Topic: Should online casino games be open source? (Read 719 times)

Whether the casino game should be open source or not depends on the casino, because they will be giving people a hint into knowing the structure of the game, which can help gamblers better win. But do you see, it means it can improve winning chances for gamblers, and casinos won't do that. They didn't build it to help people win; they built it to make a profit first, before reaching the customers.

 And secondly, every gambler has had their share of losses. If a casino game should be open source, there's a high possibility that gamblers will hop on it, just to find out tricks or hacks or any way to retrieve their money. Either by hacking the site or creating duplicate sites for those with negative intentions. You know, different things. So, I don't think they will create games as open source, because some people who are shifting into addictive gambling will see it as an opportunity to recover all they've lost in the casino.

This would be dangerous, even for all players involved in a casino that were an Open Source casino.
Seeing how the fact that crazy gambling players and even a reliable programmer can take advantage of any loophole to drain the money of the bookmaker or the players in the online casino.

After all, any bookie that will be willing to open the Open Source Code for their money-making business,
it will be completely closed and will only accept the regulations and audits set by the local government.

Online casinos are full of money and are not expected by anyone else who is not part of the team involved.
Maybe some casinos give the Bug Bounty challenge, but it's certainly not open source, just looking for loopholes that haven't been closed and those who find them will get a reward worth it.

Wether the casinos should be open source or not,it wholly depends on the business owner to decide and compile all the effective means and strategies to the expectations of the players. Ordinarily,it's not supposed to be exposed to users and customers,because they have to meet up with various regulations standards and also comply to every provided standard.

Actually, there are open source casino scripts already. Now, it is up to you how you will develop it into distinct website that will give certain identity for your site. Because such scripts are already available, however, it is up to the developer how he will develop it into really a working site.
For a time, there were casinos which have been introduced here with the same theme, however, they can improve it by hiring a dedicated developer and create it as a unique one to have their own identity. Just head to github and you will find out some of these open sources.

I wouldn't mind of it, but if someone finds an exploit, i can't think of any reason other then having strong ethics, that they wouldn't use to make money.
And frankly i see hackers making money a way more plausible scenario then white hats reporting the bug, especially if there's not big enough bug bounties. And even if they were big bounties, why wouldn't they exploit the bugs first and report them after so they would benefit from both of them?

Other issue is that, there already are legit casinos that don't need to cheat. Math is working for them so they don't need to. Imho cheating might be problem with shady casinos, not legit big casinos. And people who are using shady casinos now, are doing that for a reason. Maybe unrealistic bonuses or something else, but they are risking their money willingly. Why would they change their behavior and move to experimental open source casinos, when they aren't choosing the legit casinos now?

In my opinion, this is a great idea. As a player, I would go to such a casino first and foremost and at any opportunity. Of course, the casino itself will most likely receive more minuses than pluses due to attacks and various not very honest incomes that it could afford before the introduction of such an approach. In general, I also think that casinos do not want to introduce this and be the first because they will face a lot of uncertainty and their risk manager is not ready to say that such a step must be taken. Many casinos are very happy with their current state of affairs and do not want to give up the cash flow that they have now, so why do they need something new?

No, they are not and it's pretty simple
- there is no guarantee that an expert would look over that code and fix it
- there is the risk of someone knowledgeable looking over it and try to exploit
- there is also the risk of someone hunting a known vulnerability, a guy that normally would not be able to realize the code has a fault
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None, as I said.
Contrary to popular belief it's not open source or closed source that defines the level of security is the money involved, no top hacker is going to spend days hacking into a pizza shop, and nobody has managed to date to hack Visa's servers for example, not talking about 3rd party solutions.

Maybe get a provider that would be in an open-source type of thing? I’m curious if nobody has tried that or if it’s going to be profitable. Probably, this is not happening just because of the possibility of getting stolen of ideas and codes that are advantageous if you know how to get ahead of the competition.

Aren’t seeds enough to verify your gambling bets?

Technically it should be possible, but they must be transparent with the algorithm they use. If the algorithm they use is closed source and they give the way to verify their bets using their own sites/apps, it doesn't prove anything.

We, as a gambler need to know the source and which algorithm they use.

Since you said most people, you're correct.

But, there was an user complained how rigged the games in Stake, unfortunately only few of them complain about that which is not enough for Stake to pay attention with that.

When it comes to the original games of casinos, they don't need to be open source since most of the casino platforms provide provably fair verifiers that gamblers can use to verify their bets to see if they are being manipulated or not. However, the games that come from game providers should have some way to prove that the results are fair and aren't manipulated, maybe they should also have provable fairness like casinos so that players can rest assured that they are not being cheated.

