Biased Dice: The science begins

Quote: Ahigh

THE END

Why do I doubt this?

Quote: AlanMendelson

"You would still have negative expectation games and a house edge but you would attract more players and you would make more money than what you have now with all of those machines empty and having non revenue floor space." I swear to you my comment went right over, through or around his head and he had no idea what I was talking about.

You don't have to swear to anyone. We hear similar reactions when we're in any given casino. In addition to table revenues, those decision makers are missing out on ancillary business like beverages, entertainment, lodging and even tchotchkes. After all, how much time and effort does it take to raise a $5 table when business is picking up?

The only problem with that is that beverages, entertainment, lodging and what ever the hell you called it are revenue neutral most of the time. I know the Food and Beverage Director at the Hilton in Las Vegas many years ago. He was hired to reduce the F&B losses to 1 million dollars. For the most part, slots pay all the bills in a casino.

ZCore13

Quote: Zcore13

For the most part, slots pay all the bills in a casino.

Not according to the Gaming Board:
"Saturday, Nov. 10, 2012 | 10:32 a.m.
CARSON CITY — The trend is continuing and growing at Strip casinos that make more money off their rooms, restaurants and entertainment than from the table games and slots. Forty-two states have a casino, and people across the nation are coming to Las Vegas for its other amenities, said Matthew Maddox, chief financial officer for Wynn Resorts.
“They are not sitting at the blackjack tables at 2 a.m.,” said Maddox, one of the five members of the Economic Forum that must judge how much tax revenue the state will collect in the next two fiscal years.
The state Gaming Control Board produced figures Friday at the meeting of the Forum that showed 62 percent of the revenues at Strip casinos come from rooms, entertainment, food, drinks and retail sales in fiscal 2011, up 1 percent from the previous year." LVSun

Hmmm....


I'm going to say this, I doubt that Wizard would have any liability for something that someone else says on a public Forum, but we are going to avoid any allegations against specific casinos and/or dice companies in this thread from this point forward without concrete proof, or there will be repercussions.

The make-up of this meta-analysis study was flawed from the beginning... But alas I hope you find what YOU are looking for.




And after the merry-go-round i hope you find that There is a biased dice, it's called a "loaded die" and anything other than that is just knit-picking.


And I hope that people stop making excuses for for poor shooting and start practicing more..

I think we just had a little obama "hope" moment... And we know how that is working out

Quote: Mission146

Hmmm....


I'm going to say this, I doubt that Wizard would have any liability for something that someone else says on a public Forum,....

The law does hold website owners/operators responsible to a degree. Please see:

http://www.corbinball.com/articles_legal/index.cfm?fuseaction=cor_av&artID=440

And note this particular sentence:

"The CDA also protects Web site owners from liability when the owner makes voluntary, good faith efforts to monitor and restrict other third party content providers, i.e. users, from posting objectionable material."

Did a moderator ever challenge the claims about specific casinos or manufacturers when particular companies were named? That is where the moderators dropped the ball. At the least someone should have said "hold it -- what is your proof of such an allegation?"

I did, although I'm not a Mod. Let's just call me the voice of reason. :)

ZCore13

Zcore13, I challenged it, you challenged it and a few others did... and we were called ________.

In my case someone actually posted: "I am getting a little concerned about you. Your posts are getting crazier and your mentality is becoming disturbingly dense. Either you are off your meds, or you have to be the dimmest bulb that I have ever encountered."

IMO, i think that drawing face counts by casino and measuring their deviations from random using acceptable statistical methods is a worthwhile endeavor. It will prove (eventually) that dice are either evenly biased or unbiased. The experiment can't show many things, like how an individual set of die are biased, or how an individual die is biased. All this experiment can show is if all dice are biased in a certain way.

For the casino crap player, the only way to exploit a bias is to know it exists before hand. Many superstitious people will bet on stupid bets because they believe that numbers are hot: "see a yo, bet a yo". But the only way to measure bias is to record rolls and because you cannot measure individual dice, you are measuring bias on ALL dice in the set.

I would be a proponent of measuring bias on the fly, that is counting your faces and your rolls and calculating the probability that the results gathered so far is random, and then making bets based on what is the heaviest numbers based on a probablity of less than a certain threshold, like .05 or .01. The problem is that because you are measuring the bias of a dice face, your bet would always be biased to two of the same number (a hardway) and your best bet therefore would be a hard bet which carries HA of between 1/11 and 1/6.

Now if you start collecting and continue to collect data based on dice maker and casino and start to see a bias among a brand and casino and see a bias, then you would be able to exploit that bias by automatically betting your hardways bet immediately once the casino opens up a set of dice from that brandmaker.

Now the question need to be asked is can a dice maker make a dice that is biased towards to opposite numbers? For example, casinos can make alot of money I would imaging if they could create dice biased towards the 6 AND the 1. But is it even possible to create a die that is biased towards two numbers?

One way to do so would be to create opposite dice faces with higher surface areas. But is that even possible?

Quote: Mission146

Hmmm....


I'm going to say this, I doubt that Wizard would have any liability for something that someone else says on a public Forum, but we are going to avoid any allegations against specific casinos and/or dice companies in this thread from this point forward without concrete proof, or there will be repercussions.

I have been informed that this post is in error, and the parties to whom this post was directed have my apologies. It is my understanding that the Forum has long allowed comments of that nature, and that is not about to change.

Again, any affected and/or offended parties have my apologies.

Quote: Mission146

It is my understanding that the Forum has long allowed comments of that nature, and that is not about to change.

That is very bold and courageous of you to allow these kinds of posts.

If we can name names(casino), would it not be productive to only record rolls from these venues? What about that casino where results were originally skewed, as per Harley's prediction. Seems to be the way to go.

