Thursday, August 20, 2020

iGaming Audits

Before starting to gamble online, many players hesitate whether the Casino they chose is reliable and safe to play at. Whether they won’t be cheated in terms of the award amounts or withdrawal time. Of course, there are a few casinos that don’t care about players, but gross amount of them are dedicated to providing reliable customer service and support. How to recognize them? There is no better source than players’ opinions, but there are also several organizations that control online casinos, and these ones that have their certifications are sure when playing at.

There are different types of audits conducted on iGaming website. They involve different matters, sometimes very odd for a casino user, so here we explain what types of audits there are and what do they actually check.

First of all, we have to distinguish between the audit itself and evaluation of the random number generator (RNG). Audit is connected with financial side of site’s activity, whereas RNG is not. Though casino’s earning depend in some way on the RNG, it is not tightly connected with it. RNG evaluation simply verifies whether the results at the online casino are similar in randomness to the ones by a fair gaming device in a land-based casino.

Payout Audits
Most of the casinos present on their website the so-called payout percentage. It usually varies between 85-98%. You can find very vague explanations as to what it really means, and it is a basic mistake to expect that you would get 98% of what you put into the machine. So what does it actually mean?

The payout percentage is, the most important of all, counted for the lifespan of a particular machine or, in the case of online casinos it is a life of the particular game. The base of the payout calculations is the amount of money wagered, not deposited. The two don’t have much in common, since you can deposit $50 and wager $100, or deposit $100 and wager $50. So if it is said that a particular machine has the payout of 95% and you wager on your first spin $100 and win $200, the payout percentage for that spin is 200%. The longer you play, the average payout percentage will decrease gradually to the said 95%, as over time you will lose, on average, 4% of every bet. But remember that the payout percentage is counted for the lifespan of a particular game, so one day your payout can be at a rate of 97%, some other player’s at 80%, and another one at 108%, and the overall payout will still be at the rate of 95%. Or you can have a bad day and don’t win anything, which would count as the 0% payout.

The payout percentage is counted for casinos, with the exception of poker rooms, and involves all game categories and the overall casino payout. Some casinos display their rate on the site, for others you would have to check on the website of auditory body, and sometimes casinos don’t have their payouts audited.

Companies conducting audits and casinos evaluation
These organizations are non-governmental, though sometimes they conduct audits for the request of some jurisdictions. Below you will find the list of those entities, with the description of what they control.

Price-Waterhouse Coopers (PWC)

KPMG

eCOGRA

Association of Professional Casino Webmasters

The Online Gaming Alliance (OGA)

Gaming Laboratories International (GLI)

Certified Fair Gambling (CFG)

BMM Compliance

Gaming Associates

iTech Labs

Talisma