bet365 boss pays herself £265 MILLION

chrcoluk said:
https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gam...one-really-get-what-is-going-on/4/#post363000
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Yeah that is why I don't like the lack of transparency with these things, I don't know why anyone would want to play them with no idea of what they're really betting on but simply pushing buttons on some black box that is going to spew out money or not partially based on the unknown (to the punter) behaviour of previous punters.

the reasoning for it from that poster is again seems to be what I suspected:

The second, and possibly the most important reason for using compensators, is that the volatility is controlled. This means that for an operator, cash-in-box (the take at the end of the week) is much more stable than for a random slot, hence why pub machines (which the landlord takes a proportion of) are compensated.
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I really can't see any other reason for this silly compensator mechanism, certainly doesn't seem to offer much to the punter... in fact if what that poster is saying is true then it is even more convoluted than I though - I'd have assumed it would simply increase or decrease the probabilities for particular events in a consistent manner across the range in order to regulate the payout percentage, but apparently not.

I'm a bit skeptical about this assumption:

and will not let you win anything if it drops below its lowest threshold
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That to me is very dubious, essentially allowing someone to gamble with no chance at all of actually winning. While I don't doubt that a compensation mechanism needs to be able to dramatically reduce the odds of winning, I doubt it is allowed to give punters zero chance of winning.
 
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I've been reading this with some interest, i'd like to just attempt to clear up if there is any misunderstanding on the idea of compensators

In the UK (i dont know about the US) all gaming machines are legislated by the Gambling Commision:

These machines are categorised:

https://www.gamblingcommission.gov....ine-categories/Gaming-machine-categories.aspx

I have included A in these categorisations although it exists it currently is not allowed in the UK (unlimited stakes / payouts)

I have listed the manuals from the gambling commission for the categorised machines if anyone is interested in some extremely dry further reading.

A / B1 / B2 / B3 / B4 / C / D / SWP

https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/PDF/Machine-standards-category-A-and-B1.pdf
https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/PDF/Machine-standards-category-B2.pdf
https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/PDF/Machine-standards-category-B3-and-B4.pdf
https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/PDF/Machine-standards-category-C.pdf
https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/PDF/Machine-standards-complex-category-D.pdf



5.1 General requirement Where the outcome results in a player winning a prize, it must be determined randomly and in particular no compensator or regulator may be used to determine any stage of the game. The machine must clearly display to the player either at all times when it is in operation, or at the point a game is selected for play, the following statement: THIS MACHINE IS RANDOM
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For categories B3, B4, C,

5.8 Use of compensators and/or regulators

The use of compensators or regulators to determine any stage of the game outcome is permitted, except in the case of ‘pre-gambles’, provided that the following rules are complied with;

a. each possible permutation or combination of game elements that produces winning or losing game outcomes must be available for selection at the initiation of each play.

b. the outcome of any gamble must not be predictable to the player;

c. cyclic periods of play must not be deliberately introduced and due care must be exercised to prevent their inadvertent occurrence;

d. the chance of winning a prize must not be so altered as to deliberately create a series of losing (raking periods) or winning games (enriched periods);

e. any sequence of wins must not exceed that to be expected from a random machine of a similar payout profile and running at the same payout percentage. A gaming machine or device must not present a losing game result which indicates a ‘Near Miss’, e.g. where the odds of the top award symbol landing on the pay line are limited it must not frequently appear above or below the pay line.

A compensated game must clearly display to the player on the face of the machine at all times (when in operation) or at the point the game is selected for play (where operated on a multi-game terminal) the following statement: THIS GAME IS COMPENSATED AND MAY BE INFLUENCED BY PREVIOUS PLAY

Where a machine operates in such a way that a particular feature (such as Hi/Low or gamble) may invite a player to make a choice in circumstances in which they have no chance of success (defined by the probability of a win being reduced to less than 20% of that required to achieve the target percentage payout) then the following statement must be substituted for the above: THIS GAME IS COMPENSATED AND MAY BE INFLUENCED BY PREVIOUS PLAY AND OFFER THE PLAYER A CHOICE WHERE THERE IS LITTLE CHANCE OF SUCCESS
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For categories A, B1 and B2:

5.8 Not applicable to these categories of machine.
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Category D (non-complex) generally refers to the "traditional" arcadey games such as the crane or the coin pusher.

SWP - Skill with prizes, obviously isn't a random game and is again included just for the sake of broadly recognising every category of machines.