It's not just the casino that I would record but the dice manufacturer as well. The coldest table I witnessed yesterday was at the Wynn and the dice were Midwest dice. Players at this table lost over $50,000 while I watched. It was very very cold. I lost too, and bet equally on every shooter. After I lost, I came back with another buy-in but they changed the table from $25 minimum to $100 and I decided not to play there any more.

One guy was wearing a shirt that said "REFUSE TO LOSE" (a Nike Shirt). Three buddies were there together. They were on $5,000 markers each when I arrived ($25 table) and were betting max odds and across with some hardways. The ratio of hardways was tiny to the total action. $10,000 worth of odds I saw get taken multiple times. They just kept getting markers and kept going.

The Boxman confirmed the dice were midwest but I could tell by looking (smaller pips).

At the Palazzo across the street later in the day they also had some Midwest dice in action and they were winning but not with any sizable bets.

At the Palazzo they claimed the dice were Paulson, but they were Midwest. They had Paulson dice on the $25 table I watched, and Midwest on the $15 tables at the Palazzo.

No rhyme or reason to the winning versus losing dice manufacturers between these two locations on the same day. But definitely some of the worst luck I have seen I saw yesterday.

Quote: Face

Getting into this made me think, and the more I think, the more I find the whole thing ludicrous. My two arguments...
Accidental Biased Dice; The Ignorant Scenario -
Purposeful Biased Dice; The Conspiracy Scenario
the BD players would still have to identify the bias

Any legit dice that are used, be they of high quality or low quality, do get nicks and dents. They are fairly new dice but they are not pure, pristine virgins. Some craps players theorize this unknown bias can be detected and exploited but the crew will remain ignorant. Well craps players been listening to them bones rattling for a long time and have not come up with any bias detection system nor have the crew.
Casinos been using those no longer pure and pristine dice for a long time. Biased? I ain't gonna carry out the math to six decimal places. Its obvious the dice are good enough for the casinos to continue to get rich and the players to continue to go broke.

You can record all the rolls you want but as soon as you draw a conclusion that there is any kind of bias (read: the game is not fair) and mention any casino or manufacturer whose good name and reputation and business is at stake you have opened the door to libel.

Now it surprises me that the publisher of this website has opened itself to that liability.

I will not be part of it, because counting rolls will not hold up as proof of bias in a court. The proof would be showing how the dice were biased, not the result of any number of rolls of dias. You would have to show a load, or show something that makes the dice off balance, or something that would make the dice not give all faces an equal chance of showing.

I know for a fact that there is one company that is already aware of this thread, and this website, and is monitoring everything that is said here. While I cannot reveal that company I think it would be a good idea if the publisher of this site and the moderators and the participants are very, very careful about what conclusions they reach and what companies they publicly name.

Now, in the interests of an investigation, if you were to obtain your data and identify the casinos as "Casino A" and "Casino B" and "Casino C" and then the manufacturers in a similar way you would at least escape a direct complaint from individual companies.

But when you do take this survey, will you also note the condition of each pair of dice used by each shooter, and the condition on each and every throw? It's just another variable to consider as you continue with this very non-scientific investigation.

Quote: Ahigh

It's not just the casino that I would record but the dice manufacturer as well. The coldest table I witnessed yesterday was at the Wynn and the dice were Midwest dice. Players at this table lost over $50,000 while I watched. It was very very cold. I lost too, and bet equally on every shooter.

You cannot seriously blame this on the dice, can you? Craps is a negative expectation game -- you are supposed to lose. How were they betting? How many rolls did they have? Were there enough rolls to determine anything about biased dice? Did they lose only because of the dice?

This entire investigation is nonsense. The more I think about it -- losing players at a game designed to make players lose -- are trying to blame the dice for their losses and inability to overcome the math of the game through whatever supernatural abilities they claim to have.

I agree. I honestly think Ahigh thinks he should win everytime he plays. Most people that play lose Ahigh. The very small house edge is multiplied by legnth of play, making it a losing game for probably 75% of players every day. The whole biased dice, dice control, dice influence, bouncy table, dealer's not focusing on you is just ridiculous.

ZCore13

Quote: Zcore13

I agree. I honestly think Ahigh thinks he should win everytime he plays. Most people that play lose Ahigh. The very small house edge is multiplied by legnth of play, making it a losing game for probably 75% of players every day. The whole biased dice, dice control, dice influence, bouncy table, dealer's not focusing on you is just ridiculous.

ZCore13

Read much? Your thoughts are pretty random.

Quote: AlanMendelson

You can record all the rolls you want but as soon as you draw a conclusion that there is any kind of bias (read: the game is not fair) and mention any casino or manufacturer whose good name and reputation and business is at stake you have opened the door to libel.

Agreed. But the named winning places shouldn't complain. After all, the seal of approval is from a self-acknowledged leading expert.

All these casinos and dice manufacturers could easily participate in this thread if they wanted to. So far I haven't heard any comments from any employees of any dice manufacturers at all to assure us of how the outcomes of the dice are tested, and in fact, I don't believe that they care about the outcomes in general. I don't think they even care all that much about the balance either.

Those who say dice manufacturers or casinos are following this thread may in fact be right. But it's also possible that Alan knows he can just claim confidentiality if queried who it is that talked to him about this thread. I have absolutely no reason to believe that Alan is telling the truth that anyone contacted him about this thread. Alan just wants to make the point that people should be scared about legal ramifications related to his personal observations and apparently nobody else is worried about it. So maybe he just made this whole thing up that anybody cares to make people think twice about what they say. But I'm responding by saying, "let's hear from the dice manufacturers directly on this thread, otherwise Alan is full of bull."

There is absolutely nothing against the law about profiling face counts from a stick of dice. And, in general, casinos should not be afraid of anyone profiling dice faces in the casino. If there is something to hide, I'm not afraid of exposing the truth about how many twelves we are REALLY seeing in REAL casinos (for example at the Stratosphere tonight about an hour ago).

