The Alphaville Herald

89 Responses to “Automated Single-Player Zyngo – a Game of Skill or Gambling?”

1. 

   All Seeing Eye
   

   Sep 25th, 2009
   

   So turn it in to the proper authorities and let them deal with LL. And if they won’t then there is a nice juicy story which you can enhance by letting the companies that run Indian Reservation casinos know about it. You can bet the Tribes will be setting up shop in SL if they can get away with it.
2. 

   Urizenus Sklar
   

   Sep 25th, 2009
   

   I haven’t played zyngo so I don’t know how it works, but the 10% chance of winning is not conclusive evidence that there is no skill involved. Presumably that is across a general population with varying degrees of skill. So some could win 15% of the time and some could win 5% of the time. If your chart is accurate there is a 10X return on such a wager, so that for anyone who can win more than 10% of the time it is a rational bet. That is, if your skill level is better than the general population the bets become rational for you. I don’t know if that counts as gambling or not, but it is a way to make money if the games aren’t rigged.
3. 

   Stephan
   

   Sep 25th, 2009
   

   You suppose top casinos make 18.800 USD per day because they can affort 240 USD for a weekly ad and pay for a sim (300 USD/month)??? I don´t get it. From my experience and I know many casino owners, some with serveral hundret machines. They are all very much disappointed. They pay tons of money for the machines, for the ads and for the land and hardly get any people to play and there are hardly ever any people paying more than 50 ld per game. Not Casinos are the huge money maker, Aargle Zymurgy is!!!
4. 

   Darien Caldwell
   

   Sep 25th, 2009
   

   The auto play sounds very much like a slot machine, and obviously doesn’t require any skill what so ever. LL should really take another look at this, if they are serious about banning gambling and want to stay on the good side of the law.

   I do have issue with one statement:

   “Where a typical well run Second Life business selling virtual goods or services can make up to about L$ 50,000 ($188 USD) a day, a successful Zyngo parlor can generate up to L$ 5,000,000 ($18,800 USD) in one day.

   These numbers sound unreal, but how else can the owners afford to pay $240 USD per week for classified ads? ”

   The answer is, by making $240 USD a week (64,000L a week). SL’s gambling industry is no different than any other in SL, there’s a lot of people rolling 100% of their profits back into SL.
5. 

   Noel
   

   Sep 25th, 2009
   

   I agree about the gambling. Take it from someone who worked in the casinos in Nevada. I’ve played these before, and they are pretty easy to get hooked on. I stop before I lose lot’s of money. But I have friends that are addicted and instead of trying to find a job on SL, they play these to try to make money. As a whole, I think they’ve spent more than they’ve earned so far. As a business owner myself, I’ve often wondered about the HUGE amounts of money that is paid for classifieds for these games. It boggles the mind, and unless the games are filtered out, they take up pages of classifieds and those of us who pay much less for ads, get buried under them. There needs to be just a game classified area separate from the rest of the classifieds. And with all the new adult content laws going up, would this fit as “Adult” since it is gambling?
6. 

   Ernest Greenberg
   

   Sep 25th, 2009
   

   Darien Caldwell: you clearly did not read the previous parts of the story I guess? (parts 1 and 2). 64000L$ a week for a Zyngo parlor when they have games out where people play for up to 50000L$ a game?!? I really can not believe they only make 64k L$ a week even with a 10% or less earnings rating. Look at the screenshots of those weekly contest they organise for 500000L$. They must make at least 500000L$ a week to be able to pay that contest out, isn’t it? That’s why I think the reporters info could be true, even when like the reporter says “These numbers sound unreal”. That owners are cashing out big dollars and LL is doing same thing on what is gambling, no doubt about that. You are right LL should review this kind of SL businesses or deserve troubles with the lawmakers.
7. 

   Darien Caldwell
   

   Sep 26th, 2009
   

   “They must make at least 500000L$ a week to be able to pay that contest out, isn’t it? ” You’re assuming someone is capable of winning. I’m pretty sure it’s rigged so no-one ever wins.
8. 

   IMHO
   

   Sep 26th, 2009
   

   To:Ernest Greenberg.

   I feel that we should tell the lawmakers to shove those internet gambling bills up their butt. America is supposed to be a free country. Life,Liberty and the pursuit of hapiness.
9. 

   We
   

   Sep 27th, 2009
   

   I’d been saying it for a long time, I don’t care how much they want to say it’s a “Game of Skill”, Zyngo is plain and simple Gambling. I’ve even seen Zyngo places tag themselves as “Las Vegas style”, which is pretty outright laughing in the face of the Gambling ban.