I have seen a lot of people complaining that they have spent so much money on certain slot games by purchasing feature buys but they won nothing and it shouldn't have been that way and this made them feel like they have been cheated and the games are rigged. To avoid this, game providers should at least make their bets verifiable if it's possible in any way.

Most casinos don’t develop their own games, they rely on game providers to run the games on their platforms. However, there are exceptions, like BC.Game and Stake.com, which have developed their own games. These are rare cases, though, and the majority of casinos still depend on third-party game providers.

When gambling, the first thing players usually check is if the casino is trustworthy before they even think about the games. Take Stake, for example, they have thousands of games, and most people don’t even question whether they’re open-source or not. Typical gamblers just pick the games they feel lucky playing, without worrying too much about the technicalities.

That is what I always wanted to understand because I am certainly aware that the odds are against you on a slot machine, but sometimes the losing streaks felt unreal. For that reason and in general I never really liked them and hence barely played slot machines because I had this feeling that the casino could tweak something about the games. I then thought what you just said, but since I am not literate enough in that field, I stick with sports betting as that is the easiest for me to verify whether the result is correct. Of course you could now argue that games can be rigged, but I think if I place a bet on a game where Real Madrid meets say Barcelona, then I can watch it and see for myself.

If I now get addicted to slot machines because you calmed me down that they can never be rigged, I'll know where to go to get my money back! 

Thanks for the info of course!

Proving each platform used is a way that really has to be done so that there is no doubt, everything must be open and know how the system works.

Laypeople get into gambling just playing without understanding how their game ends up being manipulated with salted seed, it even keeps tempting them to keep making deposits and keep playing.

This forum is the first to make everything open, so that in every casino that is used and quite popular in this forum there is a thread that discusses specific casino issues and no one will be able to escape the openness that must happen.

Being open source may be difficult for most online casinos, but being semi-open source it is doable,
so there will be more trust in those casinos, not just how the system is set up for their own benefit.

Good topic as various concerns about closed source software are generally sound in sections devoted to crypto wallets, either software or hardware ones. 

Regarding casinos, I'm sure that  open source games in casinos would be highly welcomed  in  gambler's community as  such kind of  stuff would increased games' credibility  but it seems to me that traditional not-blockchain casinos use proprietary software with the close source. Probably blockchain based decentralized casinos use open source games in their routine operations, but I'm not sure about it, should do the relevant research for myself in the nearest future.

You must understand that one thing is the source code and another is the security on websites.
You could know about a vulnerability and still not be able to benefit from it due to the security of the website.
Because for your attack you should be able to modify files on the site, and if an attacker manages to do so it does not depend on the game but on the security of the site, because I assume, security is layered, and what you see to play is just a shell on the onion.

How do we prove we aren't being manipulated with a salted seed? I have been around online gambling since this forum began and for the most part I believe in provably fair, but as I just stated, how do we as a user know for a fact that a casino isn't giving is a salted seed making sure we lose?

We the players are just blindly believing that a casino would never do that. I think it would be better for the players if everything was out in the open and able to be proven beyond a doubt.

Probably, yes. I know provably fair exists but there's another added layer of confidence in the casino if casino games were open-sourced. Still, game providers are a BUSINESS. A private one at that. If there's no method or whatnot that could let them safely show their code publicly without it being copied by others, I highly doubt it'd happen.

There's a difference between an attacker and a contributor though. And it's just a "guarantee". A source code being open sourced doesn't mean it's going to be checked by experts and corrected is what he meant initially. And I'm pretty sure attackers won't be doing any correcting lol. Plus, if there's anything an attacker would be looking to take advantage of, it's there.

Honestly if casinos wanted this, they'd much rather do bug bounty stuff instead of going open sourced lol. They have the money for it, and they don't need to reveal the code itself.

And no, they SHOULD be worried about rigged games, or at least make it a top priority to check. Why? Because game providers don't only give out these games to one casino. They give it out to a bunch of casinos. Now imagine if that rigged game was released to multiple casinos and the attacker, knowing about it, did a mass attack on it. Pretty sure that'd cause a heavy loss for everyone.

I understand that from the casino's point of view it doesn't make much sense for hundreds of reasons and in the end people play anyway, so their decision is obvious, leave things as they are.

But to be right and reinforce your arguments you contradict yourself in the same post, in your first answer you say that there are no guarantees that it will be evaluated by experts and in the second you say that attackers will take advantage of its vulnerabilities, now I ask you, isn't an attacker an expert?

In short, what open source protection base in terms of vulnerabilities would the casino choose? It would choose a reward system for collaborators to report and correct them.

As for the following, the attackers: knowing the source code would make them know the games precisely, but that is one thing and being able to manipulate the website to execute the attack is another.

So in case of being able to attack the site, manipulate and insert code, the least the casino would worry about would be rigged games.

