player card when training someone. Jerry just reported on this forum that you did exactly that in your last training session.

Oh I forgot this little gem.

I have never used my players cards in a training session where the trainee uses his or her money--other than in cases where the player does not have a card for that particular casino, can't get one because the slot club is closed, or does not want to get one from the pit boss or from an overnight host/hostess if there's one on duty. When that happens it's usually a player like JL who comes in to learn to win and on the higher limit machines, where money means a lot more than points which is exactly the opposite thinking the AP's have so they can make up another baloney-filled winning year by over-valuing all the freebies.

Quote: MathExtremist

This has nothing to do with "safety-net programming" or any secret regulations which you allege exist. It would appear that your understanding of the existing regulations is flawed, and that misunderstanding has caused you to invent these secret ones which enable "safety-net programming." In the likely event that you disagree, I offer this: I can quite easily disprove the existence of your safety-net programming by playing a video poker game and realizing actual results which do not fall within the allowable range you cited above. I will gladly do this in front of you and/or any assembled audience.


You can't be serious. The US (federal) DoD security hierarchy has nothing to do with state gaming regulations, and you have seen no state regulatory document labelled otherwise.


You misunderstand science, Mr. Singer. A single positive test cannot confirm a hypothesis. It can only provide evidence to support it. However, a single negative test can disprove a hypothesis, and that is what I propose. I submit that a single test of your "safety-net programming" assertion will be sufficient to demonstrate that such safety-net programming does not exist as you suggest it does.

Would you be open to accepting the results of such a test, regardless of what they may be?

A) One could easily argue that you yourself provide nothing remotely related to evidence to the contrary. But you are very good indeed at arguing the points and now, coming up with some sort of unnamed test that you would want me to agree to accepting the results of beforehand.....'regardless of what they may be'. I hope you didn't learn that tactic when getting your advanced degree.

B) Of course I'm serious. Every major aerospace company in the US, commercial or DoD, utilizes the same secret/confidential format for safeguarding their documents. States more often than not tend to pigtail off of what the feds do. If you had worked in one of them and in the US Gov't. as I have instead of whatever you did for a machine maker, your scope of experience would have spanned far greater parameters.

C) Now the tough part--and you probably have to make it up right now. What type of one time test would be large enough a sample to prove or disprove anything about a vp machine's operation? If you believe in that, then maybe you'd like to make a bet that my strategy will win what I say it will win in a one time trial?

Quote: RobSinger

I'll go thru these two threads' posts one at a time, and then if anyone wants anything further in the form or a bet, a challenge or a debate, e-mail me. Two days watching some people make fools of themselves is about all I like to see anymore.

I take it, then, that you don't own a mirror?

Quote: RobSinger

A) One could easily argue that you yourself provide nothing remotely related to evidence to the contrary.

On the contrary, I have cited to three different jurisdictional requirements that games behave randomly, and in all three cases, those regulations would preclude the legality of any "safety-net programming". Safety-net programming (or "risk-mitigation software" as I've known it elsewhere) is based on the premise that if a game has run too hot or cold, it should be forcibly adjusted in the other direction to reduce the variance of the game and mitigate the financial risk to the operator. It's like clipping the tails off the bell curve. The problem is, that's not legal under any regulatory scheme because it breaks several of the randomness criteria, including outcome equiprobability and results correlation.

Your counter-argument to these publicly-available regulations and what they describe is simply your unsubstantiated claim that "VP machines in Nevada do not operate 100% randomly. That is an absolute. Aside from their inherent hot and cold cycles, they include "safety net programming" which keeps them from ever going beyond certain high & low end hold%'s." You say this based only on a conversation you had with a gaming engineer a long time ago, yet the more you describe that conversation, the more it becomes clear to me that you did not understand what you were told. Regulations on RTP are not confidential. In Nevada, there is no regulation for the upper end of the range, but NGC Reg 14 specifies a minimum RTP of 75%. See http://gaming.nv.gov/stats_regs/reg14.pdf, section 14.040. In New Jersey, the RTP range is fixed on both ends -- 83% on the low end, <100% on the high end. But that's also public and not confidential: http://www.state.nj.us/casinos/actreg/reg/docs_chapter46/c46s01sec20to29.pdf, section 19:46-1.28A

Those regulations do not imply "safety-net programming", and in fact other sections of the regulations make such safety-net programming strictly illegal. I dispute your interpretation, and I challenge you to submit any evidence whatsoever that such safety-net programming exists in any VP machine in Nevada.

Quote:

C) Now the tough part--and you probably have to make it up right now. What type of one time test would be large enough a sample to prove or disprove anything about a vp machine's operation?

One cannot prove a conjecture. One can only disprove it. Your conjecture is that
All VP games in Nevada operate with safety-net programming which ensures that the results of play will be between 75% RTP and an upper-limit RTP. Let's say the upper limit is 102% just to be safe. You have not ventured a guess as to over how many games that safety net must operate, but let's call that N. That means if I play 2N hands on any machine, every consecutive N-hand sequence must have an actual RTP within the bounds of the safety net.

To give an example of a safety net, let's use a simple coin-flipping scenario. Our example safety net says heads must be between 25% and 75% of the past four trials. That means if the past three flips were tails, the next result will be heads with p=100%, because otherwise you might have four tails in a row and that would be 0% heads in the past four, violating the safety net. In this scenario, the following combinations are not impacted by the safety net:
HHT
HTH
HTT
THH
THT
TTH
but the two combinations
TTT
HHH
would both be intentionally programmed to have opposite outcomes as the prior trial because doing otherwise would violate the safety net.

Back to VP, the safety net in VP would require that the VP results not fall outside the range 75% to 102% over the past N hands. I believe I can play a video poker machine, selected by you, for 2N hands and demonstrate that at least one consecutive N-hand sequence will fall outside the bounds of the alleged safety net. Not only will that result disprove the existence of the safety net programming for that machine, it will also disprove your conjecture that all VP games in Nevada operate with such programming. There is only one question: do you know what N is?

Math Extremist
Trying to have an intelligent discussion with Mr. Singer is the equivalent of trying to teach a pig to sing. It wastes
your time and annoys the pig!