In addition dice manufacturers should not be concerned about the general public being made aware of the issues that could possibly lead to non-symmetric results of each of the six faces occurring.

There will always be people making wrong conclusions. Those people will always be making comments on forums. But unless specific laws are being broken in the process of gathering data about the possibility of biased dice, the comments from Alan Mendelson are nothing but sabre-rattling from someone who thinks himself to be more knowledgeable on the subject as it relates to legal ramifications.

But as far as providing real evidence of real outcomes in real casinos: if anyone at all should be worried (however doubtful it might be) the dice manufacturers are the ones should be worried, not people writing down face counts and posting them up on the internet.

Quote: Ahigh

All these casinos and dice manufacturers could easily participate in this thread if they wanted to.

Ummm.... they don't have to participate. They just have to have their attorneys file suit against this website, and you personally since you have publicly identified yourself. And then the casino slot manager at the casinos you mentioned might call his sales rep at your employer and remind that sales rep that they do probably several million dollars of business each year with them.

Aaron, it doesn't matter if you believe me or not, and I don't have to prove anything to you. Actually, buddy, the burden is all on you to prove your allegations, and counting faces of dice won't cut it. Count faces all you want.

Quote: Ahigh

In addition dice manufacturers should not be concerned about the general public being made aware of the issues that could possibly lead to non-symmetric results of each of the six faces occurring.

Am I to think that a dice manufacturer should not be concerned about someone alleging their dice are not fair?

And let me add this: there is a world of difference reporting about which casinos have lower paying video poker tables, or lower slot machine returns, or unfavorable blackjack rules and alleging that the dice used at the craps tables are not fair dice.

If we are at legal risk for making conjecture about face counts in this forum, then, surely, every business that gets a bad review on Yelp should be suing and winning zillions of cases against those reviewers.

Nobody on WOV is going to get sued by the dice manufacturers nor by the casinos for discussing the possible meanings of dice face counts, because:
1. Neither the dice manufacturers nor the casinos care (nor do they believe that there is a problem);
2. They would have to prove that the face counts were false, which means that someone would have to spend time watching video files to verify whether or not the reported face counts are correct;
3. If a significant bias actually was found, the only thing that would result from posting such info on WOV would be that it would attract a few more of us to those casinos to see if we could take advantage of the bias -- the casinos in question would probably get a little more business;
4. If the casinos and dice manufacturers actually cared, they would probably welcome any information that could help keep the rolls random;
5. Marketing savy casinos and manufacturers would be much more concerned about avoiding the "Streisand effect" than be paranoid about losing a handful of nerdy customers who post/read here!

Biased Dice, The Science ...
Whatever science is involved and whatever bias is involved, its clear the dice are ever-changing so the theoretically existing but undetectable bias in actual casino play is unexploitable to ordinary players or ordinary crews, since dice are rather short-lived in real world situations.

Quote: tupp

If we are at legal risk for making conjecture about face counts in this forum, then, surely, every business that gets a bad review on Yelp should be suing and winning zillions of cases against those reviewers.

Nobody on WOV is going to get sued by the dice manufacturers nor by the casinos for discussing the possible meanings of dice face counts, because:
1. Neither the dice manufacturers nor the casinos care (nor do they believe that there is a problem);
2. They would have to prove that the face counts were false, which means that someone would have to spend time watching video files to verify whether or not the reported face counts are correct;
3. If a significant bias actually was found, the only thing that would result from posting such info on WOV would be that it would attract a few more of us to those casinos to see if we could take advantage of the bias -- the casinos in question would probably get a little more business;
4. If the casinos and dice manufacturers actually cared, they would probably welcome any information that could help keep the rolls random;
5. Marketing savy casinos and manufacturers would be much more concerned about avoiding the "Streisand effect" than be paranoid about losing a handful of nerdy customers who post/read here!

That's very bold of you tupp, considering no one can sue "tupp."

The issue is not a face count, making a face count, or even reporting a face count. The issue is the allegation that the face count shows the dice are biased and that a casino or multiple casinos are using biased dice. You can count dice faces all day long -- there is nothing illegal about that and there is no harm to anyone. Just as there is no harm in my saying I lost a thousand dollars at XXX casino over the last five visits. The "problem" is when you interpret the count of dice faces to allege that the dice are "biased."

From Merriam Webster: "tending to yield one outcome more frequently than others in a statistical experiment."

Do you think a casino wants to be known for using biased dice? Do you think a dice manufacturer wants to be known for producing biased dice?

And are you so naive to think that companies do not sue Yelp because of the bad reviews that are published? Consider please:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/12/09/166815629/bad-meal-to-yelp-or-not-to-yelp

Of course most small businesses don't have attorneys on staff ready to jump on a Yelper. But trust me on this -- the casinos do and so do the dice manufacturers. And one casino company has already taken notice.

Of course "one-called-tupp" if you really think that publicly charging a casino uses biased dice or a manufacturer produces biased dice for the casinos is okay to do, then put your money where your mouth is and use your real name when you make the allegation.

There is no harm in reporting or recording how faces show because that is not an allegation of unfair dice. That can simply be explained as random results in a random game. So since what you claim is a scientific method would be laughed out of court, you're safe when you report your face counts. But if you allege "bias" which is unfair dice, then you had better have the facts that will stand up in court and since your "face count" won't cut the mustard you are, in a word, sunk.

You can do what you want to do. I can't stop you.

Quote: FleaStiff

Whatever science is involved and whatever bias is involved, its clear the dice are ever-changing...

Actually, it's not clear -- finding out if there is any significant trend was the purpose of this study.

Quote: AlanMendelson

That's very bold of you tupp, considering no one can sue "tupp."