Category A (unlimited/unlimited), B1 (£5/£10,000(£20,000 progressive)) and B2 (£100/£500) machines are true gambling machines with stakes and rewards matching, the hotly contentious category of B2 where the max stake is £100 is the one the future regulation is due to restrict down to £2 max stake. None of these have compensators and if they do are illegal in the UK.

B1 machines can only be made available in casinos so you must have either a 2005 Act casino operating licence or a 1968 Act casino operating licence to make them available.
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B2 machines can only be made available in casino, betting shops or at tracks with pool betting. So you must have either a 2005 Act casino operating licence, a 1968 Act casino operating licence, a general betting standard operating licence or a pool betting licenceto make them available.
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Category B3A is a lottery style game, does not contain a compensator and i don't think i have ever seen one personally

Category B3 (£2/£500) are allowed compensated games. They are only allowed in regulated areas

B3 machines can only be made available in casino, betting shops, tracks with pool betting, bingo halls or adult gaming centres. So you must have either a 2005 Act casino operating licence, a 1968 Act casino operating licence, a general betting standard operating licence, a pool betting licence, non-remote bingo operating licenceor an AGC licence to make them available.
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Category B4 (£2/£400), C (£1/£100) and D (for the sake of simplicity i have left out the rewards in regards to non monetary games, 10p/£5) are also allowed to be compensated

Pubs and other alcohol licensed premises are automatically entitled to two category C or D gaming machines upon notification to the local licensing authority of their intention to make gaming machines available for use.

Licensing authorities can issue gaming machine permits which allow additional category C and D gaming machines to be provided.

Where a gaming machine permit authorises the making available of a specified number of gaming machines in particular premises, this will effectively replace, and not be in addition to, any automatic entitlement to two machines.

Members' clubs and miners' welfare institutes may site up to three machines from categories B3A, B4, C or D (only one can be B3A) with a club machine permit. Commercial clubs may site up to three machines from categories B4, C or D (not B3A machines).

Travelling fairs may site any number of category D gaming machines.
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Using all the information provided i'd like to point out that compensators do exist in the UK and are widely spread among the pubs and bars. My personal opinion of these are they are not true gambling machines and really represent nothing more than entertainment, as compensators exist on these you need to be aware of the potential of seeing far worse than average returns on your money, furthermore i would also like to point out that these are clearly labelled for that sake and for them not to be labelled as compensated would be illegal.

The machines found in licensed venues (B1 - casinos) B2 (commonly referred to as FOBT's) - betting shops & casino's) are not compensated and can be treated as pure gambling machines based only on their reported "house edge" (e.g. This machine pays out at 94%)

As all these things need to be clearly labelled and you now know the likely locations and minimum/maximums of each type of machine you should easily be able to identify and understand if the machine is compensated or not.

Because you now know that, the idea that compensation on machines needs to be further regulated is unnecessary as the player is already informed that they are potentially going to be playing at a worse than expected "house edge" as displayed on the machine if it is accompanied by the labels:

THIS GAME IS COMPENSATED AND MAY BE INFLUENCED BY PREVIOUS PLAY or

THIS GAME IS COMPENSATED AND MAY BE INFLUENCED BY PREVIOUS PLAY AND OFFER THE PLAYER A CHOICE WHERE THERE IS LITTLE CHANCE OF SUCCESS
 
That compensators exist isn't being questioned - it is details on how they function that would be interesting...

seemingly there is a lack of transparency there and if the previously linked to forum post from an apparent developer is to be believed then it is seemingly just left to the developers to come up with what essentially amounts to a black box... so long as it meets targeted/published pay out % they can implement all sorts of weird and wonderful rules... it doesn't appear as though that developer is particularly numerate either (seemingly not even having heard of standard deviation before that dev job).

Frankly their existence in the first place is silly, but the lack of transparency and seemingly relatively lax attitude from the UK's gambling authorities with regards to these things beyond the basics re: the notification/label and the machine complying with that is dubious. (I guess they perhaps don't care much partly because they are low stakes machines anyway)

I'd echo the sentiments of the last poster on that previously linked to thread - the things shouldn't exist in the first place IMHO, slot machines should just be based on independent random events.
 
chrcoluk said:
What my contact told me is these machines are desired by small business owners, like pubs and takeaways.

They have a more predictable pattern in their payouts and as such short term loss risk is lower.
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In my experience, they don't. That's almost 30 years and thousands of different AWP games, with full access to the accounting for them all.

