The question of provable fairness standards

[alani123]

The recent report by probablyfair.org brings to question the standards of provable fairness across the industry.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5588925.0

It makes us all wonder how easy it is for a gambling site to pretend it's provably fair for the eyes of the people just to hide behind some skewed odds. While yes, bets could be pre decided on a one to one basis, the odds of such bets may be skewed in an unfair way as the afformentioned investigation against betfury showed.

Why would a casino risk such a reputational hit? The money is probably the answer.
Maybe us as gamblers should be more informed and demand better and uniform standards across the industry.

What are your thoughts on this?

[qwertyup23]

Why would a casino risk such a reputational hit? The money is probably the answer.
Maybe us as gamblers should be more informed and demand better and uniform standards across the industry.

What are your thoughts on this?

This is exactly the reason on why I play on gambling websites that are flooded with feedback and genuine reviews instead of chasing those gambling websites that offer high bonuses and other rewards. Sure, you do have the privilege of earning those free spins but at the cost of risking your chances of winning in the long-run.

Given that lots of gambling casinos are being created almost everyday, it's been so difficult looking for that perfect gambling website that checks all the boxes that you need. Perhaps the perfect casino doesn't exist? While this may be true, I would still bet my cards (no pun intended) and play on established, genuine, and reputable casinos that have ANN reviews here in this forum for my protection.

While such casinos may not be as generous in terms of rewards, or not as enjoyable (in terms of its UI and other design-related aesthetic), still, my protection and security remains my top priority as this would inure to my benefit during the long-term game.

[arallmuus]

Why would a casino risk such a reputational hit? The money is probably the answer.

Its because provably fair standard means its fair and 'you need to verify it yourself' but out of 100 people that play on provably fair games, probably only less than 10-20% that understand how provably fair actually works and out of those numbers probably less than 10% actually verify their own bets.

On this particular case the setup allow Betfury to get away with it because nobody can check it according to provablyfair.org

That's the frustrating part, nobody can check. And the reason nobody can check is the first finding of the report.

and if you have read the whole report by provablyfair.org then you would realize that most gambler probably wouldnt understand a thing let alone do their own dilligence and verify their own bets

[Alphakilo]

Why would a casino risk such a reputational hit? The money is probably the answer.
Maybe us as gamblers should be more informed and demand better and uniform standards across the industry.

What are your thoughts on this?

This is exactly the reason on why I play on gambling websites that are flooded with feedback and genuine reviews instead of chasing those gambling websites that offer high bonuses and other rewards. Sure, you do have the privilege of earning those free spins but at the cost of risking your chances of winning in the long-run.

Given that lots of gambling casinos are being created almost everyday, it's been so difficult looking for that perfect gambling website that checks all the boxes that you need. Perhaps the perfect casino doesn't exist? While this may be true, I would still bet my cards (no pun intended) and play on established, genuine, and reputable casinos that have ANN reviews here in this forum for my protection.

While such casinos may not be as generous in terms of rewards, or not as enjoyable (in terms of its UI and other design-related aesthetic), still, my protection and security remains my top priority as this would inure to my benefit during the long-term game.

Any Casino in business is in it for the money, no matter how poor their balance sheet says but the reality is that it would increase overtime but that's after they have built a reputation of trust and honesty and everyone seem to have suddenly turned a blind eye.

Gamblers should be better informed, but just one voice can't echo as much as many and that's why the standard of provable fairness must be open for all to see and verify, because one can't really tell how the house edge works against them from few plays, until different data of other gamblers results is collated and screened across the whole platform to check if what the casino platform advertised as the case of odds match, actually stands true having undergone thorough audit.

[Hispo]

...

What are your thoughts on this?

I think gamblers are simply supposed to be more skeptical on what they call probably fair and inform themselves before repeating the same thing over and over about several casinos which have nothing to do with one another...

Though, I think it is good there are investigations like that one provided by Provably fair org. That is something I did not expect them to do.

I hope that continue to do similar investigations on other casinos and other games, which also claim to be provably fair.

[Orpichukwu]

Why would a casino risk such a reputational hit? The money is probably the answer.
Maybe us as gamblers should be more informed and demand better and uniform standards across the industry.