That's one another risk aside from the one that I have mentioned. It's true that they will get easily copied if they allow it to happen. So, they have to choose what they are up to.
Is it about being transparent and liked by people that way? or is it about securing what is theirs and they're not willing to show it to the public and will rely on the public trust?
I think that it's the latter and even if there were a lot of casinos that have opened up the idea and shown to the public about open source games that they have, it doesn't matter to the majority where we've been stuck into the liking of the common casino that has them closed source.

People are already used to gambling in casinos without open-source games, so why would they change that? While we all like transparency, there’s a lot of risk for game providers in making their games open source. It could easily be copied, and they’d lose control over their brand. That’s one major reason why not all games are open source.

I’ve been gambling for a while, and I understand how the industry works. I wouldn’t demand something they can’t provide. If casinos are willing to make their games open source, that’s great. If not, let’s respect it. At the end of the day, we can always choose games we feel are legit and trust that the providers aren’t manipulating the outcomes.

I do like the idea of it and that only means transparency and intergrity to the casinos. But if they're already a million dollar company, are they going to allow this to happen?
Because first things first, the ones who are technically good at it might see some bugs on it that can be abused by any player and that means money to them.
Money to pay for whoever abuses the bug and money to pay for whoever reports the bug to them. That's why it's one of the factors for the open source to make but then, even if they are not, there could also incidents like these bugs could occur.

For gamblers to trust the fairness and know what they are doing, that option of open source will be nice, but for the casino side, that doesn't look good for their business; a lot might go wrong, either from direct copycats, competitors, or even players. They might easily be able to find and explore bugs around the system before the casino will notice it might have caused serious damage to them.

You seem to still not understand what open-source means.
Open source only means you can see the code, there is zero guarantee any "expert" will look at that code or try to fix it.
None, zero, nada, niet, keine!


Again, not a guarantee, but also a possible flaw since any attacker has a starting point knowing the code, he no longer has to gain access to it in the first place he can now analyze it from scratch for free, you trade the security with a gamble on who will find the bug first, a guy willing to help or someone willing to exploit it.


Casinos don't have access to the software, they just provide the interface for it, they would not be able to tweak something they can't touch, think of it like embedding youtube videos on your website.

I think this can be realized for people that knows about it because I believe that a beginner in gambling will not know all this you people are discussing concerning gambling, but for me I know that you will not trust a gambler search Trust because you know that no matter the reputation of a gambler you cannot give them a trust it just like that so what I have to say is that people who is new in gambling will not understand this except that they go deeper or they experience some starting things in gambling before they can be able to have a such experience of a reputation and non reputation in gambling

Agreed that open-sourcing doesn't apply everywhere for a reason or otherwise we wouldn't have an environment where development is competitive and progressive in the interest of the user and of course the companies building things.

But I ask myself sometimes whether these customers, which are the casinos, have a possibility to somehow tweak these software products from those iGaming development companies? Do you know how that works? I am not a developer. Are the products like "encrypted" or "protected" such that any casino has no chance to get into the software and manipulate the game?

But then I assume the problem still is that they could offer the game, but do their own tweaks in the front-end and the user would still have no chance to verify whether things are correct or not.

Is that about right?

Though, you are taking for granted that casinos or games providers would be willing to put some money aside to keep funds for people to disclose bugs they have found while playing their games. That won't be the case for some providers, so there will not be any reason for those gamblers to responsibly disclose the bug.
Also, you need to keep in mind those bug hunting funds need to be quite high and match the seriousness of the bug disclosed. Why would someone disclose a bug worth of millions of dollars in potential damages to casino if the bug hunting program only offers 500$?

The reward needs to be reasonable if one wants to see more white hat hackers instead of people willing to steal as much money as possible from casinos, open-source or close-source.

I personally think that casino games should be open source, although many casinos currently do not use open source games and for the cause they shows that open source codes could be easily affected by the abusers like hackers. But I think this is completely wrong, in the case of open source games, when the bugs are caught in the community during bug hunting, they will be able to implement a more secure system. And regarding the issue of hacking, we have seen many casinos with non-open source games being hacked.
However, before playing the games, we can check the provider name to see if the games are open source or we can ask the casino live support directly.

Making online casinos open source is like giving the gamblers and competitors an edge over the casino. This is a good idea, but it will not be favourable to the casinos. Competitors that get to know alot about a casino, including the casino's codes can use that against the casino to their own advantage.

This will raise lots of security concerns for the casino too as some malicious individuals would also want to manipulate outcomes of games or even hack the system. Which will definitely destroy the casino's reputation and finances.

This level of transparency we so desire will not be favourable to a competitive industry like the gambling industry. There are lots of negative implications involved. Casinos should just stick to the usual Provably Fair Systems to avoid shooting themselves in the foot.

