BlackJack Rip offs

I've never posted here before, but I'll admitt first hand I am addicted to blackjack lol...all who know me know you'll always find me near a blackjack table somewhere....well recently I've come upon a great place for blackjack and yahztee (another of my favorites) in Spittoonie. Ran by Jack Digeridoo, this place, yes, is a great place to have fun yahtzee-wise, but the blackjack is the problem. I've always had problems with Jack's BJ tables. Either they crash me to my desktop, or they freeze when I pay them and dont play at all. This has happened to a number of SL players using the same BJ tables. I never used to have a problem with Jack refunding my money until now. I had made 3, 5k bets on a blackjack table all in different times, each of them crashing me to my desktop and taking my money without play. I notified Jack about this....no response. 2 different times I had made 4k bets which the table froze as soon as I paid them and never played the game. I told Jack about these as well.....still no response. I have been trying to contact him mulitple times over the past 3 or 4 days now, and he will not respond, yet he responded to my boyfriend whom asked him about the SL exchange within minutes after I had messaged Jack. 23k he has taken and will not refund, no I am not asking a refund back because I happened to lose the game, these were all BJ malfunctions and should be refunded with no questions asked, this information is in his account history, so he knows that he needs to refund me the 23k. I have talked to multiple players about this each of them experiencing the same issue. I've also contacted SL about it, but they cannot do anything as it is a personally owned object. Which I think is rediculous but oh well. Anyhow. This message is just to warn all who go to Spittoonie, DONOT trust Jack Digeridoo. and dont touch the BJ tables either. They WILL mess up on you and you will NOT get a refund. Thanks for reading my article, hope you enjoyed more SL drama LOL.


Rhiannon

<sarcasm>
What? An unregulated casino on an online game broken and stole money?
That's a preposterous as the idea of the same casinos having machines with
ridiculously stacked odds!
</sarcasm>
I don't understand how, after losing 4k, you saw fit to bet another 4k.

Ah the joys of addiction.

After the first crash, i personally wouldn't have put another dime into those tables.

I think this kinda goes along the lines of 'fool me once...' wouldn't you?

Caveat Emptor I'm affraid. People with machines get all sorts of comments thrown at them and I don't think they can really go around paying out for each one. I'd suggest you take that as a lesson learnt!

Peter

I should have read this closer the first time, LOL

People have, before, asked me, "Hiro, why do you hate casinos in SL so much?"

This thread is a prime example. Gambling is an addiction to many people. (If you are in the US and think you are, you can call 1-800-GAMBLING for help.) Simply having a fair casino is playing to a person's addiction. And, okay, I understand that's fine, if it's fair.

But it's not. The overwhelming majority of games of chance in SecondLife that I've seen either have ridiculously stacked odds, are broken scripts that are unreliable and take your money, and/or are placed in clubs making them laggy.

Combine that with a person's addiction, and you're just plain taking their money. It's not right, it's ethically reprehensible. Jack seems like an okay guy, and I'd hope that this is just an issue where he lost the IMs or there is some other kind of misunderstanding. In that case, I should hope he immediately refund all profits ever won by his broken blackjack machines.

It's only fair.

I've dealt with Jack and he's a good guy, however anyone running scripts knows the system isn't perfect.

Frankly, a 4k bet is kinda... huge. That's more than $15us, more than most people bet in real life on a single bet!

PC

I personally believe that Linden Labs is going to run into problems with gambling in this game sometime in the (maybe near) future.

Second Life is a 100% loophole for gambling in states and territories where it is not legal. With governments around the world (not just the U.S.) cracking down on online gaming and working to close these loopholes, the effects will be felt here.

Hiro is right. If you have that much of a problem, call the 800#.

I would hope that people would realize that there are some people making fair and less lag inducing machines in SL. I've worked on a couple of games, and made sure that they paid out a minimum of 75% (required by law in RL), were throughly tested to prove that the odds were sound, and do not result in (permissions not set) errors typical of scripts inworld.

I'd like to form a group of people that would certify game odds, would help to make sure the scripts are reliable, and to place a seal of approval on scripts (by an independent account) that they met the standards of the group (like minimum 75% payout, coded to not have permissions errors, won't ridiculously lag, etc).