Huh? I did not libel anyone with the post you quoted. I simply listed the reasons that casinos and dice manufacturers aren't going to sue someone who makes conjecture about face counts on the WOV forum.

Quote: AlanMendelson

The issue is not a face count, making a face count, or even reporting a face count. The issue is the allegation that the face count shows the dice are biased and that a casino or multiple casinos are using biased dice. You can count dice faces all day long -- there is nothing illegal about that and there is no harm to anyone. Just as there is no harm in my saying I lost a thousand dollars at XXX casino over the last five visits. The "problem" is when you interpret the count of dice faces to allege that the dice are "biased."

For the reasons that I mentioned, no casino nor dice manufacturer is going to sue someone on an Internet forum who claims that dice face counts reflect a trend that the dice are significantly biased as to be unfair or an advantage play.

Quote: AlanMendelson

Do you think a casino wants to be known for using biased dice? Do you think a dice manufacturer wants to be known for producing biased dice?

Do you think that either would actually be concerned about the conjecture of a WOV member?

Quote: AlanMendelson

And are you so naive to think that companies do not sue Yelp because of the bad reviews that are published? Consider please: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/12/09/166815629/bad-meal-to-yelp-or-not-to-yelp

Did you happen to read the article that you linked? Here's a choice excerpt:

Quote: from the article

This week, a housing contractor named Christopher Dietz sued a former customer for $750,000 in defamation charges for what she wrote in a review on Yelp. Jane Perez wrote that there was damage to her home and that jewelry was missing after she'd had work done from Dietz's company, Dietz Development LLC. On Thursday, a judge took the unusual step of ordering Perez to take down parts of those reviews.

So, in a situation that was so rare that it was newsworthy, a merchant sued a Yelp reviewer for $750,000 for defamation in claiming theft, and, without proof the judge merely instructed the defendant to delete the portions of the review that are unsupported.

No doubt, the merchant thinks that those are billable hours well spent.


Here are a few more pertinent points of the article:

Quote: from the article

While this isn't the first lawsuit of this type, Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman tells NPR's Rachel Martin that these cases are, so far, uncommon, because online reviews are still such a new area.

Quote: from the article

The reality, Goldman says, is that it is extremely unlikely that a single review costs a business anything. "My perspective is that any individual review is not credible, but the aggregate affect of the reviews ... tend to paint a pretty accurate picture," he says.

Quote: from the article

It's important to note, however, that Perez was sued for specific portions of her review that Dietz considered defamatory, libelous and untrue. In other words, a negative review that's true is, in theory, safe.

So, not only are such cases uncommon, it's unlikely that one post/review in an Internet forum is cause for concern or litigation, and, of course, the portions of a review/post that the plaintiff considers libelous must be untrue or unsupported.

Quote: AlanMendelson

Of course most small businesses don't have attorneys on staff ready to jump on a Yelper. But trust me on this -- the casinos do and so do the dice manufacturers. And one casino company has already taken notice.

Which company and what WOV post?

Quote: AlanMendelson

Of course "one-called-tupp" if you really think that publicly charging a casino uses biased dice or a manufacturer produces biased dice for the casinos is okay to do, then put your money where your mouth is and use your real name when you make the allegation.

"One-called-AlanMendelson," why would I make an allegation about something of which I have no information? I might make conjecture, and any such post would be noted/qualified as such.

Quote: AlanMendelson

There is no harm in reporting or recording how faces show because that is not an allegation of unfair dice. That can simply be explained as random results in a random game. So since what you claim is a scientific method would be laughed out of court, you're safe when you report your face counts.

This is where we definitely depart. What you think would be "laughed out of court" might not seem to be so funny if an expert witness actuary takes the stand and discusses statistics and probability supporting the poster's claim.

Quote: AlanMendelson

But if you allege "bias" which is unfair dice, then you had better have the facts that will stand up in court and since your "face count" won't cut the mustard you are, in a word, sunk.

I don't allege unfair dice. I would guess that there is not enough bias to be significant. However, there is no way to tell the general amount of bias until an extensive study is done -- that means recording faces/rolls.

Quote: AlanMendelson

You can do what you want to do. I can't stop you.

That obviously goes for you, too.

Quote: Ahigh

All these casinos and dice manufacturers could easily participate in this thread if they wanted to. So far I haven't heard any comments from any employees of any dice manufacturers at all to assure us of how the outcomes of the dice are tested, and in fact, I don't believe that they care about the outcomes in general. I don't think they even care all that much about the balance either.

Those who say dice manufacturers or casinos are following this thread may in fact be right. But it's also possible that Alan knows he can just claim confidentiality if queried who it is that talked to him about this thread. I have absolutely no reason to believe that Alan is telling the truth that anyone contacted him about this thread. Alan just wants to make the point that people should be scared about legal ramifications related to his personal observations and apparently nobody else is worried about it. So maybe he just made this whole thing up that anybody cares to make people think twice about what they say. But I'm responding by saying, "let's hear from the dice manufacturers directly on this thread, otherwise Alan is full of bull."

There is absolutely nothing against the law about profiling face counts from a stick of dice. And, in general, casinos should not be afraid of anyone profiling dice faces in the casino. If there is something to hide, I'm not afraid of exposing the truth about how many twelves we are REALLY seeing in REAL casinos (for example at the Stratosphere tonight about an hour ago).

In addition dice manufacturers should not be concerned about the general public being made aware of the issues that could possibly lead to non-symmetric results of each of the six faces occurring.

There will always be people making wrong conclusions. Those people will always be making comments on forums. But unless specific laws are being broken in the process of gathering data about the possibility of biased dice, the comments from Alan Mendelson are nothing but sabre-rattling from someone who thinks himself to be more knowledgeable on the subject as it relates to legal ramifications.

