If you don't pay enough attention to the details, players may be cheating you at actual loss rewarding.
The casino gathers player actual loss information if players use membership cards for EGM sessions. The reward on actual loss may be either in form of cashback, freeplay or some other incentives.
Start game
For correct recording of actual loss it is crucial that the EGMs immediately report start of game to the system. Immediately means at the time when the player commits to the game - after that time he may not voluntarily remove the bet. On slots this occurs when he presses "Start", "Deal" or similar button to start the game. In case of electronic table games this is when "No more bets" condition arrives.
Even from the name of the message it is quite obvious that the message "Start game" should be sent at such time. But still some EGM manufacturers choose not to do it properly. They send "Start game" after the game has already finished, just before the "End game" message and long after the game has actually started. Below I will show you why this is very wrong and can be exploited by players.
Also the casino management system must do its part. It must focus on "Start game" and "End game" information from EGMs to determine if game is in progress. And it must lock the player's card in the reader or use similar methods to disallow ending a session while the game is in progress.
Example
Let me show you what can happen if all this is not done as it should be. Take an example of electronic roulette with mechanical cilinder:
1. Player bets 10 € on straight number
2. The EGM starts the game (no more bets) and spins the ball - without notifying the system
3. The ball lands in the result pocket and the player can see the result
4a. If he looses, the player keeps the card in (continues the session) and therefore records the loss (he lost his bet)
4b. If he wins, the player immediately removes his player card thus ending the session before the results are read by the electronics (remember - the system knows nothing about a game being in progress). The bet and the winnings were not yet communicated to the system so they are not attributed to this player.
5. The EGM reads the roulette result, publishes the winning number and calculates the winnings
6. The EGM sends "Start game" and "End game" information together with bet and winnings information. This is not attributed to the player if he removed his card at a proper time.
With the above player strategy the system records a lot of players bet and none of his winnings. So his recorded actual loss is very high and by cheating he can claim large rewards on actual loss even if he is winning money actually.
For example if the player plays 370 games he will loose 360 of them on average and win 10 of them. The players actually bet 3700 € (370 games per 10 € bet each game) and won 3600 € (10 winning games, each winning 360 €) for a total actual loss of 100 €. But players recorded bet is 3600 € and no recorded win - resulting in recorded loss of 3600 €. Remember that the player removed his card for 10 games so neither bet nor win was recorded for those games.
Should the casino reward 10% of actual loss to the players, this player would get rewarded 360 € according to his recorded loss. But he actually lost only 100 € so he would have an advantage of 260 € over the casino. By cheating, the player would have an edge over the casino - an edge of 7% (260 € of advantage over 3700 € of bet).
All this would not be possible if the EGM reported "Start game" properly and the system prevented player to end his session during the game. In that case all the 3700 € of bet would be recorded as well as 3600 € of win for a recorded 100 € loss. The player might get 10 € of actual loss reward (10 % of 100 € loss) and the casino would still be 90 € in plus instead of 260 € in minus.
Conclusion
Like mentioned in the introduction, sending "Game start" message at appropriate time is crucial if you are rewarding actual loss of players. Also the system must handle such cases properly.
You might think that this is a made up example but it is not. There exist even new EGMs that report the "Game start" information wrong - not to mention some older machines. And there certainly are players that figure this out and take advantage of it if they can.
Test the behaviour in your casino and complain to the manufacturers if you don't see correct handling. Do this test before thinking of rewarding actual loss of players or you will see cheating from them. And do not forget that this applies not only to roulettes, not only to all ETG (electronic table games) but rather to all EGMs.
What do you think? Do you reward actual loss and came across this problem? Reply in the comments below.
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