Online Games Using Playtech's Latvian Casino

A number of people have contacted me or my website about Playtech Live Dealer Blackjack. They report that playing basic strategy they are losing around 3% per hand in live dealer games which use the Playtech software, instead of the expected figure of about 0.6% which the game should produce playing Basic strategy. They take advantage of casino promotions and think they have a fair chance to make money at -0.6% (they are often offered $100 to deposit $100 with 80 times play through for example) but little chance at -3%.

I have looked at the different tables on various sites (livedealer.org indicates which casinos use Playtech software, so you can check), and the complete shoe is taken away from the table, and then brought back for a "once through the pack" single shuffle. This gives rise to a suspicion, possibly unjustified, that the shoe is "arranged" before returning to the table - and this is the reason it is taken out of view for a short time. On one occasion I saw cards face up on an empty table in view in the main lobby, and there were about 10-12 aces on the right, all face up. Perhaps the cards were being sorted and checked. That view was only there for a short time, as someone then collected the cards.

The interesting statistic from the people who contacted me was that the percentage of Blackjacks for the player overall was around 2.4%, almost exactly half the figure that it should be for 8 decks of 4.7451% (12/416*128/415*2). What could happen to cause this might, for example, be that at the shuffle table the casino takes out 16 of the aces and places them at the bottom. Then there is a single riffle in six sections followed by a cut, so that these 16 aces will not be in play in the new shoe. There will now be an average of 8 aces in the section that will be used in the new shoe, and not the average of 16 aces that would be expected for the (approximately) 208 cards that are used in an 8 deck game with the postilion inserted half way. I did a simulation for 8 decks with only 50% aces, and had a figure of -3.3% playing basic strategy - no doubt you would be better than me at checking that!

I manually recorded 10 shoes and saw 83 aces, about the number I would expect in 5 shoes, so statistically there does seem to be something suspect about the game. The result I had was around 7 standard deviations below expectancy. I was not playing, and selected a full table where I could record without having to play. When I asked the live dealer why the shoe was being taken away from the table, she seemed very annoyed and called the supervisor and said "look what is in my chat box". The supervisor came and said that I could see another shuffle taking place at the shuffle table, but that was not available on the site I was using. Online support and the support of my site clarified that the "shuffle" could not be seen on most software. Also there is no independent verification that the shuffle out of view is fair.

Since posting the above on another site, I checked the certificate of return on livedealer.org. Most of the certificate links are broken or missing, but one Evolution site, William Hill, gives a return on card games of 99.3% while one Playtech site, 21 Nova, gives a return on card games of 98.3%. The latter includes Baccarat, which is shuffled every hand in full view of the player, and is close to 99%, suggesting the return on Blackjack there is 97.6%. The penetration is about 50%, so one would expect some people to be doing better than -3% with bet variation of 1 to 10 usually allowed.

That does sound suspicious, and you have a legitimate hypothesis as to why it is happening. I would support further investigation if I had any say in the matter

The fact that the shuffle is not shown leads to suspicion and the results, along with the supervisor's attitude, are certainly adding more doubt to the fairness of the game.

Based on the country that you state the game is being played in then I would not rule out anything and would like to see more results from that game.

I recorded ten more shoes, and had 79 aces. Penetration was about 50%, so the expected number with eight decks was 160.

did you try calculating in the burn card

The wizard said burning a card is like moving the cut card foward

Quote: mixmanmatt

did you try calculating in the burn card

The wizard said burning a card is like moving the cut card foward

There has been a lot of discussion about this behind the scenes. With the help of a friend in Isreal I've been gathering my own data. Of the play recorded so far, 889 cards have been seen, 75 of which were aces. In 889 cards you would expect 889/13 = 68.4 aces, so actual results exceeded expectations. Recent play from a couple other sources have also been coming in close to expectations. Hopefully they will post the specifics.

So, without being able to reproduce goooner's results, there is no case to be made.

On aother topic, goooner, are you the gooner of goonersguide.com?

Hey all - like the Wizard we also took a look at this issue and came to much the same conclusions - that being that while we can't say anything about gooner's experiences without seeing video footage, we're receiving normal results. You can find our full report at

I'd also like to say a public thank you to the Wizard for providing some input on our results.

