Boycot Bet21

As a “Pro” I’m surprised that you’ve never heard of shuffle tracking. Clumping of cards – yeah if you’ve ever played at a CSM you’ll understand. Streaks – this occurs when there is an inadequate shuffle or at times when the TC is +10 then “streaks” of face cards appear, etc. So stop the crap and don’t try and make ME look like a kook.

Really? If the deck were stacked in such a manner that if EVERYONE played perfect BS then the dealer would be next to receive a card that turned their 14 into a 21 is THAT laughable. Don’t think it can be done? Read James Grosjean’s article in All In – February edition.

I NEVER made mention of you NOR did I imply YOU. BJT.com Newsflash – there are OTHER pro card players out here Davie!

I’m NOT going to dispute the above statement. In fact I tend to agree with it. Variance is great when it’s going you way and it sucks when it doesn’t. I don’t argue that fact. Selective memory is another EXCELLENT point. That’s why I keep WRITTEN logs. I haven’t given up playing TBJ – when did I say that?

What I have given up on is Bet21.com. I don’t trust them. Plain and simple.

In case you're thinking it's just FGK being paranoid there are other people who had their issues with Bet21.com also http://www.blackjacktournaments.com/bb/showthread.php?t=3627

Ah my chubby little Sancho did you even bother to read Cervantes? Wait don’t tell me – Cliff Notes right? Mass hysteria you say? Mathematically unsound logic masquerading as truth? REALLY?

Unlike you, David Stann, I have postulated ideas and theories concerning an online business that, in my opinion, has operated with the greatest of contempt imaginable to its customers/clients. I have taken my time to obtain some data and made it available to others, in fact requesting the assistance of people who are better adept to mathematically interpret the results.

What have YOU done? Let’s see shall we?

1. Posted erroneous information regarding the awarding of the deposit bonus dollars (that was in January 2007 – shall I find the thread to refresh your memory?)

2. Advertise for Bet21.com – falsely knowing that they are NOT awarding up to $650 “deposit bonus dollars” (That’s on YOUR website)

3. Try to trash, bash and ridicule ME instead of looking at my argument and dissecting it for any possibility of truth. That’s a very effective tactic of the leftist “drive by media”. When you can’t dispute the argument yell louder and trash the messenger.

I guess you didn't believe that was a non-random seating problem either?

Bet21.com HAD a lot going for it. I was one of their earliest supporters - go back and read the threads. But enough is enough. If you want to play there fine. I will be taking my time, my money, and going to Blackjack21.com. Hopefully others will have reached their tolerance of Bet21.com and can join us there.

I understand now why you haven’t been playing online and I sympathize with you for your loss but don’t minimize the facts and arguments presented here regarding the non-randomization of seating, the lies of promised deposit bonuses and the “unnatural” production of cards that Bet21.com produces. I though you were better than that!

 

Huh? I didn't & haven't ever said a word about seating issues, the current state of deposit bonuses, etc .... my post was confined solely to one issue and one issue only, guy.

Yes, 'clumping' and other terms more specific to shuffletracking are very real, tangible, mathematically predictable concepts -- but your use of similar terms does NOT come from the same place. Same thing goes for the Grosjean 'cooler deck' analogy -- sound principle, different application.

Look, sorry to be so harsh about this but the fact remains, you are using an incredibly small sample size and an extremely selective memory, and as a pro player its insulting to see you parading these 'results' around as truth. And that has absolutely nothing to do with any issues or involvement you or i may have with the website in question, and everything to do with simple mathematical sense.

You can't just keep a log of everytime you bust a stiff or the dealer 'magically' hits to 21, because to do so you would have to have hundreds of thousands of occurrences for it to even come close to being mathematically significant #1 and most importantly, #2 you aren't taking into consideration all the times the dealer DOESN'T get/hit to 21 or all the times someone hits a stiff and DOESN'T bust. You can't just keep a log of a few scenarios you DON'T like and then cry when you see it pop up more frequently in the short run.

The fact is, variance/standard deviation is most brutal in the short term -- and your limited sample size only proves it. Nothing personal, Fred, just common sense -- and you're too smart to not know this.

-hd.

 

Thank you for admitting as such. Isn’t it better to discuss these things rather than mocking other peoples posts – i.e., WTF?

You say sound principle, different application. Is it? How do I know that the Bet21.com software doesn’t have a “switch” in which it goes into a ‘cooler deck’ mode? Why is that such a bizarre concept, especially given the recent non-random seating mess?

