FOBT roulette is rigged (again)

[mr lugsy]

quality first posting and indeed plausible.

[keno]

Hi,

Just joined - but have been reading these forums on & off for a while.
Just read this whole thread - and there a number of interesting thoughts - however, it appears that most people seem to miss the most obvious point (until a poster a few posts back) and that is that on fobts, the machine knows where you place your bet - and how much - therefore the "winning" number is based on this. As for audits and suchlike, of course it needs to be based on the auditor placing a real-life stake on a machine and pressing go. I pretty much agree with the very first post in this thread that they play to about 88% rather than 97%. Here's a few musings:

Bookies own most of the dog tracks from where BAGS races are taken - therefore they control the betting market - the average SP % makeup on a bags race is 130%+ (ie: a return of around 76% for the punter) -

They run their own "virtual" races - and the betting on these is "fixed" - again to a high %.

Nearly everything they do they can fix the price - they used to be able to fix the price of horses a while back - before the days of betfair etc. - because they'd back a horse down at the track etc etc.

So why would they be so welcoming in offering the punter a betting opportunity with only a 3% edge to the house. I agree that someone playing a fobt is likely to play more than 1 spin (then again, people have been know to bet on every dog race) - ok I'll leave that hanging in the air.

as for the people who say there is no need to fix it, and that roulette is a game with a negative expectation etc etc - others have even quoted (elsewhere on the web forums etc) that because the negative edge is 3%, then if you start off with £50, then you should expect to lose it in 10-15 spins or whatever (as in after 1 spin, you'll be down to 48.50, then 47, then 45.50, etc etc).

However, this all supposes that you lose!!! It is possible to win!! And depending on "how many numbers" you bet on - then there should be an expectation that you should get a winning spin.

So you bet on, say, 30 numbers - you have an 80% chance of getting a positive return - now I am not saying if you sit down for an hour, pressing repeat, that every spin has to be a loser- but you should pretty much expect to have 80% spins where your numbers have come in - however, the opposite tends to happen - well almost. The most "unlikely" outcome hits you quick! Someone once said, if you go to a casino and bet in a certain way, and stay there for a few hours, you'll probably come out losing. On a fobt, you will lose, and it will be so much quicker (not purely because of the faster spin speed either).

Unfortunately, I am like a couple of the previous posters - I know I will probably lose - and probably quickly - and probably in "controversial" circumstances (like, bet on zero for 10 spins, leave it off and watch it come in and clear you out) - but I am drawn to them - they are there (the nearest casino is a 45 min drive away) - you go in and expect that with an average amount of luck, you can stick in £20, or £50 - and make a little bit - but inevitably, almost without fail, and without giving you a chance to collect a "decent" profit, they wipe you out. You come out and think - what have I done wrong?

Just a feeling in my stomach, but it would appear in the last 6-12 months, they have become so much worse. I'm sure some of you (who play them) can remember actually winning at some stage - nowadays, it's a struggle to even remeber pressing the collect button and going up to the counter.
I watched someone else play them in my local last week - she was varying her bets quite a lot - different numbers, different stakes etc etc.
It seemed clear after a short period that the only constant was her dipping into her purse to feed another note into the machine - every now and then her balance would shoot up to £80 or so (she was betting relatively low) - then a couple of sunny spins - first she obviously got the hump - just placed a bet of about £1.80 - just covering no.5 and all its splits and corners - hey presto - no.5 comes in!!! A few spins later - she decides to play £2 on no.1, £1 on no.2 and a few other small bets - total stake < £5. no.1 rolls in - she gets quite excited - and shows her mate on the next machine - then she presses repeat - and bumps up her bet to about £30 - covering lots more numbers - I was convnced that it would roll in a loser - but alas - I was wrong - no.4 came in, she had £1 on it (so a small profit) - next 3 spins all lost - and she was back to loading another note in -

started watching another guy next to her - he was betting big - £50-£100 a spin - he got up to a balance of about £350 - and then I just watched as spin after spin lost - and out he went empty handed.

Someone else on another one in the same shop - much the same -

I was sat there for about an hour - watching about 7 diff people play the 4 machines - and not one did I see collect anything......

Ok, roulette has a negative expectation - but tell me how often you see people cashing in their chips at a casino??

They still do.

SP Thief's. Particularly at courses where there are only a handful of punters.

I won't go in to too much detail but you only have to look at the SP that Wolverhampton return, compared to their board prices (not to mention betfair) right before the off!

