Advice Wanted: Suspect Cheating by Online Casino

Hi all,

While this is my first post, I have been an avid fan of this site and wizardofodds since November of last year. When playing blackjack, I pretty much follow wizardofodds religiously, regardless of the size of the bet. Getting to the crux of this post, I do want to emphasize first that this is not your standard conspiracy theory-whine at losing money while gambling. Please read below and then decide for yourself.

Within a three month period dating between November and January I played a significant amount of blackjack online. The amount I had on this particular site was typically around $20,000. This was not all in on session of course, as the table limits were $1-$500 and I usually bet less than $5 per hand. The amount I lost was about $17,000. My concern is that most of this occurred within a very short period of time, after I received a program update.

So far I wouldn't expect the above information to raise any eyebrows, save for the amount of money involved. What does concern me greatly was that the percentage of hands won was approximately 37%, while the hands lost were 63%. It is my understanding that, assuming one plays blackjack "properly," the statistical edge favors the house by about 51%. This does not mean that I should be winning 49% of the time, but simply that I can minimize my disadvantage to 49%. However, I was under the impression my odds of winning any given hand was about 46.3%, while the dealer's odds of winning any given hand was about 53.6%. Is this incorrect? I also recall that Mr. Shackleford, whom I greatly respect in the subject of odds, mentioned in another post that if we saw a variance level exceeding 4% it should raise eyebrows.

So on to the last two crucial pieces of information. First, did I have a significant enough sample size? In answer to this, I requested from the site that I receive all hand history from the period of these losses. They sent me three (3) files with a total of about 16,000 hands. I think this a more than sufficient sample size. Second, they claim they sent me my entire history from this period, but I am very doubtful. The hand histories they sent me only accounted for about $6100 in losses. So unless $11,000 suddenly disappeared from my account - and I know it didn't - then I am missing even more of the hands from this period.

On a related note, I deposited and lost $1000 on two affiliate sites in January of this year, and the statistics were comparably poor. The blackjack program utilized by the other two sites is identical. The worst of which was a 10-loss streak which included dealer blackjack 9 in 10 hands, the 10th hand dealer showed 20. What are the odds of that?

Anyway, I'd greatly appreciate any feedback, whether it's critical or not. In fact, prefer critical comments, as I'm currently looking into an attorney specializing in internet gambling laws.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Critical comments - alright here it goes.

You're an idiot.

What kind of idiot loses 17,000 playing online blackjack? Hopefully it wasn't US money. 17,000 pesos probably isn't that much, so maybe I'm being too harsh without knowing the whole story.

Of course it was fixed. No lawyer would ever try that case.

I'm just hoping you made this story up to get a rise out of people. I refuse to fall for it anymore. You're either an idiot or a liar. I'll just hope it's liar.

Okay, psych is about to come back on.

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Thats probably the most useless comment I've ever seen. Your not falling for "it" anymore? What exactly is "it" and how many times have you fallen for "it?" That I have detailed hands histories is not a fabrication. And thats not even the point either. If/should I use the information in a legal setting, the evidence is weighed on its own merits so it shouldn't be a concern for anyone here except for face value. As for the $17,000 - it was made entirely from blackjack. I actually took them for more and was actively pulling when this happened, but thats not relevant to the story.

"No lawyer would ever try that case." Really? Between the two of us I'm guessing I'm the only one who holds a J.D. And I'm already aware of two that are willing. The only real concern is jurisdiction, given that the UIGEA is in effect in the US, so if not here, then it would be tried in Canada.

Given the above troll, let me elaborate. Constructive comments are welcome.

Online, offline - they're all thieves. All the government cares about is their tax cut and their political donations.

"First of all, if this is to be believed, you're a total degenerate gambler who has problems beyond your tiff with this internet casino. Seek professional help or a counseling group."

If I'm up substantially even after the 17k loss, does that still make me a degenerate gambler? I shouldn't have even bothered mentioning the amount lost because it's unfortunately becoming the focus of the discussion. My concern is the win/loss ratio over the course of the hands played.

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Quote: Parligod

Thats probably the most useless comment I've ever seen. Your not falling for "it" anymore? What exactly is "it" and how many times have you fallen for "it?" That I have detailed hands histories is not a fabrication. And thats not even the point either. If/should I use the information in a legal setting, the evidence is weighed on its own merits so it shouldn't be a concern for anyone here except for face value. As for the $17,000 - it was made entirely from blackjack. I actually took them for more and was actively pulling when this happened, but thats not relevant to the story.

"No lawyer would ever try that case." Really? Between the two of us I'm guessing I'm the only one who holds a J.D. And I'm already aware of two that are willing. The only real concern is jurisdiction, given that the UIGEA is in effect in the US, so if not here, then it would be tried in Canada.

Given the above troll, let me elaborate. Constructive comments are welcome.

Haha, you're funny. Ok, so you made more than 17K from them in blackjack, playing $5 a hand. Then you lost 17K from them in BJ playing $5 a hand. And you think a lawyer is going to be able to argue that the more than 17K you won fairly, and the 17K you lost, was from cheating?????

Well, good luck with those 2 lawyers. Let me know when you get your 17K back. Laugh out loud.

If you think you're so smart, post a poll. Here's the question:

Parligod is an idiot

True

or

False

We'll see what the results say.

Can somebody name just one case where an internet casino has been sued successfully? There aren't any as far as I know.

According to Wizard's tables (I did not calculate it myself, but see no reason not to trust his math), after about 20K hands, you are supposed to end up within 604 units from the the expected value with 99.99% confidence.

If you play 16000 hands, betting $5 each, the total amount you wagered is $80000. Assuming a 1% house edge, the expectation is -$800, so, with probability of more than 99.99% you should expect to lose less than $4000 under these conditions.
So, from this point of view, $6000 does seem a bit high.

The std. deviation of 16000 hands @ $5/hand, according to Wizard's formula, is about $961, so your result was about 5.4 std devs from the expected value, which is pretty high too.

But:

1) 99.99% is a high number, but might not be high enough to mean much legally.
2) According to you, you did win even more money from them before you lost. Are you suggesting the game was honest before, and got rigged later?
3) We don't know the actual house edge in the particular game you were playing (maybe, the rules are so crappy, that it was like 5% instead of 1?). What exactly are the rules?
4) We don't know your skills as a player, and even if they are absolutely perfect (which is impossible), 16000 is a lot of hands, and it is unlikely that you were able to play them all without any mistakes.

Would you be willing to send those log files to me (and/or, perhaps, to Wizard if he wants to take a look too), to have them analyzed?