Licensed casinos and providers: a guarantee of fair slots

Online casino is an establishment that lets you play gambling games using a computer or mobile device. This stage in the gambling industry began in the mid-90s. That’s when the internet appeared and the first online casinos offered their services as a leisure option. Players appreciated the convenience, but asked: how can you tell the casino isn’t cheating? Gambling-site owners immediately had to claim their slot machines were fair and provide proof. The approach in Russian and European casinos differed from the start, and for a broader perspective it’s worth mentioning not only online slots but also slot machines in land-based halls across the CIS – how much could players there rely on fairness.

🎰 Slot machine fraud

In gambling history there were several interesting characters who didn’t rely on luck or on proving operators’ honesty via fairness checks, but instead found ways to hack slots to guarantee big wins. For example,

If from the perspective of arcade visitors pulling off a hack was hard, requiring exceptional skills and not doable by everyone, things were quite  different for the owners of gambling clubs. They could easily set the payout percentage by buying hacked machines and players had no clue , putting their money in and leaving with empty pockets.

In Europe and the States regulators kept an eye on such things in casinos, which couldn’t be said about the gambling clubs that opened after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Slots halls popped up like pimples on a teenager’s face and no one checked whether their payout matched the manufacturer’s declared figures. Gamblers looked at the novelty with admiration and kept handing their salaries and savings to the club owners, not suspecting they were being robbed, while the beloved slots should have been much more generous.

Those who visited halls in the early 2000s and later certainly remember Pyramids, Fruits, Champagne and other Igrosoft slots. Some players immediately picked these games when they first tried online casinos because they were the most familiar. And only not so long ago it became known that  Igrosoft allows online casino owners to adjust games’ payouts. 

What’s to be said about offline slot machines? Even if there were papers claiming machines were certified and delivered intact from the manufacturer, those documents with stamps were often shown as a decoy, and the certification itself remained quite dubious.

If you compare early 2000s land-based slot halls with modern online casinos, the latter offer much better chances to win. Of course,  if you deal with an operator that has a license and an established reputation built over years . Casinos licensed in the UK or Malta are considered the most reliable.

👍👉Reliable casinos that are also adapted for Russian-speaking users include 1xSlots, Casino Z, BitStarz Casino, Betchan and others.

In case of a conflict with a casino, themed sites can of course help, for example 4LUCK. But the team can’t always guarantee a positive outcome to the dispute, even when they have evidence and are ready to fight for the player’s case to the end.

It also depends on how much the establishment cares about its reputation. That is well reflected in the casino rating. And the providers whose slots you play speak for themselves. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

If you’re sure data is exchanged with the slot manufacturer’s official server, then you’ll hardly find better proof of reliable play.

👺 Online casino scammers

Far too many gambling sites on the internet are run by scammers and unscrupulous game organizers. They buy a casino script and present it to users as an honest gambling resource. In reality, the payout on such sites is set arbitrarily in the settings at any time. The owner can set a general payout for all games or tweak a slot’s “generosity” individually, right down to how often bonus games appear and how rewarding they are. 🛠

Even though such casinos also appear in 4LUCK listings, their ratings are extremely low, and the vast majority of fraudulent gambling sites are quickly added to the blacklist, because  experienced players and the 4LUCK team can spot them in no time  and promptly inform readers so they don’t accidentally deposit money into scam casinos.

Those interested in casino fairness have likely heard of the MD5 encryption system used by some gambling sites as proof their slot machines are fair. Let’s not skip that system and look at what it actually is, and how much you can trust casinos that use it to demonstrate their honesty, since almost all such casinos, if you study rankings, are marked as dishonest.

🔣 MD5, SHA-256 and provably fair slot machines

In the gambling internet you’ll often see online casinos inviting you to prove they don’t cheat using the MD5 provably fair system. How much can you trust those recommendations?

We’ll skip the protocol’s inner workings since many will find it unclear and boring; those really interested can easily find descriptions online.

Let’s emphasize the essence of using MD5 to check a casino’s fairness: a slot’s result combinations are generated before the player places a bet, saved to a file and hashed. The gambler is given a hash of the encrypted text. After the bet and the results are known, the player receives the source, compares it with the signature and checks the data on special free services. Matching data before the bets and after supposedly confirms the casino’s honesty.

🤔 Reliability or deception of a casino’s fairness check?

It seems great! What doubts could there be when there are tools that can reveal an online casino’s fraud or, conversely, confirm the house’s fairness?

❗ First, consider a few facts:

• Hans Dobbertin reported an MD5 collision back in 1996, but few noticed then;
• in 2008 the US-CERT cybersecurity department warned that MD5’s reliability was questionable;
• in 2011 RFC6151 was published, officially stating that MD5 cannot be considered secure for certain purposes and strongly recommending other hashing methods.

So after this information, casinos that use MD5 provably fair systems can easily be viewed with suspicion. But there are other establishments that claim honesty and offer to prove it with other algorithms.