Improbable – maybe. Impossible – no. Without an oversight committee or regulation board they are free to do what they want and how they want. Until an independent organization gives them a clean slate I’ll continue to be haunted by the possibility of shading dealing – perception is reality.

What ‘results”? Do you really read my posts? I said it is ‘raw data’. The are not ‘results’ as they are simply my observations. In fact I’ve asked at what point do you need enough data to provide a statistically significant outcome.

Now I’ll go back and dig out my statistics books and I’ll review the methodology for doing t-tests, linear regression, chi-square, ANOVA and other relevant studies if you really want to get into this issue. However why should I bother? If Bet21.com had a “clean bill of health” this wouldn’t be an issue would it?

Why? When you come up with the percentage in the dealer outcome charts you are using computer simulation and the law of big numbers. Those numbers are used for large blocks of data over time and hands which would correlate to years of playing.

TBJ in fact is not subject to those same laws. It is a concise 30 hand outcome. Each new ‘hand’ is supposed to be randomized with a new shuffle. So using a t-square test with a two standard deviation measurement why do you need thousands upon thousands of hands?

I don’t dispute that sooner or later variance gets to all card players. My point is this – normal variance I expect and learn from. Flawed software, rigged games, improper cards – THAT pisses me off.

Ok you point about logging results. I've logged over 500 games - not hands, games. With an average game lasting around 16 hands that comes to 8000 hands of raw data. So don't say that this is something that I've just started doing one day. There have been obvious patterns in the past that were more obvious than others.

My biggest grip? I find it highly coincidential that right after I start my call for a personal boycott that I note a trend in fewer dealer busts and more dealer drawing to 19-21 at my tables. Then I notice the non-randome seating. Coincidence or retribution?

So what is it? I don’t know and the folks at Bet21.com and their Code of Silence only makes matter worse. Non-communication and lying about promises implicates them in the possibility of a conspiracy. Top that off with an unregulated rogue site and what’s a player to do? In my case take my marbles, my money and go to another site.

Fool me once – Shame on you. Fool me twice – Shame on me.

 

I applaud your diligence, but 8000 hands -- barely scratched the surface. And as for noticing a 'trend in fewer dealer busts,' i can only imagine that this is based on, what, 100 hands? 1000? You see my point.

Look, I think we've both made our cases here. I respect your curiosity & determination, and hope you can see that I'm not trying to bash you here. Lord knows after some of the trips I've had overseas I've been CONVINCED a casino was acting shady as hell... but putting it all in perspective, the math doesn't lie and these 'trends' you speak of really do balance out over time. It just sometimes takes a lot longer than we'd like!!

-hd.

 

That's fine if you want to do that, Fred. But the stuff you're talking about here is what Penn and Teller like to say is BULLS**T! And I'm not going to sit around and make people try to parse the arguments here to figure out who they should believe.

I'm not going to re-refute this stuff other than to say that as an actuary and a probability expert, that HD is correct on this thread and you are not.

One thing I will say is that it is one thing to say that a brand new rewritten seating algorithm may have a bug in it that is generating non-random seating for SNG games. It is another thing altogether to say that this shows that the random card generator that is probably UltimateBet legacy code for the last 8 years is likely to be rigged.

 

If you can find where I took a public stance and said, Bet21.com is RIGGED!, then I will retract that statement - because I can not prove it.

I agree that when you rewrite algorithm's you can unintended consequences - such as we saw with the non-random seating.

But I guess the fact that dealers currently bust 5-10% less than expected or that they draw to 19-21 5-10% more than expected couldn't be an unintended consequence either?

Are we forgetting about the playubt.com freerolls in September and October when the dealers were busting out the wazzo and the more 'seasoned' players complained?

Toonces your point is well taken and I would not accuse UB or Bet21.com of purposefully and intentionally rigging a game - but I can see how it could be done. Without outside, impartial, certified and verifiable checks can you at least admit that while improbable it could be possible?

Three months ago I would not have considered that a possibility because I was so 'enamoured' with the ability to have access to TBJ 24/7.

Now due to a multitude of factors, including piss poor CS, seating 'gliches', schedule changes, and most important LACK OF COMMUNICATION, etc... those thoughts have crept into my thoughts.

Lets face it when we play on Bet21.com or any site there is an element of trust involved? I extended my hand graciously to Bet21.com on several occasions as have other members only to have it 'bitten'.

