ENDING- I WILL NEVER PLAY BOVADA AGAIN

ok so I hate typing so forgive the typos- after two days of dealing with bovada and forgetting about the blackjack issue where I got one card on split aces- i had an issue involving house way - it is listed no where anywhere on there site- i emailed bovada and got three terrible answers that didnt answer the question and it was clear the had no clue and I got form letters- in one email I even got the rules of blackjack ???? wtf finally i got fed up and tried one last email- they immediately responded and asked me to cal- however never gave a name just a phone number so now I had to explain the issue again- after 49 minutes on phone a superisor told me it is decided by RNG i kindly explained to them I am aware the rng determines the cards they just didnt get it they keep telling me that the software determines the outcome, i have explained to im blue in the face and am getting aboslutely no where- I am about to close my account- I acutally openened it for the wizard and sent over 750 dollars that im just going to consider a loss at this point- I just give up dealing with a site that doesnt even understand the game they ae providing

You could check out the house way for different casinos at the Wizard's Pai Gow Poker page. According to the Wizard, "differences are marginal and happen infrequently." If you want to just rant because customer service sucks, that's okay, too.

nah, but this isnt on anyones house way i looked, funny as a side note i got a pm from a well known forum member telling me they have a system and it doesnt work with bovada because the rng is rigged, i did laugh at that one

So what was your problem? I'm confused as to it right now. Because the house rules in Blackjack do count for only one card on split aces.

Also, I'm not sure why one would email Bovada when their customer service on the phone is so much quicker and friendly, but I've never had a problem with Bovada. Any time I had a concern they took care of it - and almost everytime - within a few minutes. One time took them like a half hour one night and they called back the next day with re-imbursement but I'll give them a pass b/c they over compensated me.

Blackjack rules

The game is played using six decks, which are reshuffled after each hand.
Dealer hits on soft 17.
Player Blackjack pays 3 to 2.
Any other winning hand is paid 1 to 1.
Insurance pays 2 to 1.
Split up to three hands.
Surrender any first two cards.
Split aces receive only one card.
No re-splitting of aces.
A split ace and a ten-value card is not a Blackjack.

A betting system doesn't work? I'm shocked. Must be the damned rigged RNG.

He never asked for the rules of blackjack. He asked to see the Bovada house way when they set their pai gow poker hands.

Edit... Also when you split aces, each ace receives one card. He never received a card on his 2nd ace.

Quote: Beardgoat

He never asked for the rules of blackjack. He asked to see the Bovada house way when they set their pai gow poker hands.

I would like to see the house way also. The house has huge advantage if there is no house way and they simply set a hand depending on how a player sets a hand.

Edit-By the way I have a Bovada account with money but its only for poker.
I would never play a negative expectation game online. I will play live at a casino, live dealer, real cards, playing with real people, having nice conversations, free drinks, too me this all offsets the house advantage. You get none of this online.
So for me, will play poker at Bovada. Will not play pai gow poker at Bovada. Will play Pai gow poker at a real brick and mortar casino.

Quote: Beardgoat

He never asked for the rules of blackjack. He asked to see the Bovada house way when they set their pai gow poker hands.

Edit... Also when you split aces, each ace receives one card. He never received a card on his 2nd ace.

I know of his problem with the house way on Pai Gow - I don't know about that game so I can't comment. At first it didn't read to me like he got AA split, and got an extra card on one of his aces but not the other. But if that's the case - it should be screenshot-ed because that's astounding.

Few casinos publish its Pai Gow house way. I would imagine if you want to most or maybe even all of their support depts with that question you would go nowhere. That is all controlled by the software supplier.

Inetbet, which is an RTG (similar to Bovada), publishes its house way in the help files. Here is what they say about flush and a pair:

Quote:

- One Pair that uses Joker, and still have a Flush after removing the Joker and the Ace The two cards will be the Joker and the Ace

- One Pair, Joker, and still have a Flush after removing the Pair The two cards will be the pair

- One Pair, Joker, and still have a flush after removing the Joker Follow the steps described for "Flush and 3-of-a-kind" (basically two pair rule)

- One Pair composed of Ace and Joker, where the Ace is also used by the flush The two cards will be the 2nd and 3rd highest

- Any other One Pair, Joker The two cards will be the Joker and the highest singleton not from the flush

I don't think any of these apply, so the flush should have been kept together, according to the fall back rule on five-card flush (as opposed to 6 or 7, which have other procedures):

Quote:

The two cards will be the two non-flush

It mentions nothing about splitting flush to play ace-king and a pair that I can see.

Did you check the Bovada Pai Gow help file in the software to see if it has this info?

ive gotten no where with them, someone from customer service did call back and i think he finnally understood- but from a customer service issue, not a single person even understood what i was askking for - THEY HAD ZERO CLUE- the kept sending me rules, and when i asked for house way they said its different for each hand- wow no way really? i was also told it was rng for setting the hand which is weird i must say im relly dumfounded, I dont know the odds for getting a jack high but i saw three of them in 14 hands seems highly unlikely but im not really questioning that i am saying that the house rules need to be published one way or the other it ay not have effected me either way but imagine if there is no rules- also geting one card on my splt aces on the first hand is fine but i never got any card on my second- i posted screen shots of both in the other threads- mods feel free to combine these

Quote: strictlyAP

ive gotten no where with them, someone from customer service did call back and i think he finnally understood- but from a customer service issue, not a single person even understood what i was askking for - THEY HAD ZERO CLUE- the kept sending me rules, and when i asked for house way they said its different for each hand- wow no way really? i was also told it was rng for setting the hand which is weird i must say im relly dumfounded, I dont know the odds for getting a jack high but i saw three of them in 14 hands seems highly unlikely but im not really questioning that i am saying that the house rules need to be published one way or the other it ay not have effected me either way but imagine if there is no rules- also geting one card on my splt aces on the first hand is fine but i never got any card on my second- i posted screen shots of both in the other threads- mods feel free to combine these

Mod note: we don't have any way of combining threads. If you want to post links to your screen shots for reference, you're welcome to do so. Thanks, strictly, and sorry to hear Bovada hasn't given you the customer service they should be.

http://i.imgur.com/ixk99vx.jpg

Hard to believe that you won both hands not drawing to the second Ace......what are the odds of that?

if the dealer breaks ? 100 percent -------- odds of winning when software has issues? zero

StrictlyAP is Bovada your first online gambling site?