As to gambling addiction, I feel sorry for folks like that, but they need to take responsibility for themselves. It's the same with alcohol addiction, sex addiction, smoking addiction, shopping addiction, etc. Should we ban alcohol, sex, smoking, and/or shopping in SL because some people have a problem? Maybe we should have the gambling machine makers and casino owners band together to make a system where those with gambling problems can automatically add themselves to ban/eject lists, and to work to help them resolve their RL problems.

Hank, I think that's a great initiative.

Also understand that casino commissions actually have a higher standard for slot machines... I think it's actually above 90%. That may be a state ordinance though.

But as Aaron pointed out, there's the larger picture of this being unregulated gambling that falls under US gambling laws. Eventually, the US gov't / gambling commission will have complaints and take aim. It's the reason why Linden Lab should stay out of the GOM business for now - because otherwise they would be providing a conduit for people to pay RL$, gamble in game, and sell profits for RL$ - all owned by one company.

lol





now that thats said you need to understand the idea of a casino, which is ot make money the odds are stacked against you, after that if you find that it crashes, that would set off a light bulb ot most players to not play again, besides that its always a good idea to try betting low and see how the machine works before you dump that much cash into it, but hey i am just an average joe. my suggestion is to not play, very helpful eh?

lol





now that thats said you need to understand the idea of a casino, which is to make money the odds are stacked against you, after that if you find that it crashes, that would set off a light bulb to most players to not play again. Besides that its always a good idea to try betting low and see how the machine works before you dump that much cash into it, but hey I am just an average Joe. My suggestion is to not play, very helpful eh?

hey I have a jackpot ball you can win 1 mil L$ its only a 4k min bet and the odds, well lets say you DO have A chance!

The blackjack tables in The Punany Club shouldn't crash you. And the odds are fair.
I am with you Hank, if such an organization is started, I would gladly allow all my machines to be tested for fairness.

And I thought "The Pimp 'n Ho' Club" was suggestive! LOL!!!

I'd suggest that there be open source gambling machines. Seeing source code is not going to give a gambler any competitive advantage, especially if it adds some entropy to the randomization. And with open source, a gambler can see exactly how badly the odds are stacked against him/her.

In fact, I would think that a casino operator who opens up the source code would attract the gamblers, since they'll know exactly how fair the game is.

- Ace

Thats a great idea Ace... but not very likely..

I venture to guess 95% of the users would have no clue what they are looking at. Also getting a scripter w/ proprietary games to make their scripts open source would probably be difficult.

The law in all states require a minimum of 75% payout on slot machines (though some might require more), but that's the standard. Due to the competitive nature of the gambling business in RL, payouts tend to be around 90-92% payout. But the law requires a minimum of 75% payout.

for the people talking about open source and certifying your scripts and such, what stops you from doing that then sneaking out some night and changing the script in your games when no one's looking? you'd have the big open certified script for people to look at and the one in the game and they wouldn't match but no one could know. not that you would do it but still....

Yeah, my laggy tables made your client crash to desktop. Something is really wrong, with the refunds I'm giving you and 1 other hi-roller I had to buy $240 US worth of money on GOM to bring my balance back up. I can't see individual outgoing payments to add everything up and find out whats going on, I think all three of us have submitted bug reports. I can't afford to give any more refunds, TWO PLAYERS tapped me since Spittoonie opened so what can I say. I'm out a lotta RL cash and I have buyers remourse. And you both want more $...


...Still no namechange feature.

I don't know Jack or his games very well at all, but as a developer of similar games, I can say with 100% certainty that the crashing problems are not his problem. The crashing is because of buggy code in the SL client. I have seen similar problems with my games which are completely unique LSL script. Regardless of how you script anything, however, nothing *should* crash the SL client. It's a Linden bug.

Yes and no, Schwanson...

Yes, 95% of the users wouldn't have a clue about the scripts. But if they knew that the other 5% were looking at it, and pointing out any rip-offs, they'd have more confidence in the game.

And yes, a casino owner might not want to share their scripts, but if they knew that opening it up would attract gamlers, they might have something. This would be especially true if their competitors were offering open source gambling machines.

- Ace

You'd have a trusted account that has never created anything open source before. That account simply takes the scripts, compiles them, and locks them from further modification. If you find a script from that account, you know it's certified from the group.

No no, the machines worked fine before. thats why I trusted betting high. and I never talked shit about Jack, notice I said he has a very nice casino. lol you guys arent reading it right.