   It would seem Linden Lab doesn’t want to ban Zyngo, I would say they didn’t want to ban Gambling in general, that an outside source stepped on them, and they had to push it, Zyngo is masked just enough that they could deny accountability. Gambling in SL means that people are throwing away all their money to slot machines, and buying more money from the LindeX, which LL gets a cut off of, not to mention all the land with casinos on it, and classified ads costing hundreds of dollars a week paid directly to LL. So LL benefits from Gambling in SL as much as the Casino owners.

   A Game of Skill means that a person with sufficient skill could win 100% of the time. For example, in malls and arcades you can find those machines that offer big prizes like iPods and such, if you can do some difficult thing, it varies, but the point is it’s incredibly hard to do and most people only get the secondary crappy prizes if anything. But there are people out there who have mastered these games, and actually can make a living on them, by going into these places and winning all the big prizes and selling them on eBay. These are games of skill because people can, almost 100% of the time (allowing for human error), win the jackpot. A game of skill, by definition, can have zero intentional randomization, “Luck” should have nothing to do with it, even in Zyngo’s display to LL, the veteran players only TENDED to get higher scores, and that was when the machines were rigged.

   The fact that Zyngo has a random number generator very much like slot machines, with a random occurrence that can double or nothing your points without you having any control over it, proves outright that it’s a poorly masked slot machine.
10. 

    LibertyLOL
    

    Sep 28th, 2009
    

    In my opinion, whomever plays these games and loses loads of money on it, deserves it. Gambling is stupid, and to not realize that these games are exactly that, is not too smart either.

    Re: “America is supposed to be a free country. Life,Liberty and the pursuit of hapiness.”

    Is *supposed* to be yes. But in reality, it’s all but a free country. At least in countries like China the citizens know where they stand and that they have no rights except the right to obey their government, which IMHO is better then the sneaky arrest and locking up people in Guantonomo bay because they’re ‘suspects of terrorism” because they openly admit to be against the way the US government handles the situation in the Middle East.

    A lot if the things that the US government does, like tapping phonelines with the excuse of the war on terror, reminds of the other superpower in the sixties. Something a certain vocal SLebrity that used to frequent this blog can tell you all about. (and I hereby invite him to do so)

    The “and the land of the free” in the American national anthem always makes me laugh a little. Only a little, it would be totally hilarious if it werent so sad that most Americans dont realize how much BS that really is…

    He who gives up liberty for security, deserves neither.
11. 

    Bored
    

    Sep 29th, 2009
    

    Zyngo is indeed a game of skill (albeit skill capable of a 5 year old). It is “betting on the outcome” that is undeniably gambling.
12. 

    icallbullshit
    

    Sep 29th, 2009
    

    “He who gives up liberty for security, deserves neither.”

    Well timed comment Bored! Hi5! 1st god damned lucid thing Ive read in here in months
13. 

    Bored
    

    Sep 30th, 2009
    

    Nice moderating there – you switched mine and ‘LibertyLOLs’ comments around. I made the “betting on the outcome” comment.
14. 

    Tiraxi
    

    Sep 30th, 2009
    

    I have been playing Zyngo in-world for quiet a while by now, being more interested in the machine’s behaviour rather then in possible personal L$ profit or loss. I even bought some Zyngo machines myself to this purpose. Personnally I have good background in statistics and probability, and I am an experienced scripter both in RL and SL.

    I can agree that “some skills”, even in automated play, will improve the scores, however I am having strong doubts concerning a “true randomization”. I have noticed so many repeated generated sequences which seem just statistically impossible, that it suggests manipulation within the scripts.

    If that appears to be true, the “proof” ran by the creator is not worth alot, right ? Also, what is the value of having skills against manipulation ?

    I only can see 2 ways to analyse this and to come to a solid conclusion :
    1. Open source
    2. Independant sampling and analysis
15. 

    MisterMasterCrack
    

    Sep 30th, 2009
    

    I agree about the manipulation in Zyngo. I will tell you a little secret about it. I found it while attempting to ‘understand’ Zyngo (you may also call it ‘crack’ :p). When you start a Zyngo session, the machines game ‘core’ script communicates this kind of information to the ‘drawing’ script:

    Message : 15, -3555, 2147, 2008-10-17T21, (owners UUID), 55000, 7, 0, 0

    In this line, the amount of LOST games is communicated every time a new game starts to the randomizerscript (the script that picks the numbers). In this case it is ’7′ times. The outcome of the gamesession will be manipulated by that number. The higher the number, the higher the chance to win the gamesession. You will notice that on such gamesessions, you will get the JOKERS on the exact spot you need them to score high. You will also notice that such gamesessions give nearly no devils to cut your score. This explains why nearly every first Zyngo sessions you play after a win on that Zyngo will never give a winning session…

    There are players out there that are using this trick to lift their winning chances for a long time now, since this always has been a part of Zyngo. They are able to do this because there is a way to see this info on every Zyngo. So you step to a Zyngo, you look at the ‘magic spot’, you see there are ‘WOW already 13 games played without a win’, so you start a game. You see another Zyngo with 0 games played since the last win, so you don’t want to play that one.