If the US market was able to play at Golden Palace, Get21.com or Global player how many members here would continue to patronize Bet21.com? I wouldn't - you might. That's the best part about capitalism and free enterprise - unless you have UIGEA involved. :flame:

 

Poker at UB

It isnt uncommon to hear people say during poker games something like "another UB special" "another UB bad beat" etc. Has anyone else noticed UB has a rep for screwy card dealings during poker games?

 

That is commom knowledge in the poker circles UB bad beats happen far more often than most other sites. The dealt cards seem to be generated to increase the rake and their customer service has always sucked, if you are lucky you will get a canned answer.

 

ouch

Thats what I suspected from hearing poker players chime in not only when they get beat but when they are on the good side of the beat. Seems to fit the systematic problem on the BJ side.

 

Hollywood is right

sorry fgk, but Hollywood is absolutely right -

the 'wild swings' you talk about are exactly what you should expect from 'normal' probabilities over short sequences - results are very likely to swing wildly over very short sequences - to regress to the expected probabilities only over very long sequences - and 8,000 hands is not a 'long sequence' - 1,000,000 hands is not a long sequence - check out the early work on basic strategy - back around the time Thorpe did his work - every 'expert' had a different basic strategy because they were only looking at 50,000 to 100,000 hands or so - and that was not enough to develop an acurate satrategy from - Thorpe's work initially used an amazing 500,000 hands - so was superior to the earlier stuff - but even that didn't get an accurate basic strategy - try 100,000,000 hands to get close -

reality is that you can not use basic strategy as a predictive method - it doesn't work that way - this is a total misunderstanding of how probability works.

and what on earth do the dealer results matter anyway? - you aren't playing the dealer - you're playing the other players - and all the players have to face the same dealer and dealer result - so the dealer results are simply not relevant - if you are more skilled than the other players, you will win money in the long run, if not, you will lose - that simple -

here are some results for you from my tracking of 50 games, totalling 61 tables, and 4,932 hands:

I tracked my hands and the hands of the other players, looking at stiffs, bjs, and other hands. For my purposes a stiff is any hand 12 through 17, including the pairs 6,6; 7,7; and 8,8. the probability of a 'stiff' by this definition is 44.442%, the probability of a bj is 4.751% and the probability of some other hand is 50.807%.

my hands: stiff bj other
424 47 512
43.1% 4.8% 52.1%

other player hands: stiff bj other
1,734 212 2,003
43.9% 5.4% 50.7%

so I got a few less stiffs than the average for the other players, and somewhat fewer bjs, basically, I got the same hands, on average as the other players. No advantage or disadvantage. and no serious skewing off of any of the probabilities. my return on investment at these tables was 64.0%. Not great but at least positive.

You are just noticing the very ordinary and expected swings that result from normal probabilities over very short sequences, because you are seeing them in a very concentrated form.

I see no reason to believe that the cards dealt by UB/Bet21 are out of line at all.

 

Here is Your Chance !!!!

[quote=fgk42;27096]
I don’t dispute that sooner or later variance gets to all card players. My point is this – normal variance I expect and learn from. rigged games, improper cards – THAT pisses me off.

You know Fred words like yours which I have quoted above are words that imply that you have proof of your words,because I find it hard to believe that a man of your intelligence would say these words and not have concrete facts to back them up. Because if you don't you will become the man who cried "Wolf" once to often,or yelled "Fire" when they wasn't a flame to be found, I will tell you this you are 1000% wrong in even suggesting that the games are "RIGGED" and the cards are improper. Now if you want to play at BJ21.com go right ahead that is your right. But you should not be allowed to keep on yelling fire when there is none.


Fool me once – Shame on you. Fool me twice – Shame on me.[/quote]

Let me use your words once more SHAME ON YOU


But I will let you have the last laugh on me if you chose.

I will bet you any amount of money you can muster up and I will even allow you to solicit any other members here who want to contribute to your smear campaign .Here is my offer

I say the Bonus Money will be payed
just so you fully understand what you are going to be betting against

I say the BONUS MONEY will be payed.

Please let me know as soon as you can if we have a bet and how much you are willing to lose.Now don't bet to much because I don't want Mrs FGK to be homeless,so make it a bet that you can lose and not have to adjust your life style over. Because you will never win enough money over at BJ 21 to recover your pending losses.Their player pool is just to small.

Don't take to long to decide to make this bet because I want to have you commit to this bet before you get "COLD FEET"


Joep

 

Just curious, Joe...but exactly when would Fred collect on such a bet? Isn't that like me betting you $100 that Jesus will come someday?