But as far as providing real evidence of real outcomes in real casinos: if anyone at all should be worried (however doubtful it might be) the dice
manufacturers are the ones should be worried, not people writing down face counts and posting them up on the internet.

AlanMendelson, I agree with Ahigh.

Quote: Bohemian

AlanMendelson, I agree with Ahigh.

Of course you do. You've stated that over and over again. Tell me something new?

Actually, I think the only one who should be responding here is the owner/publisher of the website. Because it's his website and except for Ahigh who has made allegations using his own name while working for a company that supplies gaming equipment to the very casinos he's mentioned, he is the only one with anything to lose.

So, I am going to step aside. I think the expression "there's no skin off of my nose" applies here.

Quote: Ahigh

There is absolutely nothing against the law about profiling face counts from a stick of dice.

"Profiling face counts is not the legal question at hand. What is at issue is drawing either valid or conjectured conclusions and naming specific names of specific businesses involved.

Quote: Ahigh

In addition dice manufacturers should not be concerned about the general public being made aware of the issues that could possibly lead to non-symmetric results of each of the six faces occurring.

Not without any generally accepted objective criteria, as Harley learned from the Gaming Division.

Quote: Ahigh

Sabre-rattling from someone who thinks himself to be more knowledgeable on the subject as it relates to legal ramifications.

The general public may not realize it, but professional journalists are almost forced these days to bone up thoroughly on libel and defamation laws.

Quote: Ahigh

If anyone at all should be worried (however doubtful it might be) the dice manufacturers are the ones should be worried.

Despite the explicit offensive language, virtually any business or person who is publicly impugned is likely to be concerned about the collateral effects. And the critics ought to be ready to be hauled into court to substantiate their assertions.

Quote: tupp

Nobody on WOV is going to get sued by the dice manufacturers nor by the casinos for discussing the possible meanings of dice face counts, because: 1. Neither the dice manufacturers nor the casinos care (nor do they believe that there is a problem).

Of course they care. Their business is on the line, and if it suffers, that is most certainly a problem.

Quote: tupp

2. They would have to prove that the face counts were false.

No they would not, because the counts are meaningless.

Quote: tupp

3. If a significant bias actually was found, the only thing that would result from posting such info on WOV would be that it would attract a few more of us to those casinos to see if we could take advantage of the bias.

Wishful thinking followed by utterly unsupportable conjecture.

Quote: tupp

4. If the casinos and dice manufacturers actually cared, they would probably welcome any information that could help keep the rolls random.

No one in the gambling industry has ever even hinted about a problem with New Jersey's stringent craps standards.

Quote: tupp

5. Marketing savy casinos and manufacturers would be much more concerned about avoiding the "Streisand effect" than be paranoid about losing a handful of nerdy customers who post/read here!

Implicit contradiction to point No. 3.

Mission146 has already stepped in and was told (presumably by the Wizard) that comments about individual casinos and individual manufacturers was okay.

We are only at the stage of capturing counts of faces in order to begin a study of possible bias of dice within casino settings. If the end conclusion is that "'x' casino is using 'y' brand's dice and they are biased to this result(s)" and it is a valid one, I see no legal problem here because it is defensible.

I see nothing libellious in stating that I was at Fallsview Casino last night and saw 400 sixes in 1000 rolls (probability .0000412) and therefore the die is biased and BET the frickin boxcar! However, none of this is true. Even if I did see 400 sixes in 1000 rolls with that probability doesn't mean that the dice are biased. All it means is that it's bloody unlikely. You would have to get to p values of .0000001 or less (and decreasing) to show provable bias. But casinos are home to unlikely events both good for the player (jackpots) and bad for the player (pretty much everything else).

Now if staff from Fallsview saw this and decided to write the Wizard a note asking him to remove this fallacious information, it would be up to him and his lawyer to decide what the legal risk is.

There are plenty of websites and forums that declare that certain products suck, and they are still up and running today.

Further, although there are plenty of logic experts on this website who make the claim that dice are just random and are unbiased and that it should be so, there is no harm in testing the hypothesis for ourselves. Humans lived for thousands of year believing that the earth was at the centre of the universe despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Casinos could be using biased dice without knowing it. Perhaps certain dice manufacturers have become sloppy. Perhaps it is one gigantic conspiracy to take a fair game and make it unfair. We just don't know for sure do we.

One of the hardest things to ask of a dice player, is to ask him to be a dice counter. And of those that do, very few note individual faces. My notes are Foundation Frequencies, so a dealer looking over will be quite confused. For me too much work for individual die faces.

What I think everyone is forgetting is tha

I actually do appreciate Alan's suggestions to be concerned, and I also find it interesting even the idea that dice manufacturers or a casino even cares about counting faces. But I don't believe it at all because generally nobody cares! To make my point, the Wizard bowed out of this as soon as a non-scientific comment was made in this thread that intended to be devoid of those types of comments (with very unsuccessful results).

I have told Gold Coast (Wenda found it interesting) what I was doing counting faces the last time I did that there. She also found the idea of "practicing" or even having your own table absolutely hilarious. She talked about a story of a guy who had "special kind of shoes" who had come in and she had seen him lose a very large sum of money. I specifically described Harley when she said this, and she confirmed that it was _NOT_ our boy Harley she was talking about, but it sounded like it at first.

I represented to the Gold Coast that I thought the whole idea of biased dice was total bull crap but that I was just doing the work as part of my research into the game. They were fine with what I was doing on this occasion and found great entertainment from it.

The generalization that Wenda made about people who spend an inordinate amount of time studying the game is that they generally just lose more money than most people; but also implying that it doesn't help them to win the game by studying it more. Most pit crews absolutely share this viewpoint. They are concerned about people swapping in gaffed dice, but they are not concerned about being found to be using gaffed dice themselves. Not yet anyway. The ideally gaffed dice, however, are not going to register as being unfair until long after they are gone though. This is a very critical and important point. IE: just counting a particular pair or stick of dice for the few hours they are in use isn't going to mean anything about those particular pair or stick.