You need to take things into perspective and realize the vast majority of casino customer support sucks (compared to other industries such as grocery stores) and do not understand the services they are providing. If a casino doesn't confiscate funds, you should be thankful enough. For example jackpot capital is a very reputable casino and seldom receive complaints anywhere, but their customer support is absolutely full of shit.

By this point I've tried out almost all of the available to US casinos. Bovada's customer support is only second to 3Dice (extremely dedicated support at the cost of bad promotions/general greediness).

Anyway, I'm not defending Bovada's actions in saying that not knowing the service you provide is correct. I am defending Bovada as a casino by comparing it to all the other casinos. If this issue happens elsewhere the customer support will give you even more shit, I guarantee it.

I've learned not to directly ask my math/technical questions to any casino support. If they're capable of answering some of those questions they wouldn't be working there, they'd be advantage gambling for a living for a much higher income. Just like in high school my economics teacher was full of shit and I eventually realized, if he actually knows the real information, he would be in wall street and not some public high school.

Bovada is clearly the best casino there is.

point taken but how would u respond to one card on split aces- and i too play 360 days a year and have never dealt with a house way set like that pai gow hand, i wasnt saying its wrong id just like to see the rules of setting hands and thats not really a math quetion more of a rules question

The one card on split aces issue. AFAIK it's graphical and not functional. I encounter similar situations quite frequently playing bovada blackjack where the software decides to only deal one card.

The thing is, it's not only dealt one card. All you have to do is reload the game and you'll realize it's actually dealt 2 cards, you just only see 1 due to graphical glitch.

It's a glitch nonetheless and I would also prefer it to be fixed. But for the time being from my personal experience you were actually dealt 2 cards on the ace and you won.


As for the pai gow hand, bovada does not publish the house way afaik. and someone has mentioned it's comparable to inetbet's house way due to RTG. No... afaik bovada's pai gow game is made by betsoft.

Anyway, a recent post on Casinomeister shows that NONE of the RTG casinos abide by their own house way rules in pai gow. Isn't that quite much more of a crime than what bovada did, which is simply not publishing their house way rules?

I do feel like Bovada, or any other casino should publish (accurately) the house way for pai gow. But I feel like you'd have an incredibly difficult time contacting bovada due to what i mentioned about this being too technical for a non-professional gambler (CS included) to understand.

Perhaps the wizard can help you. Meanwhile, once again, I don't think what Bovada did was right but any other casino sure would do worse!

il go with the lag issue on the blackjack although never had it happen anywhere else, the pai gow issue is much more troublesome- if you do not know house way you cannot possible be on an even playing field its no different then not knowing the rules in blackjack ie standing on soft 17 its completely crazy, and my point more being is without knowing house way you cannot possible spot a programming error- i had the same issue with five dimes back in the day and in fact it was programmed wrong- they were 100000 percent stand up about it and gave me 1000 for pointing out the issue- not that I expect anything like this I dont even want a dollar i just want to know the rules- it not different then playing baccarat and finding out that on a hand in which the banker and player both have seven on two cards and then having the banker draw one more- you couldnt possibly play in a casino like that if that was an unposted rue

I agree with what you said about knowing the house way is important to find programming errors. I agree with all casinos need to share their house way for fair play.

But I do want to once again assure you Bovada handled your situation less poorly (still poor) than any other casinos. Perhaps five dimes was a rare exception.

It's still better than all the other RTG casinos clearly not following written house way rules.

I do hope wizard can help you with this. Improvements and fixes are always welcomed even to a great casino like Bovada.

hopefully he helps, he hasnt chimed in much on this issue

AP: A question concerning Bovada Pai Gow Poker can be found here. If you had one of "those" situations, it would be a very interesting one. I am curious about the "hand problem" you encountered. The entire thread is worth a read, and its from 2012.

thanks i remember reading that thread, and this kind of illustrates my point, withouth knowing house way how could i possibly know if this is a prgramming error- clearly not a single person at bovada understands what I am saying, i got a call from a customer advocate department who was defirnetly from the us as he was well spoke and polite although even he did not know the game he did say he would get to the bottom of it but I have my doubt, doesnt seem like anyone there even knows what im asking for- i really hope the wizard can speak to someone who understands the situation

I understand this problem completely, and much like you bells and whistles would be going off here, too. I would not feel comfortable or confident. At some point all on-line gaming MUST tip their Ways with copyright protection to (re) establish Customer confidence that they're not being scammed. I can't see OLG being legal without this kind of enlightenment.

completely agree, just thought bovada would have chimed in on this somewhat sooner, it would be so easy to just post the house way

I've had the issue of cards not showing up, not just with aces, and I'm pretty sure it's just the front end. When I've closed the window and gone back, things are just as they should be. My one complaint is the time I opted out of insurance with cards missing, closed out, and found the system had registered me as having stood on the first two hands.

Quote: strictlyAP

completely agree, just thought bovada would have chimed in on this somewhat sooner, it would be so easy to just post the house way

My guess is that there are zero or at the most one person in the whole company that actually knows the house way. My understanding is that they didn't create this software themselves. I would never play any online casino game for serious money...