Frequently Asked Questions about gambling on the Internet

Last update: July 4, 2008

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FAQ about gambling on the Internet

I played at an Internet casino (that does not advertise on your site) and didn't get paid. Please add them to your blacklist.

Sorry to hear that. I wish I could help, but if I helped in every single dispute I would get nothing else accomplished and wouldn't be able to pay my mortgage or feed my three kids. However, I am willing to arbitrate disputes involving current advertisers assuming you clicked through a banner on my site, so why play anywhere else? I also am willing to consider evidence of unfair game play at any casino.

I played at (insert name here) online casino and lost a lost of money. They must be cheating. Can you warn your viewers about them?

I do not deny that there is cheating going on. However, just because you had a bad session does not nearly rise to the level of evidence required to make a convincing case against the casino. It is the nature of gambling that sometimes you will suffer long losing streaks. However, if you still suspect foul play, you first need to design an experiment to test their game. The test should indicate how much you will play, what you will observe, and how the results will be judged. You should not include information collected before the experiment was designed. For example, if you think a blackjack game has too few aces in the deck you should track the frequency of the aces as well as the non-aces. The more information the better. In this example, I would suggest tracking every rank from 2 through ace. If you are simply losing excessively then tracking only the number of hands and total money lost is sufficient. Assuming your final bankroll is pertinent to the experiment, then I would strongly recommend flat betting to minimize variance and keep the math simple. It takes a large sample of evidence to prove foul play. An accusation of cheating will be convincing only if you can say the odds of your observations are about 1 in 10,000 or less. To rise to this kind of level, a lot of data is required. I hate to throw out a number, but if forced, I'd say at least 1,000 bets would be required. Once you have some good clean data, you are welcome to e-mail me and if you followed my directions I will take it seriously. If I can, I will tell you the probability of the outcome you observed. Please don't bother making an accusation to me unless you have specific numbers to back them up.

If you were flat betting, and know your number of bets made, and units lost, there is a nice calculator at Beating Bonuses, that gives the probability of losing as much as you did.

When I made a withdrawal at an online casino I was asked for copies of my driver's license and/or a utility bill. This seems like a very invasive violation of my privacy. Is this normal?

Unfortunately, yes. The online casinos argue they lose too much to fraud and just need to confirm you are who you say you are. I have sent copies or scans of such documents many times and have never experienced any problems as a result.

How and do online poker sites guard against player collusion? As a player is there anything I can do to protect myself?

Poker sites at least claim they take the problem seriously and look at play patterns for it. However, I don't know exactly what they look for. I've heard the same players always playing at the same time and at the same tables, sets off a red flag. A technique of colluders is to get into a raising war when one player has a very strong hand, hoping to drag other players along for the ride. If you see raising wars between the same players a disproportionate number of times, that should alert you that you may be being taken for a ride.

Please give me your opinion of the attached transcripts of my casino play, I think the casino might be cheating.

Please respect my time. I have three kids to support and can't analyze everybody's log file for free. If you think an Internet casino is cheating, then you then you have to summarize your evidence if you want me to help, not just send me a huge log file.

Sadly, that game is no longer available.

The Wizard's other sites: Wizard of Vegas, Wizard of Macau, Math Problems The Wizard recommends: The Bear Growls, Casinomeister, Online Casino Suite