Monday, June 16, 2008

Bodog Casino: Random enough

One of the biggest names in online gaming, Bodog, recently announced that regulatory group Gaming Associates has certified its RNG, or “random-number generator” to you and me. Announced Bodog representatives:

The Bodog Casino RNG has been certified by TST [Technical Systems Testing] and their internationally accredited testing facilities for a number of years and is now also certified by veterans of the online gaming testing world, Gaming Associates. In order to receive certification from Gaming Associates, the Bodog Casino RNG underwent an array of intensive tests examining the scaling, mapping and shuffling algorithms of the RNG, ensuring that the generated results were uniformly distributed, statistically independent, fair and not predictable. The Bodog Casino RNG has also been digitally fingerprinted by Gaming Associates and will be monitored on an on-going basis to guarantee its validity and security.


Specific game symbols for casino games offered by Bodog Casino, specifically Outta This World and 7s and Stripes, were deemed “fair and not predictable.”

Though it sounds like a simple matter, the RNG lies at the heart of the online slot itself. Now that the “hardware” of good old-fashioned one-armed bandits has gone by the wayside, the outcome of a given turn at the virtual slot is no longer determined by a physical action, i.e. the spinning reels locking into place.

Instead, the RNG determines just how much you’re going to bank. And unlike the slot machines of yore wherein actual moving parts could be observed, the common man would be quite clueless to guess as to whether the given online slot is actually paying out at a “regular” rate. (For the record, that rate is typically between 82% and 98%

So what’s the RNG doing while you’re playing? Crunching numbers, or, more accurately, considering algorithms. Interestingly enough, the outcome online is actually determined when you click your mouse to “spin” the “wheels.” Though lots of software programmers are paid good money to create the motion effect, your fate has been sealed by the RNG in that nanosecond the mouse-click goes through. Hit that sucker .27 seconds later, you’ll get a different outcome.

Of course, this is all invisible to the player, emphasizing the crucial nature of RNG software inspection and firms such as TNT. Every online casino must have certification; dodginess from any website vis-à-vis displaying the results of this testing should serve as a danger signal to prospective players there.