Although I can see how it might have some degree of relevance for a very small business which has 1 or 2 AWPs that are rarely played and where the machine sometimes making a loss of a couple of hundred pounds one week would be a problem for the business.

I dont know why Angillion is been so defensive, he thinks I said every UK machine is like that and that I think they breaking the law, yet I have clearly stated they are not breaking the law and that they not everywhere in the UK e.g. casinos tend to have the proper machines.
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You said that British machines are like that (which is not true) and, as I have already explained, if your statement was true then labelling a British machine as 100% random would be illegal. Many of them are labelled as 100% random (because they are), so your statement is also a statement that many British fruit machines are breaking UK law.

Also, when you're next in a casino have a look at the information files for each "fruit machine" type game. You might well see a "this machine is compensated" message on more of them than you'd expect. Not casino type games like poker and roulette, but "fruit machine" type games.

They're all "proper machines". People put money in, simple graphics happen, most people get out less money than they put in and the house keeps the difference. The usual for gambling.

dowie said:
Yeah that is why I don't like the lack of transparency with these things, I don't know why anyone would want to play them with no idea of what they're really betting on but simply pushing buttons on some black box
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That's exactly what "fruit machines" are. Always. That's what people who play them want. If it wasn't what they want, they wouldn't play them. I don't know why anyone would want to play them, either, but some people do.

that is going to spew out money or not partially based on the unknown (to the punter) behaviour of previous punters.
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As opposed to spewing out money or not wholly based on random chance...and even then it's extremely common for gamblers to believe it's partially based on the results of bets by previous gamblers. So common there's a term for it - the gambler's fallacy.

I'm a bit skeptical about this assumption:

That to me is very dubious, essentially allowing someone to gamble with no chance at all of actually winning. While I don't doubt that a compensation mechanism needs to be able to dramatically reduce the odds of winning, I doubt it is allowed to give punters zero chance of winning.
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I thnk that it is when further gambling a win. Some of the information on some games states that it is, with phrasing like "little or no chance of success". It can also go all the way in the other direction, where there is 100% chance of success when gambling a win.
 
Angilion said:
As opposed to spewing out money or not wholly based on random chance...and even then it's extremely common for gamblers to believe it's partially based on the results of bets by previous gamblers. So common there's a term for it - the gambler's fallacy.
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Yep, I'm well aware of that, I remember years ago some crazy poster on here coming out with all sorts of nonsense about roulette etc.. that would have to ignore that each spin is an independent event. :)

Have seen some less obvious versions of this with a couple of other posters in the matched betting thread too where they misunderstand EV etc..

spewing money out based on a clearly defined random chance in a game with transparent rules/structure is a much fairer system IMHO
 
Angilion said:
Also, when you're next in a casino have a look at the information files for each "fruit machine" type game. You might well see a "this machine is compensated" message on more of them than you'd expect. Not casino type games like poker and roulette, but "fruit machine" type games.
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In all the casino's i've visited over the last 15 years including the ones i have worked in and for many years ago, this is incorrect. Casino's are almost completely populated by B1 machines and most recently a few FOBT's. B1 machines £2-4000 (pre 2014) £5-£10,000 (post 2014), the FOBT's are generally B2 because they allow the roulette and blackjack style games on them which incorporate bigger use of the £100 max stake. Both of these style of games are not allowed to be compensated.

https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/PDF/survey-data/Gambling-industry-statistics.pdf

On page 9 is a breakdown of the machines found in each location

Table 3: Gaming machine numbers across all regulated gambling sectors (average)

Non Compensated:

B1
Casino - 3034
Betting - 0
Bingo - 0
Arcades - 0

B2 (FOBT's)
Casino - 170
Betting - 32,786
Bingo - 0
Arcades - 0

Compensated:

B3
Casino - 0
Betting - 72
Bingo - 14,286
Arcades - 10,453

B4
Casino - 0
Betting - 0
Bingo - 160
Arcades - 47

C
Casino - 0
Betting - 17
Bingo - 49,837
Arcade - 32,423

D
Casino - 0
Betting - 0
Bingo - 8578
Arcade - 29,446
 
Mr C said:
In all the casino's i've visited over the last 15 years including the ones i have worked in and for many years ago, this is incorrect. Casino's are almost completely populated by B1 machines and most recently a few FOBT's. B1 machines £2-4000 (pre 2014) £5-£10,000 (post 2014), the FOBT's are generally B2 because they allow the roulette and blackjack style games on them which incorporate bigger use of the £100 max stake. Both of these style of games are not allowed to be compensated. [..]
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That's useful information. So there aren't really any "fruit machines" in casinos and the whole subthread doesn't apply to casinos. I thought they had some B3 games, but they don't.
 