Do you think their weakness can be taken advantage of in that regard by competitors?, though I have not seen how their competitors will do that against them because this is just like a club against each other, the only thing they would see among themselves is having the same eleven players on the field, so actually what other casinos can only see is just the games and nothing too much importance for them because even if they saw all the users they don't have the power to convert them on there own casinos if they choose to patronize other casinos instead, so the security system is just were the problem lies.

Verifying the randomness of results via seeds is baby science versus understanding the code and find any issues in it so anyone can verify the provable fairness but to read and understand code it needs special knowledge as well as experience. I am comfortable with this because I can't read codes so even if the codes are publicly available I can't verify it by myself so that I have to rely on someone's words for that so it doesn't really make any difference

Did you know that not every player will be able to understand at least something in this provably fair? Moreover, for most players, these proofs are as incomprehensible as inscriptions in ancient languages. After all, this proof arose precisely because of the distrust of the players, and the distrust is quite justified, because when the code is closed, the game is not fully verifiable. In general, for the closeness of the code, in addition to the economic reasons listed earlier in the thread, there may be another most obvious reason - does that mean there is something that needs to be hidden?

I'm not saying open source is good or bad, I'm just saying it has pros and cons in the context of casinos.
No, Binance doesn't need to be open source, the blockchain is already transparent enough and TikTok has nothing to do with chance, but it still sees the problem in the United States for reasons of security and privacy.


Yes, because by being subjected to expert testing we can have more confidence, although this does not free it from possible errors, it is the closest to the truth.


That's the good thing, the rapid ability to manage vulnerabilities, nothing is exempt from failure, but these failures are resolved faster in open source than in closed source.

I think Binance should also make their trading code open-source, right?
Oh, and Tiktok should make their algorithm open-source! Oh wait!

These things cost money, a ton of money, that's why pragmatic is raking in millions, do you think after pouring millions I creating them they would allow anyone to have a copy of them or to build on top of them with just a few lines so they avoid a lawsuit and there you have it, a new game provider 100x cheaper run by a guy in his basement? 


Value overflow? The 180 billion Bitcoin? You think open source is bullet proof just because everyone can look at it?


Open source is meaningless if the guys looking at the code are dumber than the ones in a company with closed-source software, electrum is open source, that didn't help much before 4.2.1

If that were the case, Bitcoin would be doomed because it's open-source, as malicious actors would exploit its vulnerabilities... wait a moment, which ones?.
Well-structured software doesn't necessarily have to be vulnerable.


If you boast about having huge genitals, there is no better way to show it than by getting naked.


No, open source has a reputation that precedes it due to expert evaluation.


Saying most users are not programmers is a very vague concept. Not everyone has to be a particle physicist to trust that quantum mechanics is real. To be 100% reliable, something must be carefully studied by impartial experts in the field.

So that will be too risky if casinos become open source because their competitor will their weakness and crashing their business. What casino needs to do is just gives satisfying to their members with so many things that can makes their members back to their casino. Becoming open source will makes all people can see inside of the casino so casino will not allow it because that will related to their business and how they can profit from that. Casino can show how transparent their business by showing honestly and fairness to their members and makes them satisfy with their best services. Their loyal members will not leave casino because they can comfortable playing gambling on that casino.

Casinos have a system called provable fairness which is used to verify the randomness which means the users don't have to blindly trust the reputation of the casino for fair results so I guess that is more than enough for an average gambler to get the satisfaction of the games are not being rigged. Making it open source will lead to less investment for the game development from the casino side cause anyone can use the codes so there's no margin for their investments here.

Since what you are saying is just a hypothetical, it is hard to say that this will happen since I have not seen any online casino games that are open source. Why is that?
maybe at one point you said it is ineffective.

Then I don't think it is necessary for an online gambling casino to do this. And besides, gamblers will not notice it either in my opinion.

It depends on the casino operators, but they can gain the respect of the gambling community if they make it open source so players can verify the fairness of the games, and bug hunters and software developers can add or recommend additional features and security.
The gambling industry is a game of trust among casino operators, and by having an open-source casino, they enjoy the respect and the trust of the gambling and gaming community.

There is no need for casinos to be more open source than they already are, actually if open source is by showing everybody how transparency they are they would be the ones using their hands to pull their business down because completely making themselves an open source is another way of nakeding themselves and we all understand how someone who is naked looks, everybody will see every parts and components both big and small, from there they have already given a call for scammers to duplicate everything about them either using it against them or using it against others, so actually since apart from soccer and few others no other games are open source, so no need for them to prove anything.

Actually, most of the casino owned games are open source. Most of the close source game comes from the 3rd party game provider which casino doesn’t have control already. Also, we doesn’t need the casino itself to become open source unlike what you described.

Being open source on the game is good as player since we can guarantee that the game is transparent but on the casino perspective it’s dangerous since anyone can copy their games easily while they spend money to develop it on there own.

