question - before i make accusations- mission???

can anyone help me with this, I am dealing with a casino online that i think is rigged, I want to conduct a video test before I come public with this however

the game is pai gow

If I was betting 1 dollar per hand how many hands would I need to play on average to lose 300 dollars, before realizing it was rigged
I.e if I played 500 hands and was broke after those 500 would what would be the probabilty of that?
im not a math guy so any help from mission or anyone else would be really hepful

The chances of ruin within 500 hands with a starting point of 300 units would be astronomically small in pai gow poker.

Risk of ruin calculations are mathematically complicated, and IMO, best done by simulation. I highly doubt you'll go broke in your experiment. To keep things simple I would play 1000 hands and see how many units you lose. The standard deviation of 1000 hands of pai gow poker is sqr(1000)*0.75 = 23.72. I think five standard deviations makes a rock solid case of cheating. So that would be 119 units south of expectations. Assuming you never bank, the expected loss in 1000 hands is 2.73% * 1000 = 27.3 hands. So, if you lose more than 146 hands out of 1000 I would say you would have a solid case.

Quote: strictlyAP

If I was betting 1 dollar per hand how many hands would I need to play on average to lose 300 dollars, before realizing it was rigged

about 11,000 hands on average
300/0.0273

Can you bet $1 and win 95 cents or ??

Quote: strictlyAP

I.e if I played 500 hands and was broke after those 500 would what would be the probability of that?

Using the calculator here: (also run a simulation)
http://www.beatingbonuses.com/calc_fair.htm

-300 units
500 hands
about 17.1 SDs
Gots to agree with the Wizard on that one

-200 units
500 hands
about 11.1 SDs

-100 units
500 hands
about 5.1 SDs (about 1 in 2 million or so)

Looking forward to watching the video
Good Luck

I think online casinos are rigged, and I still don't think you're going to lose 300 dollars in 500 hands. There will be tons of pushes.

On this site, while things are unlikely, the math folks on this site take the unlikely into account. When someone comes on here and complains about losing, you can stick it into a calculator and see what the odds of something like that occuring.

While eyebrows might be raised at a 1:1,000,000 event (4.891638 SDs) it's still considered in the realm of the possible and really can't count as cheating. We all get dealt a royal flush from time to time knowing the odds are 650K:1 so that is a lucky event.

Even when you get to 1:1,000,000,000 (6.109410 SDs) eyebrows still might be raised and that is an incredibly lucky or unlikely event, but even still, it rarely happens. Think about the odds of winning the powerball. Someone does it even though the odds against are astronomical.

When you get to the realm of 1:1,000,000,000,000 (trillion:1) (around 7.1 SDs) then it really becomes something like cheating. And that cheating is obvious.

The thing is that if online casinos could cheat, why wouldn't the software operators understand variance and peg your loss at -2 SDs below mean and apply it to every player such that the results are skewed enough that say 2% of players win while 98% of players win. That is, just stick in a random variable that makes you lose 7 extra hands per 100 played and offer a fair game the rest of the time? At least with that the expected loss is always set about 2SD below expected which is enough for the casino to win plenty of money from you and still give you a chance of winning and you don't have a case at all because it's within the realm of possibility.

POST the LOGS.

There is such a factor as selection bias that is extremely important in determining what is statistically relevant and what isn't.

If you come in out of nowhere with a 1:100,000 run of outcomes, it doesn't mean anything yet, because it was that bad run that prompted you to report it and it's plausible that 99,999 better runs went unreported.

If you set to record a sequence of events, of predetermined length, starting at a set time, that will be reported regardless of outcome, then even a 1:100 bad run is very meaningful and a good indicator that something isn't right.

So, if you announce beforehand that you're going to e.g. play 500 hands starting 2/2/13 at 18:59, then record just that, what would otherwise be just an anecdote will turn into a representative sample.

Quote: boymimbo

...The thing is that if online casinos could cheat, why wouldn't the software operators understand variance and peg your loss at -2 SDs below mean and apply it to every player such that the results are skewed enough that say 2% of players win while 98% of players win. That is, just stick in a random variable that makes you lose 7 extra hands per 100 played and offer a fair game the rest of the time? At least with that the expected loss is always set about 2SD below expected which is enough for the casino to win plenty of money from you and still give you a chance of winning and you don't have a case at all because it's within the realm of possibility...

From the unscrupulous operators that have been caught already, I am almost certain the type of skimming you describe is already going on. The fact that there is no oversight makes it impossible to detect with certainty, since it can be dismissed as a, 'bad streak".

As for the extreme cheaters, and why they do it, perhaps postage and envelopes for mailing checks are expensive, so they set up their games in a way that they never have to send out a winning payout.

I used a pay-per-head site to book bets, and my players had access to an online casino as part of the package.

Now, as a bettor, I don't think I would ever trust an online casino. As a bookie, I wondered if these things could
be rigged. It was never my intention to rig the casino to a greater advantage, but I asked the web operator
if it could be done. They told me ABSOLUTELY NOT, NO CHANCE, EVER. The casino my bettors used was fair,
and could not be changed to make it unfair. Of course, they still lost money.

Of course an online casino can be rigged. They have been caught before.

" They told me ABSOLUTELY NOT, NO CHANCE, EVER. " ROFLMAO

Quote: Buzzard

" They told me ABSOLUTELY NOT, NO CHANCE, EVER. " ROFLMAO

Yeah. That's exactly what they told me. I must have been talking to the wrong person, huh?

Come on BOOk I am laying 8 to 1 you knew that could never be true. Now if you thought the place was trying to be honest, that's a different story indeed.