Thanks for your research, Wizard and others. Like you I am now getting a normal number of aces over five shoes on the same site. I think I was wrong to complain to Betfred, who had replied:

Thank you for contacting Betfred Casino Support.
We have passed on all your recent comments and criticisms regarding the current "shuffling" process to playtech as it is a very valid point..
again we thank you for bringing this to our attention

The shortage of aces is certainly no more. Although the shoe is still taken away from the table when I last looked. Perhaps, like the player that splits 10s or doubles on A9, they are waiting for the heat to disappear ... And another cheating method, when the shuffle is not visible, is called "touching tens" where the casino takes out 80 tens and puts them back in as 20 sets of four. The single shuffle will still produce more "touching tens" than normal, which advantages the bank. And that will survive most statistical tests as the ratio of cards is normal. From a top player:

If you are in a low card clump, the dealer can't break. Players hit more in these situations. In the other areas where the 10s are clumped we find that we push a lot or simply get beat by pushing BJ and getting out drawn by 19 against 20s. In addition when the 10s are clumped we will also see the devastating break card clumps. This is the situation where everyhand on the table gets a stiff hand with the dealer has a 10 up. Everyone plays basic strategy and hits right into a 10 card clump and busts out. Of course the person who knows this is better off standing with a stiff hand and letting the dealer hit.

The main issue for me is that the reasons for taking all the cards away from the table are non-existent. The reply from someone who is a dealer in the Latvian casino:

"The shuffler comes with cards in a closed box which already have been shuffled according to our Casino shuffling procedure, who is complex, quite long, includes different shuffling technicks and absollutelly provides a random shuffled set of cards at the end. It's last usually about 3 minutes, sometimes less, if another shuffler assists. So they bring them to the BJ table, when there is need and shuffles another time in front of you, to double down the "randomness"."

When he was asked why this was not all done at the table in view of the player, he did not reply.

I am not sure I share pogg's confidence in Playtech, however. And he surely meant that he WAS getting normal results. Perhaps one should look at threads like:
or

And the founder, Teddy Sagi, has been in prison for stock market fraud. And no, the only link I share with goonersguide is being an Arsenal supporter. They are known as the gooners, although they were nearly the goners last night but won an amazing soccer match 7-5.

Quote: goooner

I am not sure I share pogg's confidence in Playtech, however. And he surely meant that he WAS getting normal results. Perhaps one should look at threads like:
or

And the founder, Teddy Sagi, has been in prison for stock market fraud. And no, the only link I share with goonersguide is being an Arsenal supporter. They are known as the gooners, although they were nearly the goners last night but won an amazing soccer match 7-5.

Thanks for the catch goooner - you're right, i obviously changed what i was intending to post mid-way through.

I think the lesson to be learned here is that claims of cheating within this sector - given the number of sore losers that end up throwing that claim about - requires proof otherwise it just gets dismissed. You're not alone in making that mistake - in another instance that's detailed on my site i found a VP double up feature (non-Playtech) to be non-random, but the game's now been adjusted and as i never took a video of that session it's now my word against there. Fortunately several of the posters over at CasinoMeister had tested this bias game previously, so i do have some independant verification.

My suggestion would be two fold - if you really don't trust Playtech, don't play with them from this point on, but if you're really determined to catch them i'd look to videoing random samples over the next year.

video monitoring is not good enough - since you could just select certain videos that support your claim. You would need to do it in a consistent way: i.e. 2 hours of footage at the same table at the same time - *every* day. Then no-one can accuse you of post-selecting your proof.

Agreed - that issue is addressed in my article and is part of the reason we did it in three sessions rather than ten sessions of one shoe.

And proving that you had not edited and cut the videos to prove the claim would be impossible. Nobody at Playtech can give a valid reason for the shoe being taken away from the table, which is the overriding factor for me. If there was nothing untoward going on why would they do that nothing out of the view of the player?

Don't agree with you at all on that - given the fluid movement of the human body and the linear nature of game events it should be fairly achievable to show that video editing has not taken place. The fact that the same dealer who finishes one shoe normally starts the next - they work in 30min shifts - allows for easy identification of where there's been a break in video footage.

The facts are that if they really wanted to cheat, bringing in a shuffler who could perform false shuffles in front of a camera wouldn't be all that difficult espeically as it's one shuffler moving from table to table rather than the dealer performing the shuffle themselves. The truth is that a good cheat is near undetectable when you're sitting at the table with them, never mind over a video link.

Any cheat aiming at card statistics gives you a direct method for detection: statistical tests.

