Gambling and gaming for money is a mugs game Online and in Casinos

Any kind of online activity is open up to some form of collusion - that is to say several individuals collaborating together for joint benefit. Nowhere is this more obvious than in online gaming - particularly when there are monetary rewards. A recent BBC article highlights how Chinese gangs on this occasion worked together to fleece unsuspecting members of online poker sites, in this instance the site - PokerStars. The online gaming industry is of course aware of this issue, and has tried to develep numerous algorithms and catch-outs which attempt to minimise the likelihood of such activity. The truth is though, there is not much they can do really - ways and means will always be found to work around the system. In any case, it’s not the gaming site that looses out - it is the unfortunate and naive end user. For these reasons and others, certain types of online gaming will always be at risk from cheats and collaborators, but as ever ’the House always wins’.

Most Casinos publish their payback percentages, which varies between games (the higher the stakes the lower the percentage the House gets), but tends to average out at around 95%. This means that if you play for an extended period you will end up losing 5% of your original stake. For One-Armed-Bandits it depends where the machine is in its cycle - as to the probability of you getting a payback. If someone has just won big, then it is not likely that particular machine will award any significant payout any time soon. This of course means that ’gambling’ only really works if you take the occasional flutter - in the long run, the House / Casino will get all your money anyway 5% at a time.

For players participating in Black Jack or ’21’, if you go back far enough, Casinos used to use only 1 or 2 decks of cards in a game. Now, to restrict winnings even more, as many as 8 packs of cards are used in a session. Every year Casinos figure out new ways for them to ensure that you keep less and less of your original stake. And most techniques developed on the shop floor, soon find their way online.

One of the techniques unlikely to find its way online is that of the garish Casino carpets. Why do they have such horrible clashing patterns? Why of course to disguise chips and coins that have fallen to the floor - such that the gamblers are unable to easily find any items they may have dropped. The end result is that thousands of dollars worth of chips and coins are recovered from these carpeted floors every year - and even more money gets returned to the Casino.

I’ve said it before, and will say it again - the odds are so overwhelmingly stacked in the favour of the Casino and gaming companies, that it is always the rule of ’A fool and his money are soon parted’. And if you are playing poker online right now - that fool might be you!