 

Oh

Bloody hell!

Reachy

 

I just gotta pour some gasoline on this fire....

Folks, the question has been raised, and the only way to answer it is this - someone needs to independently collect the data in large enough amounts required to do the analysis properly and determine whether the RNG is delivering properly.

And no, I am not volunteering for the data analysis job.

I would posit that since Dave and Joe are taking the stance that nothing is wrong with the cards, then they should also be happy to see an independently published analysis to --empirically-- allay any fear that there is a problem. Maybe they can arrange for it to be done? Maybe not....

Now for the gasoline.

As you may know, I have even gone so far as to play the cash tables at Bet21.com. I suggest that the logs of the cash tables, since I am told they use the same RNG engine, would provide more than enough data should someone with connections (Dave? Joe?) at UB get access for the purpose of such an analysis based on a list of standard, most often used discrete points for verfiable and significant results, and make the results public.

So, lets go off on a tangent.....

One of the first items I personally would like to see included are the probabilities/percentage of dealer hands made from 6, 7, or even 8 cards. Yes, 8 cards. Perhaps even 9? LOL, can't believe I suggested that....though it is mathematically possible....hence it must happen....in some corner of the universe....

I have never seen a dealer make either an 8 or 9 card hand in live play in all these years. I have never had one myself.

Within just months I have seen dealers make hands with 8 cards over 10 times playing at Bet21.com - and 6 or 7 cards is common enough that it is a common topic of conversation among the cash players. Mind you, I don't rule out that it is likely "short term" sampling of data, but I just made my own 8 card 20 for the first time ever tonite on those same tables.....and it was spooky......only at UB.....

I know that there was scatalogical relevance when I got those 8 cards -- but what is the statistical relevance of a single instance?

Again, until a truly detailed analysis is done, we are all playing on good faith expectations. If you play at Bet21.com, you are taking that leap of faith OF YOUR OWN FREE WILL just like at any other casino.

In meantime, my advice to everyone is to get your ass up from in front of your computer and go interact with live humans at a bricks-n-mortar casino more often. Play some single deck where these statistical variations are less volatile and don't impact an Elimination other than to eliminate a few chips from either the dealer's tray or your own stack.....

Kaminari

 

Bet!

Wow,

Joe, you’re on. Here’s the bet about the deposit bonus money at Bet21.com.

Now so we don’t run into any semantics and so EVERYONE is clear let’s make this a bet with some teeth shall we? In fact since you’re such an ardent supporter of Bet21.com you shouldn’t have any problem with this:

$100 says Bet21.com doesn’t pay the deposit bonuses by Midnight April 30, 2007.
I’ll give you 2:1 odds on this bet. If everyone receives their bonuses before midnight April 30, 2007 I’ll pay you $200. If the bonuses aren’t paid then you owe me $100 and it rolls over to:

$200 says Bet21.com doesn’t pay the deposit bonuses by Midnight May 31, 2007
This is an even money bet. If the bonus money is paid I give you $200 within 24 hours of the bonuses being paid. If the bonuses aren’t paid you owe me $200 (payable by midnight June 1, 2007) and it rolls over to:

$200 says Bet21.com doesn’t pay the deposit bonuses by Midnight June 30, 2007. This is an even money bet.

Once Bet21.com pays everyone the deposit bonus due - I pay you and the bet is off. You will continue to pay ME for each month that Bet21.com DOESN'T pay us the bonus money.

So since you have a week with your Bet21.com ‘investors’ while at Barona and The Palms maybe you can convince them to pony up to the bar and make good on their business promises.

Think it over Joe, but don't take to long to decide to make this bet because I want to have you commit to this bet before you get "COLD FEET".

The only “conditions” are this:

1. Everyone gets their bonus money, not just me and
2. Tournament dollars are NOT acceptable. Cash only.
3. The original qualifications that Bet21.com advertises on their cashier page apply.

So are you up for it?

PS I picked these numbers to make it a 'friendly' wager. I feel bad taking money from a retired law enforcement officer. I also made these numbers reasonable because I feel sorry for you in that that once again you are being lied to. But since you feel so strongly about it I'm willing to take those number above and multiply them by 10!

I'll wait to hear from you. Balls in YOUR court.

 

Samples too large?