Quote: thepogg

Don't agree with you at all on that - given the fluid movement of the human body and the linear nature of game events it should be fairly achievable to show that video editing has not taken place. The fact that the same dealer who finishes one shoe normally starts the next - they work in 30min shifts - allows for easy identification of where there's been a break in video footage.

The facts are that if they really wanted to cheat, bringing in a shuffler who could perform false shuffles in front of a camera wouldn't be all that difficult espeically as it's one shuffler moving from table to table rather than the dealer performing the shuffle themselves. The truth is that a good cheat is near undetectable when you're sitting at the table with them, never mind over a video link.

I would agree that it would be clear that someone had edited out individual deals, or even individual shoes. However, let us say that I record forty different shifts of half hour each. There would be normal breaks in recording between each shift. I want to show that there is cheating, even though there is not, we shall say. I select the ten shifts that are worst for the player (say the ones that basic strategy loses 5%) and show that the percentage of tens that have a ten next to each other in these deals is 60% rather than the expected 47.8%. Statistical tests show that the chance of this occurring in 10 random shifts is only 0.00001, we shall say. However, these were not 10 random deals, they were 10 selected out of 40, and there are 847,660,528 ways of selecting 10 shifts from 40. So the casino will say that the video evidence is selective, and worthless.

I repeat. The damning evidence is that the shoe is taken out of view of the players, when there is no reason for this to happen. The shoe is shuffled once at the table in any case. Changing the shoe in favour of the house is only practically possible out of view.

And your point about bringing in a shuffler who could perform false shuffles in front of a camera is an ill-considered one. How on earth would the shuffler know what she was trying to achieve? If it is taking out tens and grouping them together, then you need a pretty good magician to do that. And you only need to look at the girls shuffling. It is clear that they are picked for the size of their breasts rather than their brains.

Quote: thepogg

You can find our full report at http://thepogg.com/playtech-live-blackjack-a-short-study-of-card-distributions/

Good report! Thanks for helping to keep the industry honest.

Regarding shuffling the cards off camera, I agree that the game would seem more transparent and honest if the cards never left the camera. However, you have to weigh that against maximizing hands dealt per hour, which is directly propotional to gross revenue. One could argue that if the player doesn't want to watch the shuffle he can switch to another table. However, players are a supersticious bunch, and may not like leaving what they feel is a "hot" table.

In Vegas baccarat cards arrive at the table pre-shuffled. Before the recent incident in Atlantic City, nobody ever questioned the fairness of these factory shuffles. I know at the Jackpot Casino in Red Deer, Alberta, they shuffle cards away from the table by hand. So, shuffling behind the scenes is far from unheard of.

Quote: Wizard

In Vegas baccarat cards arrive at the table pre-shuffled. Before the recent incident in Atlantic City, nobody ever questioned the fairness of these factory shuffles. I know at the Jackpot Casino in Red Deer, Alberta, they shuffle cards away from the table by hand. So, shuffling behind the scenes is far from unheard of.

Baccarat: With the cards handled and often intentionally mangled, one either uses pre-shuffled cards or watches everyone leave after a few boring shuffles.

Never Questioned: ... GN in ACY now questions it to the tune of 1.6MM plus attorney fees. It only takes one failure hitting the headlines to taint the entire pre-shuffling industry.

Remote Shuffles: Remote in geography or time is fine... but not in secret. One gambling boat has the dealers doing the shuffling while the ship is enroute to International waters. Most of the players are stuffing their faces at the free buffet or enjoying deck chairs and sunshine, but the ship makes it clear: gamblers are welcome to sit in absolute silence and watch the shuffling procedures. Very few take advantage of the offer but the offer is prominent and appreciated.

Shakespeare had it right many years ago.
The ancient Roman Julius Caesar when asked why he divorced his wife, Pompeia. Because she was suspected of some wrongdoing, he could not associate with her anymore.

Quote: Wizard

However, you have to weigh that against maximizing hands dealt per hour, which is directly propotional to gross revenue. One could argue that if the player doesn't want to watch the shuffle he can switch to another table. However, players are a supersticious bunch, and may not like leaving what they feel is a "hot" table.

I've seen live video blackjack games, where the used discard pile is placed on a second small table directly beneath the blackjack table - and the game continues with a new (second) shoe. At some time during play, the used cards are shuffled on the small table and are placed into a new shoe by another person.

This gives two shoes revolving at each table (they are distinct by their back color), allowing continous play - and none of the cards leave the screen.