I think that people overestimate meaning of open source. I believe that whenever people see open source somewhere, the immediately start to think that someone has already evaluated software, checked its code, found errors or weak points, and developers have all that fixed. Kind of "100% legit tag". So without hesitation they trust funds and personal data to that software. So to speak, they shift responsibility onto others. If casinos would become open source, nothing will be changed much, casinos possibly get more trust, but that can also have a negative effect, as scam casinos would add "open source" to their name and wait for gullible users.

That is what the excuse usually looks like and I am sure there is common sense on that question among all casino game developers.

What I have always asked myself is when these casinos use slot games from well known casino games developing companies (iGaming), is there any way for those casinos that buy let's say some slot machines, to tamper with the code afterwards? Are the casinos provides with options to tamper around with the RTP rate or can they limit jackpots somehow or do they have to accept the way those slot machines are built by the software companies the casinos obtain those games from?

It would good if they want to show the source, but it high unlikely to happen except newly poor casino who create their game from scratch. If you expect gambling providers to show their source, I'm sure it will not gonna happen sooner or later because other people can easily copy their source and casinos don't need to rent from them.

Also it's need big demand from the gamblers to force the casino to release the source, while most gamblers don't care with that at all.

It remains as an idea and we all know that the established casinos won't do that. They're also putting their business at risk with this since they're established to make a business and they've got still some ways to verify their fairness. If it's all about being fair, they do it but there's a heavier side of them being on the business side. It's understandable and that's how it goes, there were some attempts in the past about it to become decentralized and be an open source but those attempts were the one that perished.

This is a good thought and I've also thought of it many times. We all know these days that the so-called provably fair is not fair or provably anymore, they are simply a cover-up in most cases. However, as we are thinking about fairness, casinos will be thinking about how exposed they could be in their manipulations and how possibly the system could be exploited against them in the name of an open source.

By virtue, it is a high risk for any serious casino, so we should perish that idea, it will not happen in this current atmosphere.

The fear is that it can be modified and resold by certain individuals, I once read an article that there are some game scripts that are illegal and can be controlled by the buyers from who wins and loses when someone wants to play there while with licensed and regulated games tend to be expensive but it can be fairer than the illegal ones currently circulating they can set the API and modify the management of the game.

Of course I support this, because it can be seen publicly, whether it is because of luck that someone can get a win and or is a setting from the casino itself.

I suppose not. I also already mentioned this point above in the thread. Let's assume, hypothetically, that proponents of open source gambling, who cite open source as an important argument, would have to substantiate their thesis with statistical data on the proportion of programmers among gamblers. Even if such statistics are available, I believe that less than one percent of programmers are there. Then open source code as a means of control is simply ineffective, since it is incomprehensible to most non-specialists. Open source code on GitHub is effective for collaborative development, because 99.9% of users there are programmers. But a casino is not a GitHub.

A gambler who likes to play slot must understand what you are saying, indeed in slot games to be able to get big win or big multipliers must pass certain spin limits, lucky people can get it earlier but after that if they continue to play then the defeat with total amount more than the victory obtained will definitely happen.
I used to really like slots and over time until now I realized that slot games provide win that are always not commensurate and will not be felt because the defeat occurs gradually even in almost every round you can't get the same return as the amount of the bet that has been determined.

If that is done, it will clearly be very detrimental to the casino, people can think badly and have the perception that there is some kind of program for manipulation that ultimately most gamblers avoid certain games like slot, no casino will want to do it even though for gambler it is very profitable thing.

From gambler point of view it is a good idea to be able to look through every gambling process and check if casino is honest. From casino point of view that isnt fair, its an interference in business. Then any business should be open source. To make everyones possibilities even, casinos should be able to see gamblers full balance: accounts statement. Fair rules. You look at mine, I look at yours. But I am interested more if gambler would be qualified enough to see, find, examine, analyse casinos software.

Won't there be "well-wishers" for open-source code who can harm the game's owners? I think everything related to finances will be guarded, since there is always the possibility to steal what can be stolen, calling it a software error. We can agree that for players, open source will be an indicator of honesty, but for the casino, as it seems, there may be trouble.

I had another thought regarding this issue. If we consider open source and closed source products, using the example of graphic editors, we can see that closed source products are more technologically advanced, have a better user interface, are faster, more productive, are updated more often, have official technical support, i.e. have a significant advantage for the user. Many users choose them for these reasons. In the gambling sphere to choose from just nothing so we all use casinos with closed source code and do not even think about it. I think that even if we had the opportunity to compare, we would still choose a closed source casino because of the advantages described above.