What are your thoughts on this?

I think it’s better for a casino not to even claim their game is fair than for them to state that and still try to manipulate the result afterward. I prefer a system where the player knows it's risky and still takes the risk themself (even if I won’t since I actually don’t like casino original games).

I have attended to a thread where the same issue of probably fair casinos was not as they claim, as the seed can’t be verified or be changed after the game results have been confirmed. This should not just be an issue players need to face and fight alone, but licensing authorities also need to take action to protect players' rights.

[TypoTonic]

Its because provably fair standard means its fair and 'you need to verify it yourself' but out of 100 people that play on provably fair games, probably only less than 10-20% that understand how provably fair actually works and out of those numbers probably less than 10% actually verify their own bets.

Most people also don't bother reading the casino's own documentation. In BetFury's case, they combine the server seed with a randomly generated number, instead of using a client seed and per-bet nonce. This is written in their fairness system:

The random seed is a combo of the server seed and RNG (randomly generated number). Thus, the server seed is a part of the random seed. Together they produce the final bet outcome that can be independently verified.

The problem with this is that there is no external entropy from the player, so the randomness fully depend on their side. Players have no other option but to trust that the casino's RNG is fair and not being manipulated.

[alani123]

Its because provably fair standard means its fair and 'you need to verify it yourself' but out of 100 people that play on provably fair games, probably only less than 10-20% that understand how provably fair actually works and out of those numbers probably less than 10% actually verify their own bets.

Most people also don't bother reading the casino's own documentation. In BetFury's case, they combine the server seed with a randomly generated number, instead of using a client seed and per-bet nonce. This is written in their fairness system:

The random seed is a combo of the server seed and RNG (randomly generated number). Thus, the server seed is a part of the random seed. Together they produce the final bet outcome that can be independently verified.

The problem with this is that there is no external entropy from the player, so the randomness fully depend on their side. Players have no other option but to trust that the casino's RNG is fair and not being manipulated.

My experience has been that the most promoted game lately, slots, barely gave any provably fair functionality or RNG verification even. It's all based on trusting the provider to make results pre determined and with fair RNG as advertised.

Recently Stake made many of their original games provably fair which is a good step. But in my opinion there should be some more competition in this. It's also on the casinos to raise customer expectations if they want to earn some edge over their competitors that stay behind the curve. I hope more casinos do as Stake does but I also hope more of them invest in player education and marketing about provable fairness.

[Iranus]

Why would a casino risk such a reputational hit?

here I will look at the incentive structure as well as reputation. I think money & information asymmetry can explain incentive. If player cannot easily understand that there is any discrepancy between advertised RTP and actual payout then reputation risk will be greatly reduced. But if there is an independent audit and public verification then that information asymmetry will be greatly reduced.

So in my opinion, gambler should not just look for provably fair badge. We should ask, What exactly can I independently prove? Because cryptographically unchangeable result and economically fair game are not same thing.

[Darker45]

As I was saying in another thread last week, it seems provable fairness, which many casinos are all too proud featuring and marketing, only proves about the genuine randomness of the results.

Verification would only guarantee the player that the result of, say, a roll of a dice was already decided before the bet was placed, meaning that it isn't changed based on his/her pick or the amount of his/her bet. However, whether the roll was indeed 50:50 can't be proven by it.

I guess the bigger responsibility is on regulators, on the agencies that issued the licenses. Do they even function? Do they conduct regular audit? Do they strictly implement policies that protect consumers? Do they prosecute or penalize cheating casinos? I guess they don't.

[Sandra_hakeem]

Verification would only guarantee the player that the result of, say, a roll of a dice was already decided before the bet was placed, meaning that it isn't changed based on his/her pick or the amount of his/her bet. However, whether the roll was indeed 50:50 can't be proven by it.

Unless they usually try to switch the numbers after the results are displayed or the results don't display on one "click" right after a gambler makes their input, the verification guarantees a 50-50. I guess that's why you just can't verify anyway--- I don't play dice so I don't really know how it works for the players but anything outside an automated result is, like OP said, a skewed game.

