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English Harbour Statement
Introduction
May 5, 2006
A Message to the Online Gambling Community from Michael Shackleford, known as the Wizard of Odds
As a mathematician working in the gaming field, one service I offer is the examination of online casino logs to ensure fair gaming practices. However, I ceased onboarding new clients for this service a few years back. Among my ongoing clients is Odds On, which develops software for several casinos, including the English Harbour. On April 29, 2006, a player raised concerns on CasinoMeister.com, claiming that they experienced more losses than expected when utilizing the double-up feature on video poker at English Harbour. This situation was reported to me on May 2 by both Bryan Bailey from CasinoMeister and the management at English Harbour. My immediate response was to request detailed logs from English Harbour for thorough analysis. During their preparation of these files, Odds On discovered some irregularities in the double-up game records. Upon analyzing the logs myself, I confirmed that the double-up feature on video poker indeed paid out less than it should have between April 13 and May 2. According to the explanation provided by English Harbour, this issue arose from a problematic software update on April 13, which was rectified in an automatic update on May 2.
It’s natural for readers to question how English Harbour can assert that I review their logs for fairness if an issue like this can occur without my awareness. The reason is that my analysis is typically conducted monthly, and while players identified the issue in April, I usually wouldn’t access April's data until mid-May. This highlights a crucial fact: my auditing service cannot promise that players will experience a mathematically fair game at every single moment. I can only confirm fairness and return rates based on historical data.
Even though both English Harbour and I are confident that the period from April 13 to May 2 was the only time affected, we will continue reviewing earlier logs to ensure accuracy and will keep a close watch on future gameplay.
The table below illustrates the outcomes of all double or nothing bets in real gameplay mode from April 1 to May 3.
Summary of Double-Up Bets
| Date | Wins | Losses | Ties | Win Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 01 | 1225 | 1245 | 177 | 49.6% |
| Apr 02 | 763 | 794 | 89 | 49% |
| Apr 03 | 588 | 580 | 74 | 50.34% |
| Apr 04 | 1293 | 1232 | 156 | 51.21% |
| Apr 05 | 951 | 918 | 108 | 50.88% |
| Apr 06 | 1015 | 996 | 119 | 50.47% |
| Apr 07 | 950 | 989 | 127 | 48.99% |
| Apr 08 | 759 | 735 | 90 | 50.8% |
| Apr 09 | 818 | 862 | 111 | 48.69% |
| Apr 10 | 1203 | 1168 | 152 | 50.74% |
| Apr 11 | 529 | 524 | 64 | 50.24% |
| Apr 12 | 1199 | 1195 | 121 | 50.08% |
| Apr 13 | 194 | 266 | 27 | 42.17% |
| Apr 14 | 212 | 424 | 43 | 33.33% |
| Apr 15 | 284 | 607 | 73 | 31.87% |
| Apr 16 | 314 | 602 | 98 | 34.28% |
| Apr 17 | 139 | 304 | 45 | 31.38% |
| Apr 18 | 143 | 317 | 29 | 31.09% |
| Apr 19 | 141 | 307 | 42 | 31.47% |
| Apr 20 | 89 | 169 | 28 | 34.5% |
| Apr 21 | 134 | 295 | 42 | 31.24% |
| Apr 22 | 72 | 128 | 23 | 36% |
| Apr 23 | 52 | 112 | 21 | 31.71% |
| Apr 24 | 138 | 322 | 41 | 30% |
| Apr 25 | 66 | 121 | 16 | 35.29% |
| Apr 26 | 75 | 126 | 18 | 37.31% |
| Apr 27 | 176 | 399 | 47 | 30.61% |
| Apr 28 | 93 | 173 | 24 | 34.96% |
| Apr 29 | 40 | 81 | 15 | 33.06% |
| Apr 30 | 96 | 169 | 25 | 36.23% |
| May 01 | 73 | 86 | 9 | 45.91% |
| May 02 | 95 | 125 | 17 | 43.18% |
| May 03 | 142 | 158 | 20 | 47.33% |
Win Ratio = the fraction of wins compared to the total of wins and losses.
The management at English Harbour has informed me that they intend to compensate every player who participated in a double or nothing bet during the affected timeframe for their net losses from those bets. This restitution will apply to all casinos utilizing Odds On software. Moreover, as a gesture of their regret over this error, they plan to add a 20% bonus to each player's compensation.
Michael Shackleford, A.S.A.
Wnternetradiomercedes.com
On the same day, English Harbour Management issued the following statement.
Primarily, the English Harbour Group wants to extend our sincere apologies for the mistake in the software update that led to this incident. We have deep respect for all our players and integrity within the Internet Gaming industry. It’s vital that players are informed about what transpired, how we conducted the investigation, how we resolved the issue, and our plans for compensating those affected.
The problem arose from a flaw in the software release later in the day on April 13 that went unnoticed until it was too late. On May 2, we conducted a maintenance update which, as we investigated, appeared to rectify the problem. Upon receiving the initial complaint, we carried out numerous tests and simulations, analyzing the randomness of card distribution within the doubling game over various periods, and found nothing unusual. We shared an interim post on Casinomeister, continued our investigation, and enlisted the auditing services of Michael Shackleford. When he requested access to the log files, we fully complied, and during our handover, we uncovered an issue that seemed to span the last two weeks of April. We communicated this to Michael as we worked together. Through his thorough examination, he agreed with our findings and helped quantify the variance in the odds.
Michael remains an integral part of our governance and strategy for ensuring fair gameplay.
We discussed player compensation in detail with Michael and confirmed that we will be reimbursing affected individuals for their net losses in the doubling game, along with an additional 20% as a goodwill gesture. Players will soon receive an email, as well as a notification within the casino itself.
The English Harbour Group expresses gratitude to the members of the Casinomeister forum for alerting us to this matter and for their patience while we worked through it.
The Management Team of the English Harbour Group
On May 15, 2006, I issued the following addendum.
After I addressed the issue regarding the software bug impacting the double-up feature at Odds On (the provider used by several casinos, including English Harbour), players sought clarity on how the bug occurred. This addendum serves to provide that clarification.
As players began to inquire about the specifics of the bug, I requested a copy of the source code from Odds On. They promptly provided it. The code was somewhat beyond my usual coding experience, so Odds On made their programmer available to assist me with understanding it. The issue stemmed from the video poker double-up bonus round inadvertently calling a second bonus routine that was still in development, which bore resemblance to the bonus games found in their slot machines.
In typical slot machine bonus rounds, prizes are often drawn from a pool with smaller prizes having a higher probability of selection compared to larger ones. This is accomplished through the use of weighting factors assigned to each prize, which is a standard practice in bonus game design. When applied to the video poker game, this resulted in players facing a higher likelihood of drawing less favorable cards. As I previously mentioned, this bug was rectified automatically in the software update released on May 2.
From the information shared with me by Odds On, their complete cooperation, and my six years of a transparent and reliable relationship with them, I firmly believe that this situation arose from an unintentional human mistake.
I categorically do not think that Odds On would ever deliberately attempt to deceive their players in such an overt way since such an action would be quickly uncovered — which is exactly what transpired in this case. No reputable casino would willingly take that risk. Aside from the damage to their reputation, they also face financial losses in compensating affected players while also reimbursing their losses.