OK lets put this in a real life perspective. Over the past 4 years I have played over 400 hours of table BJ. Lets estimate that at 10,000 hands/year. In 4 years I have played 40,000 hands. It will take me until 2013 to even come close to Thorpe's work. It will take me until about 2025 to match the criteria you mention of 1 million hands. So, as you argue the limited sample area could fill most of my lifes play. This is why BS is mostly for talk, the player never knows where on the path of the infinite he will sit. An analogy can be made for engineering. Lets take Cal Trans as an example as their CEs design road projects. They do the math in the office then stuck to the contractors side is an engineer watching and dealing with the real world and reality. The same can be said for the BJ player. You sit and you lose using perfect BS if things go the way BS says they will. This is why BS is only a rule of thumb. The player never knows how his cards will fall during his sample areas. In the players life his sample will likely be negligible when compared to the computer generation. It should be noted that the BS laws say you will be at least a small loser. This means the only way to win is to go outside BS, be it money management, card counting, or just pure luck. The pure luck, considering BS is a reliable law, would mean you have been lucky enough to play when BS is yielding above the expected losing rate for the given number of decks. For example, pure luck would be if the dealer is busting at 5% above the BS expected rate.

 

We disagree ok?

Joe,

What’s wrong with the words that I wrote? Rigged games, improper cards and that ilk pisses me off? That is a statement about how I feel. It is NOT an implication of a site or a company. If YOU get that implication from my words whose fault is that? So now I have to have proof of things that piss me off? I seriously suggest that you attend an English writing 101 at UNLV so that you will understand that when you quote someone’s thoughts or feelings, it cannot be used as “proof” that an actual accusation was made. Why did you not quote where I wrote that it was NOT my intention to use the word rigged because it implied intent and that is not something that I can prove?

Your comment about the boy who cried Wolf is well taken. I have taken it upon myself to describe certain situations that I felt were irregular. As far as my suggestion that the cards are not random – I presented raw data and asked for assistance in analyzing it. In my opinion it appeared off kilter to me. But you stating that I should not be allowed to keep presenting facts when all you present are ‘opinions’ and broken promises (shall I find that thread AGAIN?) smack of censorship and is extremely un-American.

This site has been a place for idea exchanges and conversation. Somewhere along the way it turned into a biased, polarizing UBT vs. anti-UBT/EBJ along the way.

I pride myself in being straightforward. I ask questions to learn, and yes sometimes to ‘push’ a button or two (but only in the spirit of playfulness and comic relief). When I bring forth the possibility of a discrepancy or the existence of a ‘killer/cooler’ switch in a computer program I get attacked from all sides. And what makes it very disturbing is that the people doing such cloak it with innuendos about intelligence and ignorance which I find highly disturbing. As I’ve said before discredit my arguments.

I guess on this topic we’ll just have to agree to disagree, but censorship, crying fire in a crowded theatre? I’ve had my say about Bet21.com

 

The distinction between statistics and probability

You talk as if the seqeunce of cards is somehow pre-ordained and we just have to hope we are lucky enough to be playing when the winning hands are 'due'.

If I had a coin that was ever-so-slightly biased in favour of heads and offered you the chance to bet which way it would fall, then it would be perverse to bet on anything other than heads, although tails might well come out on top even if you bet on several thousand tosses.

So it is with playing out a hand of BJ. What could anyone who does not have psychic powers do other than follow the path most likely to lead to success? In the absence of any information about the current deck composition, that path is Basic Strategy. If you know the exact deck composition and have a computer secreted about your person, then it can give you the perfect strategy for the given situation. If you know the count and have memorised the appropriate tables, then you can use that to improve upon BS for the given situation.

A card counter gets such a small edge that they can easily give it all back by making strategy mistakes. It's relevance does not suddenly disappear once you start counting. It would be better to stick rigidly to BS and just vary your bet sizes than to make erroneous changes to BS (either by following some other rigid strategy or by making mistakes while trying to account for the count, so to speak).

 

colin

I dont believe there is a pre-ordained path for cards unless there really is a BlackJack God . I do believe when you show up to a regular BJ table you need to get lucky and sit during a favorable period. The trend is your friend.

Card counting should be used to vary the BS charts. IMO, thats counting' most important aspect, adjusting the standard BS. Most of my betting strategies limits me to 25% max bet advances on high counts. If the ace count is low I might jump to 2 hands--- if Im paying one hand.

 

Fred when you say you are pissed off,that is how you feel. No one can dispute that.

When you say "RIGGED" that is just you once again yelling FIRE, with no facts to justify you words. Shame on you


Joep