Which is why you would need to record more than one shoe at a time. If you look at the videos i created, 2 out of the three sets show 4 shoes in a row being played, taking 1.5-2 hours to play. Now of course you could cook the books in a similar way, but the effort involved to do so has increased exponentially as you'd now need to find 4 shoe groups where the shoes all showed a neutral or negative deviation. The more shoes you show unedited the harded it becomes to fake the evidence and if they genuinely are cheating being able to break it down into one shoe videos shouldn't be what you'd want to do anyway..

I don't feel the evidence is damning at all - in fact i wouldn't call it evidence at all. Simply put, if Playtech wanted to engage in this type of activity they don't show the shuffle at all on their RNG games where they could do whatever they liked and it would be far less noticiable. As mentioned by the Wizard, this is far from an unheard of practice.

As to false shuffles, they have been used for decades in offline casinos by both dealers cheating for the house and for players and are often undetectable via camera. I've spent a fair amount of time both in conversation with people within the game protection field and reading about and watching video footage myself. The bottom line is that i agree that removing the shoe invites question, but given that all results of testing show normal distributions it seems highly unlikely that the removal of shoes is being done for this reason. The proof would be to take a sample of shoes being played straight after the card change, but given that none of the 10 shoe i looked at showed any significant deviation that seems a moot point as well.

The best way to speed up the game would be: deal cards to all hands until they all bust (and split every pair). Software can do the rest, i.e. when you decide to stand all further cards of that hand are not taken into account. Similar for double downs or Surrender. Splits and Hits are trivial, a non-split hand will be the first hand resolved with the first card doubled in value.

Not only can you deal faster, you can allow more people betting and playing the very same hand. More rounds per hour, less tables and dealers .... why don't they do it ?

Quote: MangoJ

I've seen live video blackjack games, where the used discard pile is placed on a second small table directly beneath the blackjack table - and the game continues with a new (second) shoe. At some time during play, the used cards are shuffled on the small table and are placed into a new shoe by another person.

This gives two shoes revolving at each table (they are distinct by their back color), allowing continous play - and none of the cards leave the screen.

That is the method employed by Evolution, who are the main rivals to Playtech. It is clear and transparent, and the shuffle is concluded in full view of the players long before the shoe is needed by the dealer. No time is lost, and there is no suspicion of tampering.

Quote: Wizard

Regarding shuffling the cards off camera, I agree that the game would seem more transparent and honest if the cards never left the camera. However, you have to weigh that against maximizing hands dealt per hour, which is directly propotional to gross revenue. One could argue that if the player doesn't want to watch the shuffle he can switch to another table. However, players are a supersticious bunch, and may not like leaving what they feel is a "hot" table

I know that you are far too bright to think that the above paragraph is true. There is no difference at all in the number of hands dealt per hour if the other shoe is shuffled at the table or at another table. Two shoes are always in use, and there is oceans of time for the shuffler who is always different to the dealer to shuffle the shoe not in use while the other is being played. Your argument about the players being superstitious (with two "t"s in most countries) is another red herring. The table will be just as hot or cold whether the shoe not in use is shuffled in full view of the players or elsewhere. Always assuming that tampering techniques are not being employed out of view.

I am sure there is a reason players keep playing at sites they think are crooked. But I have no idea unless they are masochists.


And when a masochist says " Beat me ", a true sadist says " NO" .

Quote: thepogg

I don't feel the evidence is damning at all - in fact i wouldn't call it evidence at all. Simply put, if Playtech wanted to engage in this type of activity they don't show the shuffle at all on their RNG games where they could do whatever they liked and it would be far less noticiable. As mentioned by the Wizard, this is far from an unheard of practice.

The RNG games are carefully tested and a certificate issued by companies such as Gaming Laboratories International; an example:

I am not aware that the live dealer games require this certificate. So I disagree that it would be less noticable if they tampered with the RNG.

Certification really doesn't make much difference as it's paid for, i.e. given from a company that has a vested interest in continued custom and as such a positive result. But that's not to say i believe that Playtech's RNG games are crooked - i don't - simply that i think bought independent certification really isn't independent and as such is a comfort blanket for players rather than real protection.

Anyway, i don't think anyone's convincing anyone here. If you have some testable proof i'll be happy to look at it, but for the time being nothing that's been presented has been verified via testing. The solutions for gather evidence have been presented so that avenue is available if you really feel there is something amiss. For me i've already invested hours of my life in this and my results tell me there's no reason to continue pursuing this.