I guess the bigger responsibility is on regulators, on the agencies that issued the licenses. Do they even function? Do they conduct regular audit? Do they strictly implement policies that protect consumers? Do they prosecute or penalize cheating casinos? I guess they don't.

All we get are new policies that tightens the already-existing regulations for gamblers alone. Who is the jury for a consumer? They claim every casino's terms of service is enough. Regular audits? The license only protects the casino's interest, so all odds are always against you.

[Dogedegen]

It makes us all wonder how easy it is for a gambling site to pretend it's provably fair for the eyes of the people just to hide behind some skewed odds. While yes, bets could be pre decided on a one to one basis, the odds of such bets may be skewed in an unfair way as the afformentioned investigation against betfury showed.

I think there were some threads not long ago that questioned what does it actually mean that something is provably fair. Once some casinos started having this provably fair mechanism others copied it and marketed it this way so they remain competitive because users demanded it. Many of them did not implement this because they believed that the customers deserve a provably fair system. And you know how it is with things when companies do something that they are forced to or something that they don't believe in.

Why would a casino risk such a reputational hit? The money is probably the answer.
Maybe us as gamblers should be more informed and demand better and uniform standards across the industry.

What are your thoughts on this?

Greed is a very big motivator, it slowly corrupts people as there is more and more money coming in. The issue with these provably fair things is that very few users would ever be able to test it, so a casino can try to cheat and hope for the best and then if it comes out they can play the damage control method. If they wanted to really implement provably fair systems then they would make them very transparent and very easy to verify, but right now this is not the case.

here I will look at the incentive structure as well as reputation. I think money & information asymmetry can explain incentive. If player cannot easily understand that there is any discrepancy between advertised RTP and actual payout then reputation risk will be greatly reduced. But if there is an independent audit and public verification then that information asymmetry will be greatly reduced.

So in my opinion, gambler should not just look for provably fair badge. We should ask, What exactly can I independently prove? Because cryptographically unchangeable result and economically fair game are not same thing.

Yes the issue is that the risk is very low because almost nobody can actually verify this or would try to play so many games to check something like this. Also just being able to financially play these games does not mean a person knows how to conduct a valid test that actually proves that something is wrong. In the thread that is linked one user actually managed to do this correctly, that is why the casino is in trouble. Who knows how long the casino has been cheating and maybe in some other times before the amount they were cheating by was even worse.

[bitbollo]

the concept of "fairness" is constantly abused and biased by the "head and tail" concept.
here is not just to provide equal chance (50 / 50) in an outcome but also to be sure that the choice is made in a complete fair and random way.
that's the reason I would never play in such kind of games unless for "fun".
just to mention, once you hit an impressive sequence in this game - with 10 hits - you are already have reach the 0,098% chance of getting it! with 9 hits the chances are higher but 0,195% of the time you can achieve these results....

probably it would be matter of a "low entropy" or just casinos are using glitch (likewise speed up a negative session so you don't realize your lose immediately/avoid to show full betting history ). 
I have seen such issues on scam accusations too often to think that was just a "lucky chance" ...

[Nrcewker]

Why would a casino risk such a reputational hit?
What are your thoughts on this?

These types of shady fairness mechanisms are often offered by new casinos. They dont have an established reputation, so they dont care about the risk to their reputation. They do not provide fair games at all or they may simply make their fairness systems very difficult to decode and understand. And guess what? We simply need to stay away from them.

To counter this, continue using old and reputable casinos and avoid new casinos with rigged mechanisms and attractive promotions. Moreover rather than casino owners, I think slot providers need to offer a publicly available fairness mechanism to verify their slot games. At present many slot games dont have a system that allows players to verify their bets.

[Cointxz]

Why would a casino risk such a reputational hit? The money is probably the answer.
Maybe us as gamblers should be more informed and demand better and uniform standards across the industry.

What are your thoughts on this?

Considering that Betfury becomes unresponsive before when they have an issue regarding affiliate commission I believe they think they will just ignore any concerns like since they knew that only few people that actually check fairness of casino games.

I was surprised too for that result since Betfury is already an established brand while this percentage difference is very small compared to the reputation they risking.

It’s misleading and I hate playing on casino like this. But the problem is how can we raise this valid concern to warn other players if Betfury itself doesn’t respond or ignore this kind of issue. I believe same will happened on other casino as long as this issue will not be brought up mainstream.

