Are all casino/games unbeatable?

[Human123]

We are all pretty sure you cant beat the house edge on the traditional casino games...


However, what about some of the newer games you will find like on the "instant games" tabs on some bookies sites?

How much do you think they have all been tested?


One game that springs to mind is the "who wants to be a millionaire" game on ladbrokes. If you could get yourself organised with a friend on google who is fast at typing im pretty sure u could get the correct answer everytime. I was doing pretty well myself till the later questions when my hands couldnt take the speed.

Hard? Yes. Impossible? definitely not.


Just makes me think there may be a way to beat some of these newer games as they may not have had as much testing in the long run...

[Grandthrax]

What about a program that googles the question and one of the answers for each answer and chooses the one with the most hits?

(I'm assuming that this who wants to be a millionaire is similar to the one you get in pubs?)

[Human123]

Give it a go on on the ladbrokes free play and you will see what i mean.

But im thinking it would surely be feasible to make a bot or program that could outwit some of these newer games?

Im starting to think us "pros" all assume the house edge will never be beaten so never bother to think of strategys/systems.

[slim]

Nevermind, found it

[Andy]

I think Jackpot Deal or No Deal at Coral was programmed incorrectly for a while and had an over 100% payout.

It might be possible I suppose. I know fruit machines have/had "emptiers" so it is not beyond possibility.

[Landprofits]

Interesting, creative thought - nothing wrong with that at all...

I guess it depends on how they construct the database of questions, how often it is updated, and if the answers can be found quickly enough.

I don't really kow that much about these games, but there used to be teams of people who could make a living from beating the pub quiz machines, such as trivial pursuit, and those included the world memory champion at the time - Dominic O'Brien (who after beating the pub quiz machines moves on to beating blackjack through card counting). The trivial pursuit machine for instance was actually based on various trivial pursuit games, so all the answers were committed to memory (I kid you not) and then the machines could be easily beaten. I think this all went on in the 80's or early 90's.

The teams of course had to travel the country sleeping in vans. They couldn't keep playing the machine in their loca, because obviously they were barred! The thing is, if you were to ever pull this off, which would no doubt take a massive amount of work to set up the logistics of working it (programme with all the answers etc), you would surely be gubbed very quickly, thus making all the effort a bit of a waste of time.

Im starting to think us "pros" all assume the house edge will never be beaten so never bother to think of strategys/systems.

I think what you're saying there is to remember to think outside the box. I do think it is important though to recognise that the house edge is present and it is a mathematical fact that it is -EV unless the conditions of the gane change, such as the introduction of a bonus.

[Human123]

I think what you're saying there is to remember to think outside the box. I do think it is important though to recognise that the house edge is present and it is a mathematical fact that it is -EV unless the conditions of the gane change, such as the introduction of a bonus.

Thats right, im also wondering just how much these games are actually tested for house edge.

Do you think they are tested exhaustively to cover against all systems? i include martingale etc..

As andy stated above, there might be a possibility that some of the games have a weakness somewhere that can be exploited.

[advanta]

Thats right, im also wondering just how much these games are actually tested for house edge.

Do you think they are tested exhaustively to cover against all systems? i include martingale etc..

As andy stated above, there might be a possibility that some of the games have a weakness somewhere that can be exploited.

The games are tested for house edge and will not normally be positive expectation. Mistakes can be made obviously, since it only takes a single error to screw up the HE calculation completely.

People have made money exploiting faulty games, in some cases a lot. Naturally this is not something that will get discussed on a public board.

[Human123]

People have made money exploiting faulty games, in some cases a lot. Naturally this is not something that will get discussed on a public board.

Just what i was thinking.

when you say discussed on a public board.. do you mean not even in retrospect?

was wondering if you knew of any such incidents...

[joeyboyuk]

There have been a few in the past, the main one I remember was about 3-4 years ago, there was a casino (the name completely escapes me for now!) where the blackjack surrender game was faulty. Basically if you clicked fast, you could surrender the same hand twice, therefore getting three quarters of your stake back (half and half again).

Unfortunately I didnt know about this to take advantage, but on a poker forum I used to read, some guy pointed out proudly that he had contacted the casino to inform them of the error and was rewarded with a $10 bonus or something for his efforts. Cue him being abused by quite a few high rolling players who it turns out had been making thousands a week exploiting this error A few of them even had a new strategy table drawn up to take advantage of it, and it made BJ have something like a 2% player edge. To say they were not happy with the guy that told the casino is a big understatement!



There have also been a fair few casinos who made errors with comp point payouts, I think Joyland was one, where they were basically far to generous and got whored big time by high rollers.