[Johnny's Amusements]

i was stupid enough to let these filthy machines almost ruin my life. They are fixed, there is no doubt about that. you're less likely to see this when you are playing with a few quid, its always more random then, but when you're playing big bucks for long periods of time its so obvious. last time i played a few weeks ago i was playing £100 a spin with the maximum on zero, i'd break about even for a few spins, then lose the lot, then break even for a few spins, then lose the lot, then a decent win followed by 3 or 4 losers. never saw a zero in hundreds of spins. then I'm about skint and playing 20p bets and sure enough zero comes in 3 or 4 times in the next dozen or so spins. fair enough you could say this is bad luck, but it was following these patterns on a daily basis. ive had 500 quid in credit, covered most numbers, and seen one of the few numbers i didn't cover come in 5 times in a row (it was 27, i hate that number).
they tease you by landing next door to your big money numbers, bet on zero and see how many times 26 comes in, hmm maybe i up my stake on 26, then watch how many times 3 comes in. spin with your last £100, and it will usually pay slightly less than your steak in the hope that you'll put another £20 in to repeat you bet.
they are a complete mindf**k, designed to mess with your head. of course they have to pay out some time, so you can sometimes have a good day. my local bookie ran out of money one day because the machines had been "going nuts all week", sure enough for the next few weeks nobody won, he said he hadn't paid out a four figure sum in a whole month.
I'll never touch them again and my local bookies has lost a good customer, i could handle a few bad days but to me it was too obvious that they are rigged. they're almost vindictive.
apparently they just provide a list of numbers to prove to the authorities that they are random. it would be more interesting to see a list of numbers together with a list of where the money was on that spin.
im gonna stick to my football coupons from now on.

Quite right not to ever play them again. (They are NOT *fixed* though!)

[JG]

They are random, but not fair. They pay to lower than suggested % by being able to select from a pool of numbers larger than 0-36, so that 37,38,39 etc are biggest possible losses.

They imply 97.3% but in reality would pay less than 90%, fixed enough for me not to play them.

[Spyder]

i like the post about randomness and it being random hitting the one spot with no bet, and spot with only bet being random...

do it yourself this way

go to a bookies tomorrow

put £40 in two machine next to each other

bet £1 on one number only, the same on each

spin both at exactly the same time, should get same result

do this 5 times,

next spin bet 20p on every number apart from the one you chose

try and do this 5 times...



my bet is that you wont hit the 1 number, but if you do it will be on the second spin
and the machine will 'randomly' hit the missed number at least twice in succession, wihin 5 attempts..

proving either mine or jg's or both our guesses.

[ob]

Lol Im well up on bookies roulette, and anyone that knows me, knows that its a 100% truth that statement!!!

Must be super lucky to be up on something that is supposedly rigged eh....

[PMK]

Spyder if u do what u suggested, the machine will do what it always does. That being pick a random number between 0-36 and that's it!!

Doesn't matter if u have 20p or £13 on any amount of numbers, the bets do not affect the number chosen.

There are no such things as patterns on fobt roulette, if there was, instead of exploiting fruit machines don't u think we'd all be sitting in bookies making thousands every day?

I've done brains on roulette a couple of times but once your knee deep in you need far to much LUCK to recover losses and luck is all there is to it. No %age to come back, no patterns to start arriving, no cycled streaks, no bonus freebies, just good old fashioned luck to bail you out.

I hear the same old shit from regulars in my bookies, 'ooh when it spins in 0 get on no.6 normally comes in!' the same regulars who moan they're fixed when the numbers don't come in but not say a fuckin word when they do!! Yet these same people are always on them believing there are patterns and trying to beat them!! Yet failing for months on end, there stupid theories only cost them more and more money!

It's very sad, that grown intelligent men with families and good jobs honestly believe they can beat them cos of what numbers have and haven't come in.

Only my opinion of course. Others will not agree.

[Spyder]

you misunderstand my point,

i dont believe the machine picks a number and displays it like you would expect

i think it decides if you in or lose, then picks a number you either do or dont have.
or it does 0 - 36 and then a few extra on top as undisplayed house edge,

either of these suggestions would explain "patterns" or the repeated numbers,
the possibility that on a few times ive played it its had four numbers the same come out one after another, other times its had 15 blacks in a row... other wildy unexpected feats of random possibilities

how many times can you flick a coin to heads without cheating? ... you may answer how many times can i flip a coin alternating between heads and tails, but fifteen blacks in a row? at the time there were only red bets on, is this an argument between random and coincidence?

[PMK]

When I go out playing (fruits) on a Sunday combining that with an all day piss up we split the winnings and then flip a coin for anything over £10 amounts. Eg - £169 means we flip the coin for the odd £9.

