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I just heard from a reader whose experience with Bodog is very similar to mine and whose conclusions about the "casino" echo mine, so the question above is relevant all over again.
Bodog's loudest online shill, the self-anointed "Wizard of Odds," says I'm just a sore loser with a groundless gripe, and it's possible that the majority of Bodog's clients agree with him.
But let's take a closer look at this whole question of competition, and whether or not it would be worth Bodog's while to risk being exposed for outright cheating.
If you believe, as most folks do, that the combination of long-term negative expectation and relatively low betting limits makes cheating unnecessary, then perhaps you should open a Bodog account and try your luck.
But if I'm right and progressive betting really is the only way to beat casino table games while contradicting the conventional wisdom about gambling, then it could be said that confronted with a player like me, Bodog has every incentive - and according to some, every right - to thwart my evil intent by cheating.
First of all, is it technologically possible for any online "casino" to rig its games, accepting that most of the time, against most players, it simply isn't necessary?
Hell, yes!
I'm not in the least impressed by Mike Shackleford's wholehearted endorsement of the software that Bodog uses.
The Wiz is, after all, a very highly-paid front man for the Canada-based virtual casino, and if he were to confirm that the software allows a manual override whenever a progressive bettor starts winning too much, he'd be looking for a new sponsor in a hurry.
In a bricks and mortar casino, progressive betting generally means a Martingale or double-up strategy in the minds of house personnel, and table limits and mid-shoe exclusions help hinder its use.
Target relies on two consecutive wins rather than a single-win end to a losing streak, and that helps to keep bet values down and make the strategy harder to spot.
But I have been playing in Nevada casinos for well over 30 years, and long ago lost count of the number of times I have been warned by seemingly compassionate pit people that progressive betting is a really bad idea.
I have repeatedly challenged skeptics to give double-up a try and report back to me with their experiences, but the answer I get always come down to a version of this: There's no need, because casinos love progressive bettors.
Casinos need winners, for sure.
Lucky players provide the most effective siren song to lure other customers who will almost certainly lose.
But consistent winners who defy negative expectation and make money in spite of losing more bets than they win are the house's worst nightmare.
More to the point, they are considered to be no better than cheats.
And that's why even a seemingly reputable online casino like Bodog would not think twice about stepping into a game that's costing the house a fortune, and manually tweaking outcomes until the threat has been dealt with.
It would of course be impossible to prove malfeasance, since even the most outrageous swings in either direction are demonstrably common in all casino games of chance.
And so when I see a short-term house edge rocket from 2-3% to 75% or higher, The Wiz is simply protecting his meal ticket when he tells me I'm just a sore loser.
Funnily enough, I'm in the middle of collecting blackjack data from Bodog's "practice" game to match the baccarat sample that I wrote about a while back, and all of a sudden, the house edge has evaporated entirely.
Less than halfway through the test (at 1,200 rounds) I'm looking at an overall flat-bet number that has given me almost 3% more wins than losses.
Is it possible that Bodog offers a looser, beatable version of each of its games to potential clients who are testing the waters before opening an account?
Would that make good business sense?
Could they, for example, be alerted to the fact that my IP address has logged on for "practice" games more than a dozen times in the past week - and would they be right to conclude that if I get my butt kicked over and over again while playing for funny munny I might be reluctant to risk real dough against the same game?
Such a technological tactic might not be strictly honest, but maybe Bodog would simply think of it as savvy marketing.
Ask yourself what you would do if you knew that progressive betting was an effective winning method and you didn't want your bottom line to start bleeding red.
My latest Bodog experiment was started to demonstrate that not only did Target beat the practice baccarat game in spite of a 1.4% house edge, but that the identical rules set would also defeat a blackjack sample of similar size.
Mythematicians always argue that no sample, whatever its size, can be considered representative and that all data that beat negative expectation are anecdotal and irrelevant.
But the truth is that every casino expects to beat Peter Punter (the John Doe of the gambling world) in 100 rounds or less, never mind 2,500 rounds or more.
PP is a model player, a slightly nervous gambler who bets a narrow spread and never plays with enough money in his pocket to beat the house edge in the long run.
He bets randomly on those rare occasions when he doesn't bet flat or fixed sums, and most important of all, he expects to lose.
PP doesn't mind a $100 table limit at a $5 layout because no way will he ever bet as much as a hundred bucks.
He doesn't know, or care, that a 1-20 spread limit will be the death of his bankroll, unless he gets very lucky.
PP is the guy that casinos don't need to cheat.
He knows his place in the process, and will do what's expected of him.
Progressive bettors are a different kettle of fish entirely.
More about this another day.
An important reminder: The only person likely to make money out of this blog is you, Dear Reader. There's nothing to buy, ever, and your soul is safe (from me, at least). Test my ideas and use them or don't. It's up to you. One more piece of friendly advice: If you are inclined to use target betting with real money against online "casinos" such as Bodog, spend a few minutes and save a lot of money by reading this._
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