SHA-256 is a quite reliable hash function belonging to the SHA-2 family. Its reliability is underscored by the fact it was used for Bitcoin mining and later in some other cryptocurrencies. But let’s look at why even such fairness checks cause doubts. Approach the question from a different angle and consider why neither MD5 nor SHA-256 or similar methods are convincing.

🤷‍♂️ It’s simple!👉  If a slot is set, for example, to a 20% payout, then the encrypted text will contain sequences of combinations that correspond to that parameter.  See the point? The low-payout sequence itself is what’s being hashed. The player checks and sees the characters match, but the cheating was embedded before the archive was created. In other words,

Additionally, take note of casinos advertising MD5 and SHA-256 provably fair systems. These tend to be Vulcans, Jackpots, Admirals, 777Azino and others that have long been either blacklisted, under watch, or close to being classified as dishonest gambling sites.

We sorted out slots somewhat. Add to the above that even if the encrypted files contained genuine data, a slot player would not regularly download and verify them, since in one minute of fast play he might make around 100 spins. 🔃 And checking those spins would take much more time. ⏳

Roulette lovers more often use fairness checks, because many of them use strategies and it’s important to know whether their tactic failed or the operator played unfairly.

But casinos can find tricks for these cases too. For example, they claim that the same roulette in an online casino runs on an RNG. That’s a reason to play with popular strategies. But strategies aren’t known only to the player. It’s not hard to create a small program that analyzes a visitor’s actions, recognizes which strategy they use, and produces results against it.

Another simple trick is to have several pre-generated files with the same hash so the player gets the “source” that makes the casino look honest.

👨‍💻 A reasonably skilled programmer can write an add-on to the script that will collect, hash, delete and replace data faster than the page loads. Plenty of tricks can be invented. 😎

🔎 Testing RNG in roulette, dice or similar games

There is a way to test a software RNG, though it’s somewhat labor-intensive. To check whether results are random you need persistence and diligence, but it can work. This method is offered on several sites claiming to side with the gambler.

It’s even easier to rig Blackjack for the casino – just reduce the number of aces and tens in the deck and it becomes much harder for the player to form proper combinations and follow standard strategy. 🎴

Of course, spending time gathering statistics and analyzing them is a dull and boring task. But if some players decide to be persistent and experiment, it wouldn’t hurt to leave feedback about the results. 💰 Besides, you can always get a small reward for it – the site runs a thread where substantial and informative comments about slots and casinos are rewarded with points equivalent to $2. It’s located here. Points can be cashed out or spent on no-deposit bonuses and unique souvenirs in the 4LUCK store. 💲💲💲

👮‍♂️ Fairness control in rated casinos

The above statements give food for thought. Even more so! Let’s add a little fuel: in European and reputable casinos it’s not customary to put the burden of fairness checks on the player, since they came to have a good time, not to detect scam casinos.

How is it really? You can draw conclusions just by looking at the rating of casinos that use such fairness systems – the picture speaks a thousand words and confirms how right those conclusions are.

❓The info may also raise a baffling question: so how can you know that an online casino’s slot machines aren’t rigged in the house’s favor? Well, for those not in the know, we’ll say right away that ALL slot machines are set to favor the casino. But not at the greedy percentages put in hacked scripts – rather in the range of 90-99%. That’s enough for the house to make a profit, especially if the gambling site is long-standing, popular and visited. It has no need to cheat its players and is better off keeping warm relations with visitors. So unlucky players are offered cashouts – small returns on lost funds – and other loyalty programs, including no-deposit bonuses with favorable terms. 🎁

✔ Casino audits and honest slot machines

One international organization that fights for players’ rights, convenience, comfort and customer support in online casinos, and also monitors for fraud by the industry while conducting regular checks, is eCOGRA. This body practices a policy of non-interference with state gambling authorities and rather complements them, acting like an auxiliary element that supports local regulators.

Not only casinos but also slot creators who are eCOGRA certified are considered reputable, and their products suitable for fair play.

The reliability of slots from well-known providers is also confirmed by serious licensors. For example, the online casino software maker NetEnt holds a Maltese license, and that authority is considered strict with violators.

It’s true that  licensed slot machines return around 96% , and some even more. And it’s also true that for an online gambling resource that’s enough for steady profit. Especially if it already has a solid base of regular visitors. That small house edge has shown good profitability since medieval times. And online, although there are costs for staff, licensing fees and marketing, these expenses are far lower than running a brick-and-mortar casino.

To retain players or lure them from competitors, licensed casinos try to offer  the best and most profitable bonuses, various contests with valuable prizes  and work to bring their service to the highest level – instant support responses, verification in minutes, and instant financial transactions. 🌌

📈🔥 Therefore, when playing at licensed casinos with high ratings you will never need to worry about having to control the fairness of the site’s gambling offers. 💎💎💎