And the giant online casinos could care less about being provably fair. It's only us smaller single owner / operator types who have to have a provably fair system.
They might care about it though, if they save on licensing costs, if they don't have to pay someone to be gambling audited or compliant. But only if it is not required. Their industry requires it though, and competitors will be quick to complain to the authorities against online casinos that do not have proper documents or audited fairness standards, no matter how provably fair it is.
You are correct. They could care less about it. From another point of view though, they are much more proven to be fair compared to the provably fair casinos, as they get audited on an hourly basis, and all the software is tested to be fair in laboratories. As a matter of fact, all of the certified lab software providers are directly linked to the governing jurisdictions, such as Malta, UK, Alderney, etc. Every single bet is instantly logged in the governing authority servers. If there is a slightest chance that it is not fair, the casino directly loses its license. So on top of that, why would they bother implementing a provably fair system...
Disagree completely, "tested to be fair in laboratories", I think you are picturing it a litle too much fairy tale. In practice everything happens more lax then you imagine..
Example? Absolute Poker was licensed by a respectable gaming commission. Didn't stop them from cheating the players for massive amounts through software hacks (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cereus_Poker_Network)
Provably Fair is a big innovation, it may never see adaption by the industry which I understand, but it's perfectly in line with the values any decent bitcoin casino deems worthy. And at the moment a LOT of bitcoin players appreciate and prefer it above anything else. I still see no reason why any serious Bitcoin Casino would not make their casino Provably fair and I would strongly recommend against playing on any casino that is not.
On your earlier remark of not being able to compete with the giant players if they adopt bitcoin in the near future, I again have to disagree somewhat. (Although of course it would be very heavy competition)
- The chance they will offer the ability to gamble completely using bitcoin (not just converting your bitcoin to fiat) is very improbable.
- Most bitcoin casinos offer custom made software, that is completely unique to that casino. Regular casinos generally offer the same cookie cutter 10-year old roulette flash games over and over, with little creativity and completely dependent of their game licensees. Many of the bitcoin casinos right now, don't be mistaken, CAN compete on software today.
There are currently over 350 different casino software providers in the world, accounting for probably 8-10000 different games. Saying "Regular casinos generally offer the same cookie cutter 10-year old roulette flash games over and over" is a nonsense. And how is your casino war game unique or different from ours for example? The graphics might be, but after all its the same standard casino game that everyone else has... It's the same game logic, the same user experience, the same house edge, etc.
Cereus wasn't rigging the RNG, it was allowing employees to play against their players with an option to view cards. So this is not a valid argument.
"Disagree completely, "tested to be fair in laboratories", I think you are picturing it a litle too much fairy tale. In practice everything happens more lax then you imagine.." I am speaking out of practice (12 years experience in online gambling). It is so stressful to get an RNG or a game certified to be fair that you can't imagine. Every single game is being tested with various tests, such as Chi-Square Tests, Serial Correlation Test, Poisson Distribution Test, Frequency Test, Diehard tests, and so on. After the tests are complete, the system is hooked up to the central server and the code is being checked every month for discrepancies. There are no speculations or child play there. To get a casino with about 50 games certified will cost you around $70,000 and ~ 5 months of testing in the lab.
On a side note related to that, how many of the casinos here are tested with these tests? They might be provably fair, but what if their RNGs are biased or inconsistent in their generation? I've spoken to a few other operators on this forum who didn't even understand how to random generate properly and what technology to use and were and currently are running games. So how safe are the players?
Now regarding competition if it goes mainstream. Even out of the operational costs, most of the sites around here will close. How many will be able to afford a 100k license, a 70k lab test, and 5-10k a month in just licensing fees and taxes. And where will the players prefer to play? In a casino that has a license and is secure and controlled by a serious authority, or in a one that doesn't. So how exactly will you remain competitive?
(not trying to bash you, just being realistic)