I think it should be, if you are referring to provably fair games as people tends to look at those bet and verify it and also, it being open source could be beneficial for the owners as people can check for vulnerability too. Also it's a transparency to make your audience trust you more. I've played with a closed source, cheap casino (tried it out of curiosity) using TRX as their main currency and also a TRX based game, I can't verify my bets and even thought the chance of winning is more than 90% in their dice game, I lost 9 times in a row lol.

Though I only lost $5 to it.

Casinos have this policy where they of running a semi open source system. They do not have to let their games be open source if it is going to affect their business. There are certain parts of the open source that should be open sourced - we want to know how fair the game is, we also want to know truly random the game outcome. But for the other parts that could be tempered upon by bad actors, they should not disclose it to the public. They need to protect their business.

I guess that’s what we all want but we’re still seeing plenty of casino games that aren’t open source. It’s understandable, though, since there are many factors to consider. The top concern is security risks, and we can’t ignore intellectual property concerns either. These are some of the reasons why not everything is open source. At the end of the day, it’s all about reputation so if a casino is reputable, their games are likely trustworthy, whether they developed them in-house or not.

I like the idea of open source but its quite problematic when some or many users can alter the game codes. Let say the liquidity is there or there is a organic funds being generated by it, we cant say for sure if this will be smooth til the end. Some will turn into it and try to exploit it. Maybe we want that for transparency but if this platform bloom good then the next thing we shpuld worry is the security. Its a good debate indeed regarding this.

That would be nice if we can see all casinos games are open source or provably fair which means that gamblers can verify all their bets so there wont be suspicions from the gamblers. For now we have limited open sourced games, most of them are in house games created by the casinos starting from dice, crash, limbo, plinko, keno and few numbers of slot. While there are low number of open sourced games by 3rd party providers. Talking about the possibility of having all casino games to be open source, I think the chance is low unless 90% or even more gamblers start to leave those games because of that reason so the game providers start to change their games in order to get the gamblers back.

What it is for casino to open source though? Unless they've built their own games. So far most casinos have gambling operators, those slot game machines, and I doubt that they are going to open their code for us as this is a intellectual property. And we all know that there are a lot of competitions with slot developers, so there's no way that they will share the code and their competitors going to see it.

For me just play with a reputable casinos if you have doubts about the fairness. As their reputation precedes themselves, and you can check your seeds to see if it is provably fair or not.

Yes, this is the problem which is why the curtains are closed. It's gambling and one mistake of modification, especially in the algorithms, could ruin it all, and the one who's going to suffer after it is the business itself.

I do believe it's not needed as they always provide some explanation in their terms of service below the provably fair section. There are too many wannabe coders and hackers in this era, and if it's an open source, they are also opening problems for their business. So, the best way to keep it a little bit clean is to just explain it to their customers, especially the centralized gambling.
I think this is also a job for those who will give them licenses. They have to make sure that these online casinos are keeping it fair and not just robbing the gamblers.

Yes, the casino will not open their secret because that is related to their business. If we don't believes in casino, we don't have to visit the casino instead search for the other casinos to playing gambling. No one will force us to stay at the casino whether that is short or long time and we are free to choose the casino. So in this matter, we can let casino running their business without we think about many things. If we don't like the casino, we can simply visit the other casinos and playing gambling at that casino.

It may be a good thing for casino games to be open source, meaning the public can see the transparency of the code and contribute to making the game fairer for the users. But maybe the reason why developers are reluctant to make their games open source is probably because they don't want the public to see their code and know what secrets they have made in the game, and also to limit someone who wants to exploit the game or hack the game. So these basic reasons make game developers only make their game code closed. But I personally don't have a problem with that, because popular developers usually have the reputation and credibility to keep their games fair to the players.

In my opinion if the casino can prove the legitimacy of bets' results it's already enough. If they can do that without exposing their software publicly they don't have to be open source. However, of course it would be an act of greatness if they decided to be an open source casino, so the trust gamblers have for the casino would raise considerably. There are more pros than cons on this aspect.

The problem of malicious individuals taking advantage of those open informations to create shady copies isn't an exclusivity here. There are people attempting to hack and scam everything all the time. The best measure gamblers can take here is to be careful where they click and where they insert their personal data. It's not that hard to identify copy-cat websites.

The other issue is due to intellectual property. In this case, the developer of the open source casino must be aware about this possibility, so it must not be something which will bother him if it happens. His satisfaction must be focused on having a legit and transparent service, even though there are people who will try to take advantage of his work. It's not much different from Bitcoin and altcoins. Copies will be always present, with some people claiming they are going to overcome the original.

Agreed!  Casinos do not need to be Open Source, there is no need for that in my opinion.  Particularly if Fiat is a Currency they accept for deposits and withdrawals.  The only necessary thing is provable fairness.  As long as that is available for the customers, it does not help any of us with anything whether the Casino is Open Source or not.