The thing that everyone should take away from this thread though is knowledge. Including the dice manufacturers. Including the casinos. And including the people who think that the process of being aware of the outcomes as they relate to the how likely a particular set of outcomes is to be fair versus theoretically biased dice. These theoretically biased dice are not proven to exist, and even if they did exist, they aren't going to be jumping out at you and saying "hey look at these totally bogus outcomes" in a few rolls. But hopefully some people are learning some things about p-values and about what steps could be made from where we are now to make dice more fair (symmetry is a bonus!)

Quote: Beethoven9th

What I think everyone is forgetting is that Ahigh is not your average gambler. While he may not be a celebrity (as least not yet), most casinos in Vegas know who he is. He has also done media interviews, airs a TV show, runs a website, etc. Heck, you can even google "dice influence", and you can find his work. Any casino that takes action against him risks serious public backlash.

So then, are you saying that Ahigh should be treated as a "public figure" as part of any defamation analysis?

Ahigh, will you be doing anymore media interviews?

Quote: MrV

So then, are you saying that Ahigh should be treated as a "public figure" as part of any defamation analysis?

Ahigh, there is nothing wrong with counting faces. Count to your heart's content. It is the conclusion that you might draw from counting faces where you could (and I emphasize could) get into trouble. You have not completed your research, yet you have named casinos, identified dice brands, and alleged irregularities and questioned them.

For what purpose are you doing this? To hurt the casinos? To hurt the dice makers? To steer casino goers from certain casinos? Your research is not over yet, is it? Yet you name names, and post partial results.

At best, at this point in your research, you admit to not having anything which is statistically meaningful. You are also aware that it might be impossible to obtain statistical data which would be considered valid given the source of the data, and the variable conditions that the data is gathered under.

Yet you continue to name casinos and dice brands publicly.

This is far different from giving "trip reports" and saying "this is what happened to me here" and what makes it different is your allegation of biased dice which means unfair dice.

It is also far different to publicly post on the Internet that a casino, for example, has "biased dice" than publicly posting on the Internet how one casino offers only 8/5 Jacks or Better while another casino offers 9/6 Jacks or Better. Reporting pay tables, if accurate, is not a challenge to a business' ethics or fairness or credibility or honesty. Reporting that a casino uses unfair dice or a dice maker manufactures unfair dice is a challenge to ethics and fairness and credibility and honesty.

If you honestly believe that you have discovered biased dice and casinos using biased dice you must have a "solid case" in hand before you go public with such charges. You cannot broadcast (Internet postings included) allegations of biased/unfair dice and then complete your investigation afterwards. To do so put the businesses you name in a position of suffering harm from allegations that haven't been proven and perhaps never will be proven.

In the TV news business, reporters get calls all the time with "tips" about corruption. In the news business we have a little saying that we often quote to news sources who call us with those tips about corruption, fraud, investment scams and the like: "If I can't confirm this, this guy is going to own the TV station. So I can't use this information on TV until I have it rock solid."

This is the real world where the rules have been established, and real companies and real people have their real lives and real reputations on the line. You and the media have an obligation to honor those rules that protect those people and businesses and their lives and their reputations. Freedom of speech does not protect the damage that one can cause by making false statements in the media.

Do you have the proof now that allows you to publicly accuse casinos of using biased dice and naming those casinos? Do you have the proof now that allows you to publicly accuse dice manufacturers of supplying biased dice to casinos?

Do you understand that without completing a true investigation and having proof that would stand up to scrutiny and by naming the casinos you have named, and the dice manufacturers that you have named, can cause them harm and damaged their good names and reputations?

Do you also understand that even if you did complete your task of "counting faces" that there are enough variables and doubts about the data and the conditions under which the data was obtained, that it is unlikely that your data could stand up as a defense against libel?

I would suggest to you that if you want to continue this project of yours that you continue your project without naming companies, and without releasing partial conclusions, and only if you are fully convinced that your statistical evidence points to some "problem" that then you go to the next step which would be to conduct tests that would elminate the variables and would clearly show where and how this "alleged bias" was produced.

Because right now by your own admission you have not completed an investigation and you have no proof of your allegations or suspicions while you have identified businesses in a public forum on a website that is widely known and has a reputation for influencing the public.

There is a disconnect. Like when you reported that I made a phone call to the Wynn, I believe that you have it wrong that I have alleged anything. I have not said anything about any casinos actually having biased dice! I have made statements that the outcomes fit those that might be expected from biased dice, and they have. I have made statements disclosing the actual numbers that I have collected in casinos (both what appear to be fair dice and what appear to be more likely theoretically biased dice than fair dice).

But where you jump off claiming that I am making phone calls to the Wynn announcing that I am coming, and in this case you at least imply that I have made allegations of casinos intentionally using biased dice, I think you're just wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. If I was the type who drinks alcohol or does drugs I might be wondering right now if I got drunk and made a post like that without recalling that I did that. But I just don't recall any instance where I claimed that any casinos or any dice manufacturers were doing anything against the law.

The only claim that I have made, in fact, is that I do not believe that they care. And I stand by the claim because I have in fact taken my balance device to casinos and they acknowledged that the device is extremely effective at determining the fairness of a die beyond what they can currently do, and they flatly rejected the notion that they need or even have an interest in using such a device.

The feedback that I got was something along the lines of how the dealers couldn't be trusted not to screw up the device or use it improperly. I thought this was a little weird in that I felt like such a device could be used by someone who was trained to use it.