dowie said:
Yep, I'm well aware of that, I remember years ago some crazy poster on here coming out with all sorts of nonsense about roulette etc.. that would have to ignore that each spin is an independent event. :)

Have seen some less obvious versions of this with a couple of other posters in the matched betting thread too where they misunderstand EV etc..
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Pretty much all of probability theory seems very difficult for most people to understand. Including me. I know that in a series of independent events previous events don't change the probabilities in future events, but I don't really understand that. It still seems to make sense to me that it would. You flip a coin 5 times and get heads each time, the 6th spin is more likely to be tails than heads, right? It's "obvious". Some stuff I barely remember about permutations and combinations in school 40 years ago doesn't seem to outweigh that "obvious" thing.

spewing money out based on a clearly defined random chance in a game with transparent rules/structure is a much fairer system IMHO
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For a table game, e.g. roulette or poker, or a simulation thereof, I agree. For a "fruit machine" type game, which is and always has been the type of gambling you succinctly described as "black box", I think it doesn't matter. There's no skill or knowledge involved. Anyone who thinks they can game a fruit machine is a sucker (or a con artist selling to suckers) unless they've found a way of cheating or abusing a bug (which happens occasionally).
 
dowie said:
That to me is very dubious, essentially allowing someone to gamble with no chance at all of actually winning. While I don't doubt that a compensation mechanism needs to be able to dramatically reduce the odds of winning, I doubt it is allowed to give punters zero chance of winning.
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He did also state he expects a machine is only at level 0 for very short periods of time tho.
 
Mr C said:
THIS GAME IS COMPENSATED AND MAY BE INFLUENCED BY PREVIOUS PLAY or

THIS GAME IS COMPENSATED AND MAY BE INFLUENCED BY PREVIOUS PLAY AND OFFER THE PLAYER A CHOICE WHERE THERE IS LITTLE CHANCE OF SUCCESS
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I would say the first line is misleading, that can easily confuse players. The reason I say this is that seasoned fruit machine players, will know what both these lines mean, they will be knowledgeable on this subject. A casual player approaching a fruit machine, will be wondering what compensated means and consider the term "may" as that there is only a chance the machine manipulates results when it actually could be doing it all the time. (if what this developer says is true)

The second line is adequate providing it is in very big letters in a very visible place on the machine, not just small print label in the corner.

Something like this I would consider perhaps more reasonable.

"THIS GAME WILL ADJUST THE CHANCE OF WINNING BASED ON PREVIOUS PLAYERS SUCCESS, THE STATED WIN % IS LIKELY NOT TO BE RELEVANT IN EXISTING PLAY, GAMBLES OFFERED TO THE PLAYER MAY NOT HAVE ANY CHANCE OF SUCCESS"

Funny enough there was an arcade near where I used to do a YT scheme, and I often found myself with no bus fare to go home, there was a pink panther machine which always seemed to be profitable. You could put in say 20p (5p play) and within those 4 spins would get a feature that would get up to a £2 win easily. I expect we just always got lucky, but I wonder if it was a buggy compensator?
 
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So basically what we're all agreeing with here is that she makes obscene amounts of money off of the back of addicted probably poor morons, who then get repaid in benefits from her taxes, that then get repaid to her through profit... hmm.

Awkward silence.
 
What portion of online gamblers are unemployed? And of the total amount gambled at online sites how much do they account for?
 
dowie said:
What portion of online gamblers are unemployed? And of the total amount gambled at online sites how much do they account for?
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There are 3 million people currently in employment but not having enough money to live off of, a chunk of them will undoubtedly gamble, regardless it's irrelevant how many people do it. In terms of addictive and legal things to do, it is the least social and potentially the most damaging to society (in terms of class/wealth/social strata cohesion, especially in times of an asset stripping government/Brexit).

I just want stricter regulations on the visibility of the shopfronts (invisible would be preferable, like cigarettes) and better controls on online ones (i know you can set limits yourself, but it's not exactly amazing), as obviously if it was just downright illegal it'd just mean criminal's take the profit instead. Considering the recent regulations put forward on the machines (in April?) it would appear government is in agreement with further controls.
 
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