But I swear there were a few Open Source Casinos out there years ago?  They were running on some random Ethereum Tokens even, unless my mind is playing games on me.  Were there not?

Trade secrets are pretty much out the window and that is why casinos will proabably stay away and why they have stayed away from that. Some other online casino can steal their busienss model and now they have created their own competiton. Something that ultimately I don't think casino operations especially online casino operators don't want to do because there is already enough competition.

We could say that some games could be tested mathematically by recording the results of thousands of bets and checking the statistics, but this is not a reliable science because the code could base its statistics on the amount wagered or how much money the player has credited to their account if it is not regulated. With so many possible scenarios, it is very difficult to speculate in this regard.

I think having all gambling games as open sources is rather an utopic situation, which is never going to happen as the market of gambling continues this direction. I like transparency, but I also can put myself in the shoes of those games providers who worked very hard on developing those games, just to be their source code being used by ill-intentioned scammers to try to gather people onto shady casinos and lose their money to modified games.
As it stands now, I am okey with close source games and providers, as long as they are regulated. A half way between closed source and open source could be a game being provably fairness. I could settle with only that.

Either that they don't know or that depending on the amount that you bet, there are already pre-arranged numbers of spins for a big win. Most likely, the first option.
Seriously, even if a casino claims that, won't prove it. Slot providers don't want something open to everyone, the same as casinos. I'm more than 99% sure that no casino will ever be open source in anything.

There is nothing bad if we have all of them in turned to an open source online crypto gambling platforms, once we know that we have in place a genuine platform, policies as well as the rules of every gambling platform is what we have to work on and still go by their requirements, so if there could be a way that peoples request in satisfying them with full transparencies in gambling is more needed , then going by the use of open source gambling platform is well appreciated.

They don't have to be open source. You have to read a bit more about provable fairness and you will understand that there's a good way for casinos to prove that results are pre -determined and therefore not based on your waggers. In the long run this also proved the fairness of results as it can be shown that it is random.

So in a large set of results if the percentages tend to the odds advertised then provable fairness is indeed working. For the short term if the rolls can be verified it means results were decided from before. More gambler's should demand this especially from slot companies I think.

Making Casino games open sourced may cost the house their edge at times because that uncertainty is the edge the house has got as it plays mostly in their favour and so if it's open source,  a whole lot can happen to sabotage the system and even the gamblers may be at risk at some point so literally it not been an open source, is actually in the favour of both the gamblers and the casino in the long run, it's a win win for both parties.

This is something I've asked before and I could swear a few people said that these games can be "provably fair" but not much more outside that.  How does one do that? If I walk in to a casino, say in Vegas and start playing slot machines, am I going to be able to ask them, "hey I've put 1000 dollar in this thing, maybe about 50 pulls and still haven't won anything, I don't think its fair can you prove it to me that it is?  What are they going to say?

While they're giving provably fair verification for each hash and results for some games. Having the games open source seems to be a good idea.

However, I see a loophole here. We all know that casinos are for profit and there's something from the codes and algorithm that's being set to these games.

So, I highly doubt that they are going to allow these games open source and let the community do the checking for looking at their codes.

Usually as we know most casinos do hide things from their following competitors because they wouldn't want to looks as if the other people want to know about them, therefore, they might want to hide to some things about them with other casinos, nowadays casinos are too stringent concerning their rules and mode of modus operandi and they will always wants to stay on the winning side and of course when they see that other casino are trying to imitate them they wouldn't mind hiding some things about them towards the other casinos.

It's not about them agreeing or not, but it's just a suggestion and how to please the customer demand, but yeah, I agree with you that they might not agree with that, not just because of the fairness of the game but also because it's their business and they might want to hide some things from their competitors, but open source will really be a good one, but regardless of how it is, the casino will still always stay on the winning side.

I think I agree that the games should be open sources casinos. For their reasons. There are two ways to discuss this, the positive response and negative reactions.

People even stealing the software and it will be useless because the most people like to patronize reputation casinos and game first before looking for.thw counterfeit. And there are many reputable casinos one.

I think most of the reputable casinos here has shown their "Provably Fair", or at least you can test it out for yourself if they are really not cheating, and getting your client and server seed for verification. The problem is that not most gamblers are using it, maybe they are not technically include or just to lazy to check it.

So for me this could be enough for us gamblers to see what's going on behind. And their software could be propriety software and so they want to protect it.

Probably in the early days though, the software is not that "bullet proof", and we have heard individuals exploiting it and probably this is one reason why they want their code closed source. Not defending the casinos here, but I think the operators are not going to do this request.

I agree with what you said. However, 97% of the games you find on the casino are provided by the iGaming developers, content providers, and game publisher websites an example are Pragmatic Play, Betsoft, BGaming, etc. I am sure this iGaming provider team won't want their gaming code to be open source to prevent plagiarism or imitation of their gaming concept.
The only thing casinos can do in the area of transparency you pointed out is the provision of provably fair which will allow players to verify their game result.