[Ishicryptic]

Why would a casino risk such a reputational hit? The money is probably the answer.
Maybe us as gamblers should be more informed and demand better and uniform standards across the industry.

What are your thoughts on this?

I think it’s better for a casino not to even claim their game is fair than for them to state that and still try to manipulate the result afterward. I prefer a system where the player knows it's risky and still takes the risk themself (even if I won’t since I actually don’t like casino original games).

I have attended to a thread where the same issue of probably fair casinos was not as they claim, as the seed can’t be verified or be changed after the game results have been confirmed. This should not just be an issue players need to face and fight alone, but licensing authorities also need to take action to protect players' rights.

You're right the licencing authorities have to go beyond just issuing licences to casinos they should also go the extra miles of actually monitoring their licensed casinos, not on paper but actually digging to find if they are living up to the standards of their issued licences. It is sad that even casinos that are considered reputable cannot live up to the standards of being probably fair, I think that it is better like you said if they don't claim to be probably fair and gamblers should know that they should accept whatever outcome they get whether it is fair or not. Many regular gamblers don't even know how to verify probably fairness they just want to gamble on reputable casinos and it is unfortunate that some of these rated casinos are just too greedy, they want to cheat gamblers despite having the understandable house edge. If a gambling site is bursted for cheating I think that it is best to underate them.

[crwth]

Well, across industries, it's important to have a standard so you have something measurable and fair when implementing it. I don't think I have seen an ISO standard/NIST standard, or any other standard institution that offers a provably fair system. Maybe there could be a start for it?

This would help ensure the design is consistent and transparent.

Personally, if there were one thing I'd want included in such a standard, it would be verifiable fairness to make sure everything is alright.

[Julien_Olynpic]

Incidentally, provably fair doesn't verify many things. Essentially, it only indicates that the final result was calculated from the components stated, that the seed didn't change, and that the Nonce was incremented correctly. But in general, just as the presence of trees in a forest doesn't obstruct a walk, provably fair doesn't prevent casinos from being selectively dishonest, and there are many clever tools for this. For example, the system doesn't check how randomly the seed was generated. A seed may not be random at all, and it may be one that gives the casino more favorable outcomes.

[Fortify]

The recent report by probablyfair.org brings to question the standards of provable fairness across the industry.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5588925.0

It makes us all wonder how easy it is for a gambling site to pretend it's provably fair for the eyes of the people just to hide behind some skewed odds. While yes, bets could be pre decided on a one to one basis, the odds of such bets may be skewed in an unfair way as the afformentioned investigation against betfury showed.

Why would a casino risk such a reputational hit? The money is probably the answer.
Maybe us as gamblers should be more informed and demand better and uniform standards across the industry.

What are your thoughts on this?

It's a good reason to support independent journalists and unbiased news organizations, we often take them for granted or even try to suppress them because they don't support our narrow set of political views. Not only that, someone decided to spend their own money in order to save the money of others, that is an admirable cause. For most people even when explained to us, unless we really put our minds to it and follow through with this sort of large test size sampling, we simply don't have the ability or patience required to replicate such an investigation. It might actually be good if these posts entered some kind of "Hall of Fame" in this forum so they don't get lost to page 26 within a couple months of posting when the spotlight deserves to be shone on BetFury's scam for a lot longer.

[YOSHIE]

Why would a casino risk such a reputational hit? The money is probably the answer.

Greed is not only done by gamblers, the casinos who manage it are also humans, not free from greed.

The warning is already here: BetFury.com, When gamblers/bettors continue to choose the casino, it means that users want to find their own luck.

Initially Betfury.com casino, did well on this forum, as time went on it got worse, we can probably guess the money behind their unfair behavior towards users who chose to gamble at their casino, but the injustice of it all is only those who know the origins of why they acted carelessly and sacrificed their own reputation.

In fact, cases like this are a lesson for other online crypto casinos, if you don't have money when creating a casino site, don't be too egotistical to promote casino games by placing a high RTP, when the user actually wins the casino avoids paying, this is often done by online casinos, promoting high RTP, then avoiding payouts.