But as far as this relates to the casinos and the dice manufacturers, I am making a claim. And my claim is that they do not care. That is why I think your statement that any dice manufacturers or casinos are following this thread is ridiculous. Because it is very clear to me that they simply do not care about the level of fairness present in dice for a specific set of dice once it falls outside the domain of what they currently are looking at (dimensions and burned edges and/or corners).

If the dice manufacturers or casinos did care, they would absolutely have contacted me by now, but none of them have. Furthermore, none of the casinos, even after specific questions about Midwest Brand versus Paulson branded, Tk, or Bud Jones, Bee, or any other brand has made anything other than casual conversation about what branded dice are known to be favorable to the house versus favorable to the casino.

Now if we move off from certainty to speculation, I have speculated that it's possible that casinos could be associating higher holds with specific brands or even specific sticks of dice that are set aside for such moments when they are planning to have a lot of action on specific types of bets. This is not an allegation, this is a hypothesis.

But if you want to get to claims, I absolutely do in fact claim that the casinos don't care about anything about the fairness of the dice beyond what is legally required for them to care about by law. They mic the dice here in Vegas, and they do look for rounded corners when a die goes down (if they are suspicious) and other known ways to alter a dice towards the player's favor. But if there is any details about the balance beyond what a mic of a physical touching of the corners can't figure out, they just don't care IMO. And that is a claim. It would be an allegation if it were against the law not to care, but it's not an allegation, simply a claim based on the observations that I have made in relation to this point of research on fair dice.

And as far as allegations go, you're saying that I have allegations against the casinos, and I am unaware of what those allegations are. Your repeating over and over that I am making false allegations is getting a little repetitive. So given that such allegations are unknown to me, maybe you could let me know where it is that I claim any casino is breaking any laws in Las Vegas as it relates to dice fairness.

If you can establish to me that I have made an allegation maybe we could move to the next step where I would worry about things. Right now, I see no libel case without allegations.

The only allegation I see that might be possible at this point is that I have made false allegations , which is in fact something you you may be doing. I have no idea if there is a law against this (implying that I'm making false allegations without proof), but you seem to want to label me as committing a crime by saying that I have made false allegations. It would be ironic if in the process of warning me of a crime, you are committing it yourself.

Quote: Ahigh

The only claim that I have made, in fact, is that I do not believe that they care. And I stand by the claim because I have in fact taken my balance device to casinos and they acknowledged that the device is extremely effective at determining the fairness of a die beyond what they can currently do, and they flatly rejected the notion that they need or even have an interest in using such a device.

That sounds like an unjustifiable leap to a sweeping generalization. How many rejections? How many acknowledgements. Are Casinos A, B and C off the Strip and Casinos D, E and F on? Henderson? South of the Strip? West Side?

Quote: SanchoPanza

That sounds like an unjustifiable leap to a sweeping generalization. How many rejections? How many acknowledgements. Are Casinos A, B and C off the Strip and Casinos D, E and F on? Henderson? South of the Strip? West Side?

I don't think it's a leap. The demonstration of my device is just one form of feedback suggesting that they don't care. But if it's of any help, any of the casinos that are reading this thread, please feel free to contact me and I will give you a demonstration of my die-balancing device in person and you can tell me how interested you are in how this device generally shows that all dice are not balanced as well as you might currently believe them to be.

I expect exactly zero demonstrations to be performed here in Vegas as a result of this offer, but I will give you guys feedback for how many casinos contact me with interest.

Here's the video where I present this balancing device for any casinos or personnel of casinos want to know more about this balance device:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqBNF2BnWSo

Quote: Ahigh

And as far as allegations go, you're saying that I have allegations against the casinos, and I am unaware of what those allegations are...maybe you could let me know where it is that I claim any casino is breaking any laws in Las Vegas as it relates to dice fairness.

As to your play at the Fiesta, you claimed the opening post of your thread "Bad dice, the saga continues" that your observations there "forced me to reconsider the idea that bad dice could be a very real phenomenon."

Seemingly not a libelous comment, but hey, I could be wrong.

*"I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken."

And watch my video up above too, where I basically say, "all the people who use the above low quality caliper to think dice are biased are misled by geometry deformations" if you read between the lines, that's my most publicly known position on biased dice, and that's what comes up if you start researching the topic.

If anything, I'm the guy who is saying "in general the dice are not biased, and anyone who thinks they are simply have not done the work that I have done."

And it's been that way for more than a year.

What we're looking at now is the very fine details of this issue. And the detail is so fine that we're arguing about a house edge being up to 2.82% on a passline, let's just say, instead of 1.41% from the possibility of some very finely designed dice to take advantage of the typical pattern of most craps betters who bet pass line with odds.

A place that might be able to use such dice would be the Stratosphere. At this casino, they pay 30 for 1 on the 12, and 15 for 1 on the yo. And they only pay double on the twelve in the field.

Last night at the Stratosphere, I witnessed a very unusual sequence of 12's and yo's as a guy bet on them and won big during a weekend period when the table was extremely busy.

None of this is proof of anything at all, but I will say that this fits the profile of what you would expect to see if a casino were using biased dice.

Not an allegation of any wrong doing, but absolutely fitting withing the parameters of the hypothesis of theoretically biased dice, but from the outcomes, as well as from the details of the payments on the felt to avoid exposure in the field and on the horn bets from having so many twelves appearing.

These are the events that keep me looking into these details, but I'm not saying anything wrong is happening. It is most likely just bad luck that I can't completely close off the case as I would like to. But these things do continue to occur right in front of me.

If casinos were required by law to record every outcome on every dice table in Vegas, we could just ask gaming for the sequence of outcomes. But as it stands, even if I showed you a sequence of outcomes with a rare p-value (as I am certain would be the case from last night) it still wouldn't prove anything as someone else said. It's like witnessing a million dollar payoff on a slot machine. It HAPPENS.