Original games are mostly shared to create a fair system, to check your result is fair,correct or without manipulation. If you are referring to "slot" your thread question should be sent directly to the game provider not casino, cause most of the time casinos only pay license to the game provider and setup the dashboard to their casino without any access to the RTP.

The only things casino can do to the game provider only asking or requesting some game or table with the themes using their casino brand theme. These discussion already being discuss for checking RTP, other from third parties. But, until now we still don't have any system from third parties to check the fairness, RTP or other things for the slot. The only things you can do is trust them.

And you think casino would be readily to do that?
Well, sincerely speaking it is hard because most casino wouldn't want people to know in their internal congregation how the games is being coded if it's provably fair enough, and as we know casino do codes most of the games to favor them most than those who are playing it. So, if we requests for an open source it would be as if that we want to know how they operate, and for sure most casinos are builts and modified in a way to favor them the most.

That would actually be good as it would give us a chance to test if the casino is actually working as intended or ripping their customers off. Come to think of, I think I have never heard of a casino like that. The casino owners would say that they didn’t want to share their secret sauce but then they don’t have to provide the full code maybe? Only share the actual algorithm that decides the winner and that would be enough to test the behavior of the casino.

That’s a brilliant suggestion op.

*pats on the back

For transparency, it should be open source and also for security, as they can invite developers and bug hunters to check the security and flaws of the code.
By opening it and inviting bug hunters to check their code, they can enhance their security, and besides, the casinos do not rely on source code alone but on its reputation and how they present themselves to the gambling community through marketing and good interaction.

There are pros and cons to any innovation. I think most gamblers would support such an idea. The problem is that not all casinos and gambling providers will agree to this and not because someone can use modified software, but because they do not want to be so open to users. If they wanted to do this, we would have long seen this implementation, because in fact, most casinos have the same gambling games using different user interfaces and open source code could well attract users from competitors.

Of course, the open source of the games would hypothetically ensure the transparency of the casino. However, this approach has too many consequences. First of all, I don't think there are many experts among the mass of gamblers who could check the code. In other words, the effectiveness of this method of ensuring transparency is low. And there is no need to object that a certain specialist could do this for everyone, since there is a question of trust in this specialist as an auditor.

In addition, resources have been invested in game development, then opening the code will devalue this asset. Also, open source code can be modified, made private, and used for commercial purposes. Even these arguments are probably enough to assess how open source is not beneficial for developers or gambling providers, and also does not bring any advantages to casinos. By the way, a casino's good reputation is created primarily by timely payment of money, trouble-free deposit transfer, and trust in the integrity of gaming is more likely to be the responsibility of the gambling provider.

The problem is not with the casino as their games developed “house games” are all open source rather it’s due to the game provider that wants to protect their properties from copyright like what you mention and also to avoid exploits since no one can see their code except.



It’s true that being open source makes the code stronger but this is casino we are talking which means there’s a lot that will choose to exploit rather than build with it.

You have proposed an absolutely correct method for assessing the honesty of a casino. But it is not profitable for them, because an open source project will be immediately copied. And casinos spend hundreds of dollars on developing their code, on which the mechanics of gambling will work. But as a gambler, I would show a lot of trust in those casinos that could prove to me through blockchain that the result of gambling is honest. But so far I have not met such casinos.

This topic is popular long time ago when slot games was newly introduced on crypto casino while open source game like dice and crash are still popular games here.

Casino should make their game open source if we are talking about fairness here but I believe there’s some important reason why game providers wants their code close source and IIRC it’s due to security purposes since hacker can easily find way to exploit vulnerabilities if their code has some loopholes which is popular scenario before that many cheat on slot games.

Close source game is now being played on trust basis which is working for a long time. We can’t do anything about it but I always preferred playing open source.

Should online casino games be open source? The simple answer is yes, Because if the casino is open source there are lot benefit of it. According to google it includes cost-effectiveness due to being freely available, increased flexibility to customize and modify the code, enhanced security through community-driven code review, transparency as the source code is accessible, reduced vendor lock-in, and a collaborative community providing support and innovation

See I highlighted some of the word transparent and security the biggest important thing on casino

This idea may seem at first glance like an act of transparency on the part of the casino. Allowing anyone to review the software to ensure the games are fair and not manipulated, or contribute improvements and new ideas, gives users added confidence.

However, there are extremely negative aspects such as the intellectual property of exclusive games, the possibility of malicious individuals modifying the code to create fraudulent versions of the games, and the impact on the compliance with laws and regulations to which casinos are subject.

What is your opinion?

I'm not sure if this topic has been discussed here before; if so, I apologize in advance.