Bingo math

I'm writing up a new page on some online bingo games. I founds them at Vegas Crest casino.

My page can be found here. Note the returns for the 75-number 30-ball game and 80-number 35-ball. I won't draw attention to it in the title.

Despite that fact that I titled it "Vista Gaming Bingo" in the title, Vista is claiming they didn't do the game.

For now I'm just throwing this out there. If anybody would else would care to take a crack at the math, please do. Bingo math, especially when a free square game, can be tedious and long to program, so maybe I made a mistake somewhere.

Quote: Wizard

Bingo math, especially when a free square game, can be tedious and long to program, so maybe I made a mistake somewhere.

I did a lot of bingo math a few years back; the games were indeed very tedious. I ended up doing many of them via simulation. I couldn't find closed solutions for most of the mini-games. In other words, I feel your pain.

Another issue I ran into was the "perm set," which is the actual set of cards used in land-based games. The math had to be checked against the specific cards that were in the perm set, and not against all possible random cards. The baseline perm-set I worked with had 250K different bingo cards. A perm set is often used for igaming versions.

To see why a perm set can cause problems, one company had a ball drop that was static for the day. The ball drop occurred and then in the video version you purchased cards from the perm set to be played against that ball drop. The cards were randomly selected from the perm set, so you never knew which you would get. But, because the perm set was not uniform, some ball drops had highly positive EV (up over 140%). I tried to warn them. I believe this is how it worked in Montana for many years.

Thanks, eliot. Good stuff. I haven't seen you post for a while, so always nice to hear from you. Indeed, it is possible that this casino is not using random cards. For an Internet casino, I don't think that is likely, but you never know.

For the benefit of everyone else, I think the reason land casinos use a limited number of possible cards is that when somebody bingos all the attendant has to do is say the card number and the computer will know immediately if it is a legitimate win, because the card number is associated to the numbers on the card, and the numbers drawn were already entered into the computer.

Quote: Wizard

Note the returns for the 75-number 30-ball game and 80-number 35-ball. I won't draw attention to it in the title.

Draw attention to it? I can't even find it.

Quote: FleaStiff

Draw attention to it? I can't even find it.

Did you click here?

Quote: Wizard

Did you click here?

The best one of those games also has low volatility, which would make an error very easy for the operator to detect. I think I'll go ahead and double check that one for you.

Quote: CrystalMath

The best one of those games also has low volatility, which would make an error very easy for the operator to detect. I think I'll go ahead and double check that one for you.

Thank you in advance!

Quote: Wizard

Thank you in advance!

You're welcome. It is my pleasure.

I calculated the identical return as you.

I did have discrepancies in some of the individual probabilities, but that is because I counted double bingo wins with precedence over the X pattern. This is the order they appear in the paytable when I looked at the game online. I calculated 0.024547806 for a double bingo and 0.001245976 for the X, the sum of which matches the sum of the double bingo and X patterns that you calculated. Since they pay the same, it is immaterial.

I signed up and they allow buying cards for $0.01. I've been playing quite some time with 24 cards and I have yet to lose a dollar.

Quote: CrystalMath

I calculated the identical return as you.

Thank you for the confirmation!

Let the record show that I'm giving the readers of this site a 2.9% advantage play on a silver platter.

I've got some bad news about the game. I played for a while and even made a deposit (not much, but worth it for the investigation). Because of the very low volatility, I figured I must have been the unluckiest person on Earth or the casino was cheating. Turns out, that wasn't the problem.

In the paytable screen, they have a pay called "double bingo" which has a graphic showing two lines, which happen to be intersecting. I assumed that this was any two lines, which would include either two horizontal, two vertical, or two intersecting lines. Of course, it didn't strike me to verify this before losing my money. My assumption was wrong and the double bingo only covers two intersecting horizontal and vertical lines.

With the correction, I calculate the return to be 93.7783%.

Another problem is that the playthrough requirements are not accurately tracked for this game. According to the site, the player should be credited 100% of specialty games toward the playthrough. I wagered roughly $2780 and my playthrough balance only went down about $200.

Whenever you post a Proposed Page on which you solicit comments... it might be best to number the lines for ready reference.

Let the record show that I'm giving the readers of this site a 2.9% advantage play on a silver platter.
Will you point out the exact line that shows us this 2.9% advantage play? I can't even find the silver platter.

Quote: CrystalMath

In the paytable screen, they have a pay called "double bingo" ...

Thank you very much for letting me and everybody know. Consider myself with egg on my face. However, I think you'd agree that my interpretation of the rules was not unreasonable. In any bingo room in Vegas a double bingo is ANY two lines.

I'd like to pay the the $200 you lost. If you accept, please PM me a Paypal account or address to send a check.

Again, thank you very much. At least it was just one person, I hope, who lost money due to this.