My mate always chooses heads, has done from the start. When we started out I won the first two and then lost the next 19 on the trot!!

So it does happen!! Alas my post about when I was in Luton casino a while back. 14 14 14 23 23 23 came in on a normal roulette table.

If the two examples happened on a fobt u'd be screaming rigged!!

Happens now and again.

This is comin from someone who just done a 6 sheet in one without a single winning spin at £20 a time.

Annoying loss but just down to bad luck.

[Johnny's Amusements]

you misunderstand my point,

i dont believe the machine picks a number and displays it like you would expect

i think it decides if you in or lose, then picks a number you either do or dont have.
or it does 0 - 36 and then a few extra on top as undisplayed house edge,

either of these suggestions would explain "patterns" or the repeated numbers,
the possibility that on a few times ive played it its had four numbers the same come out one after another, other times its had 15 blacks in a row... other wildy unexpected feats of random possibilities

how many times can you flick a coin to heads without cheating? ... you may answer how many times can i flip a coin alternating between heads and tails, but fifteen blacks in a row? at the time there were only red bets on, is this an argument between random and coincidence?

It is entirely possible for either red or black to come in 15 or more times even on a proper casino roulette wheel, so therefore it is to be expected to happen every now and then on a FOBT roulette machine. As for having a "hidden" house edge this would just not be possible under strict Gambling Commission rules. Gambling must be seen to be "Fair and Open" which is one of the Commission's key objectives. Please do not think I am defending these machines. I HATE them! but they are not rigged. They just take your money in a "fair & open" way. i.e. Short odds, the same as a real roulette table.

[Johnny's Amusements]

Oh, and I forgot to mention the fact that when you back any of the even money chances ( true odds=19/18 ) and ZERO comes in on a FOBT machine you lose your entire stake. In a casino in the UK you get half your stake returned. If you are into backing even chances this makes a FOBT a crap bet compared with a casino. Roulette should be restricted to CASINOS ONLY!

[QuizMaster]

Johnny makes a fair point. Would you rig your roulette so you could get an extra £20 off people against a £500 million risk of losing your Gambling License?

[JG]

Before I think too much about that, does anyone know the business behind these games?

One of our old boys who deosn't float around here any more, or if he does, it's on the QT, went to work for 'Realistic Games' iirc, they were a software house who managed to get a 'pinball roulette' game on Cash Quests in Ladbrokes. Is this more intelligent than the average pooh still here? Do a posting under a silly moniker if you are. Please.

Is there anyone here who could give some insight into how business is conducted?
I notice Ladbrokes have changed the roulette on their Cash Quests to feature two Barcrest products.

OK, I'm the founder of Channel JG games. I've designed a beautiful and functional looking roulette game designed to run on FOBT. Let me tell you now, my game is totally fair. It's roulette, at roulette odds, designed to work with a fair RNG. It has all the bells and whistles that might attract valuable extra business. Spins since last zero, red/black/odd/even%, neighbour bets, hot/cold numbers, 15 number history. Lovely graphical interface that even the most focally/mentally challenged punter can make out. What more do you need? I'm sure all the big chain LBOs would be interested, who do I contact?

[Glendale]

Cant see the problem, if you think there rigged dont play them or if your that naive to believe there fair then play them and dont moan when you do tits on them! Easy!

[JG]

Ah but that's the point of this thread, a voyage of discovery hopefully. I'm just curious to know if they're rigged or not.

Maximum bet is £100. %payout should average around 97.3%. It takes 30 seconds to bet and spin and be paid on winning bets.

Opening hours are 10:30am until 9:30pm, 11 hours a day. Let's assume shops are open 365 days a year.

On that maximum bet £5.40 is made per minute.

4 terminals per shop.

£21.60 a minute, £1296 an hour. £14256 per day.
£5.20344 Million per year.


But does anyone really play £100 spin from doors to doors?

It's rare to see over £20 a spin and even then it's for a few spins, not a thousand or so.


Most city centre bookies have terminals is continuous on/off use throughout the day, quite often it's a cheeky fiver change. Take 2 mins to do a fancy bet with your 5p chips.



£1 per spin. 4 terminals. Same calculation as above.

Divide by 100.

£52,034 profit.


So to get your million in a year, you're talking an average of £40 bet per minute on every terminal, every hour, every day for the year.


I don't buy it, not even with variance and a Rainbow Riches with pots at £51.23, £151.23 and £252.46 is not the reason either.

http://www.fobt.org.uk/