We need tens of thousands of samples to even have a suspicion. Everything else can just be isolated rare events that you happen to notice that fit the profile.

But getting back to the point, I'm not alleging anything.

Arn't all posts here only opinions? I certainly don't think statement's on an internet blogsite who's mission statement is to promote Las Vegas should be taken as anything but opinion.
This is a "chat group" about craps, come on people.

I thought all along that Ahigh was trying to prove that the dice were fair. He has went to great trouble and expense building what is probably the best dice balancer in the land because he didn't believe the dice were anything but,,, fair. Never stated casino's would knowingly be anything but fair, or deviate from Nevada gaming regs, intentionally.

I was informed that a derogatory statement about an entity to be considered slander is equalled by the orator's right to free speech.

In order for there to be "libel", economic harm would have to be proved. I'm surprised that some professional legal counsel here hasn't weighed in on that.

So no Nevada rules or laws about craps have been violated. I believe no slander or libel either. However it seems that several non professional legal minds have weighed in heavily about what the law is or is not. Or whether any law has been violated or broken. This is a venue for opinions.

I do believe though that stalking is a crime. Even internet stalking. It doesn't seem that Ahigh can post without being pounced on about his opinions possibly hurting these mega corporations. Maybe he should take that as a compliment, but I can see where that might be difficult.

Someone [paraphrased] also mentioned about the news being fair, unbiased or accurate. That's a joke right? How many times just in the last month has their bias, covering up been exposed??

Quote: Ahigh

I absolutely do in fact claim that the casinos don't care about anything about the fairness of the dice beyond what is legally required for them to care about by law.

Do you, therefore, claim that what is legally required of dice manufacturers and casinos (to insure fair dice are used) is inadequate or deficient? If so, on what do you base such a claim?

I submit the dice manufacturers and casinos do, in fact, care very much about making sure that fair and unbiased dice are used at the tables, and there are sufficient processes in place--including quality control by the manufacturers and checking by the casinos--that confirm unbiased dice are utilized.

If the dice manufacturers and the casinos showed a lack of interest or enthusiasm in utilizing your services, Ahigh, or in your "balance device"--assuming you did speak with those individuals in a position of authority to make an informed decision about your inquiry--will you not concede that it may very well be that your proposed assistance is unnecessary or superfluous and adds nothing to processes which insure that fair dice are used?

Quote: tupp

1. Neither the dice manufacturers nor the casinos care (nor do they believe that there is a problem).

Quote: SanchoPanza

Of course they care. Their business is on the line, and if it suffers, that is most certainly a problem.

No, they don't care. Their business is not "on the line" from a negative post on the WOV forum.

Quote: tupp

2. They would have to prove that the face counts were false.

Quote: SanchoPanza

No they would not, because the counts are meaningless.

That's interesting, because a noted gambling expert and actuary on this site (who is often hired by casinos and gaming manufacturers) has said that the only way to judge bias is by counting rolls/faces at actual casinos.

Quote: tupp

3. If a significant bias actually was found, the only thing that would result from posting such info on WOV would be that it would attract a few more of us to those casinos to see if we could take advantage of the bias.

Quote: SanchoPanza

Wishful thinking followed by utterly unsupportable conjecture.

Oh, of course, a bias mentioned in a post on WOV would result in picketing and riots outside the casino and/or dice manufacturing plant.

Quote: tupp

4. If the casinos and dice manufacturers actually cared, they would probably welcome any information that could help keep the rolls random.

Quote: SanchoPanza

No one in the gambling industry has ever even hinted about a problem with New Jersey's stringent craps standards.

Just because some think that New Jersey craps rules are stringent, that doesn't mean that a problem doesn't exist. If anything, the existence of such rules reflect the potential of a problem.

Quote: tupp

5. Marketing savy casinos and manufacturers would be much more concerned about avoiding the "Streisand effect" than be paranoid about losing a handful of nerdy customers who post/read here!

Quote: SanchoPanza

Implicit contradiction to point No. 3.

Not at all.

In the first place, the Streisand effect doesn't occur until the concerned party attempts to control Internet information. So, as my point #5 suggests, marketing savy casinos and manufacturers would refrain from such an attempt, leaving the scenario described in my point #3 free to exist without contradiction.

Secondly, the hypothesized Streisand effect could actually enhanced the scenario described in my point#3 -- it might attract more WOV members.

Quote: Jimbo

Do you, therefore, claim that what is legally required of dice manufacturers and casinos (to insure fair dice are used) is inadequate or deficient? If so, on what do you base such a claim?

I submit the dice manufacturers and casinos do, in fact, care very much about making sure that fair and unbiased dice are used at the tables, and there are sufficient processes in place--including quality control by the manufacturers and checking by the casinos--that confirm unbiased dice are utilized.

If the dice manufacturers and the casinos showed a lack of interest or enthusiasm in utilizing your services, Ahigh, or in your "balance device"--assuming you did speak with those individuals in a position of authority to make an informed decision about your inquiry--will you not concede that it may very well be that your proposed assistance is unnecessary or superfluous and adds nothing to processes which insure that fair dice are used?

Not really. The edge is still pretty small. If you compare a regular craps table to a double zero roulette table or a crapless craps table, there is no need for concern.

It only has to do with the representation that the house edge gets as low as sites such as this claim that it does with max odds on a large multiple odds table.

That's when it becomes more concerning.

Most craps players just make stupid bets anyway. And for those players, they could get a better deal in the field or on the horn with these theoretically biased dice. IE: the theoretically biased dice do as much good for the dummies as they do harm to the well-researched player.

But in the end, it's still gambling and expecting things to be set up where you have a super low edge even if you do your homework on the math is the only possible area of concern for me.

@petroglyph
All of your points above are excellent!