An update regarding concerns listed above, Bitcoin Cash, and future development
Over-Raked and Under-Raked Pots
Some months ago we discovered a system bug where pots were both over-raked and under-raked. We will make no adjustment for under-raked pots and will fully refund over-raked pots. The bug happened rarely and did not affect many players. This process will include a full auditing of our hand history system and will be resource intensive. The scale of this issue was small, and will be addressed in due time.
I agree, this is not an adequate update.
How do you know that this was a rare problem that was small in scale if you haven't run the numbers? Exactly how much money needs to go missing before SWC makes this a priority?
Part of the reason that players kept mum about this bug as long as they did is because some players were purposely exploiting the bug to screw over other players and it was assumed that more people would exploit it if the issue was widely known. You also faded a couple of kook's more important questions about the site's solvency.
I would like answers to the following questions:
1. Can you please specify when the bug was introduced and fixed both the first and second times? I have heard speculation that the bug was present since the inception of the current site, was initially fixed sometime in 2016, and then re-fixed in early April of 2017. However, it would be very helpful to know exactly which hands were affected by this bug. When the bug was discovered and fixed the first time, were the affected players reimbursed or even notified at that time? Why not?
2. Will SWC be releasing a script (the one that's already been written) to allow players to calculate what they are owed from their personal HHs? Some players already know what they're owed, while the rest of us have no idea. There are a few players that are writing scripts from scratch to find out, but it grinds my gears that you have a script already written that you are not making available to your players. If this is such a rare problem that did not affect many players, why are you being so cagey about telling people what they're owed or even letting them figure it out on their own? Wouldn't it be better for SWC to release an official script rather than have six different un-vetted versions floating around? This reminds me of when carlo88 had to write and distribute a script to fix your broken HHs because SWC devs never got around to it (they still haven't gotten around to it). Why are your players being forced to do the job of your developers?
3. Will you make HHs available to players from the relevant dates when the bug was active? I have heard that people have written to support asking for their HHs so they could make their own determination of how rare and insignificant this bug was only to have their requests denied. This makes me uncomfortable because it means that if players didn't notice that the default configuration on SWC is to not save your HHs, they will have no way to independently verify that they were repaid in full.
4. Can we have a better ETA than "in due time"? Your phrasing makes me think this is an issue you are currently devoting zero resources to. Are you sitting on this problem until the price of coin drops? I am frustrated that when you learned about the underraking bug from your players that you owe, the dev team was all over it in less than 12 hours, while
you expect your players to give you indefinite-length interest-free loans for the amounts missing from their winnings. So, to quote kook:
5. Is SWC insolvent? Would it bankrupt the site to repay stolen funds? I see that the guarantees on the overkrills were lowered again a few days ago, while the rake caps and minimum withdrawals have remained unchanged. This, in addition to SWC cutting back every other player promotion on the site (leaderboard, high-krill krillrolls), makes me presume that the site is losing money. What happens when you're raking less than your overhead costs? Are you going to just turn off the servers when your BTC faucet runs dry, thus turning the bug into an exit scam?
Right now, I think that
restoring your players' trust in the site's ability to spread fair games and repay players affected by software bugs in a timely manner should take precedence over any new feature development, including the new Windows client and BCH. If you need to take the site down for a week to perform the audit, do it. SWC has a serious credibility problem that isn't going to go away until people start seeing some actions backing up your promises and better communication in general. I can't recommend SWC as a trustworthy site and won't be playing raked games there until balances are made whole.
TL;DR: SWC hasn't reimbursed players for misappropriated funds for a minimum of 4 months, if not years. I don't recommend playing or keeping funds on SWC until they can account for the missing coins and pay back their players in full.In retrospect, I regret originally referring to this as an "overraking" bug.
As you can see from the below HH (player names removed), we aren't talking about pots being overraked by a few cents, we're talking about pots being shorted by an order of magnitude more than the correct rake. For example, this pot was raked 0.18 mBTC in addition to player4 being shorted 2.50 mBTC because player2 left before the hand was over. At current prices, this single hand was "overraked" by about $10 USD and they were "raking" close to 27%.
You will also note that the timestamp on this hand shows it was played a full 4 days after SWC said that the bug had been addressed in this thread, so either SWC didn't consider it important enough to restart the server for at least 4 days after they patched it or the bug still isn't fixed.
We are deploying a fix to this bug with our next restart.
We had thought to have fixed this, but after a subsequent patch was applied it seems to have come back.
Hand #15436219: Pot Limit Big O - 0.50/1
2017-04-06 09:40:37
Table 'Deep Giant 1' Seat 4 is the button
Seat 1: player1 (211.37)
Seat 4: player2 (310.19)
Seat 5: player3 (552.98)
Seat 6: player4 (135.85)
player3: posts the small blind 8960060
player4: posts the big blind 8960032
Dealt to player4: [7s Tc Jh Kd Ts]
player1 raises to 2.50
player2 calls 2.50
player3 calls 2.50
player4 calls 2.50
*** FLOP *** [6s 3c 6d]
player3 checks
player4 checks
player1 checks
player2 checks
*** TURN *** [6s 3c 6d] [9s]
player3 checks
player4 bets 4.87
player1 folds
player2 folds
player3 folds
player4 wins pot (7.32)
*** SUMMARY ***
Seat 1: player1 (208.87) -2.50
Seat 5: player3 (550.48) -2.50
Seat 6: player4 (140.67) +4.82
Rake 0.18
Here's another hand where the pot should have been 52.65 mBTC but only 29.25 mBTC was given to the winner. The pot was "overraked" by 23.4 mBTC (~$93 USD) and they're "raking" 44%.
Hand #14410052: Pot Limit Big O - 0.25/0.50
2017-01-29 06:09:24
Table 'Deep Monster' Seat 6 is the button
Seat 3: player1 (71.31)
Seat 4: player2 (133.26)
Seat 5: player3 (146.90)
Seat 6: player4 (99.16)
player1: posts the small blind 4701836
player2: posts the big blind 4701808
Dealt to player3: [4s 7c 6c 2d Qh]
player3 folds
player4 raises to 1.50
player1 calls 1.50
player2 raises to 6
player4 calls 6
player1 raises to 24
player2 folds
player4 calls 24
FLOP [3d Jd As]
player1 checks
player4 checks
TURN [3d Jd As] [8h]
player1 bets 47.31, and is all in
player4 folds
player1 wins pot (29.25)
SUMMARY
Seat 3: player1 (76.56) +5.25
Seat 4: player2 (127.26) -6
Seat 5: player3 (146.90)
Rake 0.75
bump.
We're still waiting for a real reply, SWC. Please provide information that is useful and true.