    But I am not the only smart one knowing this trick. There are OWNERS of Zyngo places playing their own machines (with alts) when this numbers gets too high in their machines. They ‘reset’ that number to lower the chances for their players.

    Manipulation in several ways is the least you can say…
16. 

    Anyomous
    

    Oct 1st, 2009
    

    How do you see this information that it gives out
17. 

    MisterMasterCrack
    

    Oct 1st, 2009
    

    You see this information because it is part of the informationfield of a certain prim in the Zyngo. The reason why this info can be found ‘on the outside’ of the machine is because the gamescript needs this info as ‘persistent data’ to keep functioning as it is programmed. That way even a reset of the scripts will not reset this information. The creator is now using the same technique to make his machines ‘un-clone-able’ through his so called ‘slysense protection’. That is also the reason why owners of Zyngo play their own machines with alts to ‘reset’ the magic number and lower the winningchances because they can not reset it just by simply resetting the scripts in the object. Is this a good explanation or maybe a bit more confusing?
18. 

    Anonymous
    

    Oct 2nd, 2009
    

    What information field ? Is this like something in the advanced menus?
19. 

    MisterMasterCrack
    

    Oct 3rd, 2009
    

    Hey man I’m not here to help one out for his own greed. I’m here to point out there are several ways to manipulate that game. The gameplay is rigged by the scripts that make it possible to do this. I thought this discussion was all about that.
20. 

    Anonymous
    

    Oct 3rd, 2009
    

    Oh I was just curious hell I don’t even consider linden a real currency theres no greed in it for me
21. 

    Koko
    

    Oct 7th, 2009
    

    “Zyngo parlor can generate up to L$ 5,000,000 ($18,800 USD) in one day?” What planet are you living at? This article is a bunch of nonsence!
22. 

    Private
    

    Oct 8th, 2009
    

    @Koko, I guess you did not read the other parts of this article that were presented on this website about a week ago. Also check out the places named on the articles screenshots and you will see these are no nonsence (although it sounds incredible and unreal). What more is, I ran several places like that myself but had to quit due to real life reasons. I can tell you this article is pretty accurate. I have seen people playing my Zyngo machines for all night putting in up to 1 million lindens a person. Why do they put in that much? Mostly because they put in like 20k lindens a game and they expect to win the big pot of lets say 100k lindens. But when they notice they played 10 games without a win and get frustrated about the 200k they already lost, they just keep playing to win back what they lost. Result is they lose incredible amounts of lindens. That is how Zyngo works and every experienced player and owner will agree with that phenomenon. I can not else but agree that we are talking about a form of hardcore gambling here because of the high amounts of money played compared to the low winning chances.
23. 

    Anonymouse
    

    Oct 9th, 2009
    

    Wish I could make enough to have my own machine
24. 

    Anonymous
    

    Oct 9th, 2009
    

    Something else that bothers me is how places force you to have group tags on and constantly give you those popups to join group/get landmark and theres no way to stop them.
25. 

    AZ
    

    Oct 16th, 2009
    

    It’s kinda sad when “experts” are believed so readily about stuff that’s simply wrong. This, for example, is dead wrong:

    –
    I agree about the manipulation in Zyngo. I will tell you a little secret about it. I found it while attempting to ‘understand’ Zyngo (you may also call it ‘crack’ :p). When you start a Zyngo session, the machines game ‘core’ script communicates this kind of information to the ‘drawing’ script:

    Message : 15, -3555, 2147, 2008-10-17T21, (owners UUID), 55000, 7, 0, 0
    –

    Spend a little time poking around without preconceptions and you’ll find that those numbers are,in order, 1) The current pot, 2) total profits or losses, 3) Number of games played since reset, 4) date of last reset, 5) UID of the person with the current high score (or the owner if there isn’t someone) 6) the high score set (or just the score used for instant win games), and the rest of the numbers are overhead for games where a minimum number of games have to be played, and the flexy-score numbers. More recent games encrypt the profit figures for owner privacy. None of those things above have anything to do with how the game board is operated. But then, people can go on thinking so, right along with clicking madly on the game surface, wearing a lucky hat, or whatever superstition seems to work best for them.

    Oh, and, FWIW, autoplay is a mixed blessing. It helps noob players not miss things, but the better players know that there are times NOT to play some numbers, and so that feature is often unused.

    For those who have owned games long enough, they’ve found that the players have gotten steadily better over the last couple years. At least one person has published a guide to better play.
26. 

    JN
    

    Oct 16th, 2009
    

    This article must have some truth in it when the creator of Zyngo ‘AZ’ or ‘Aargle Zymurgy’ (or his alt ‘Odysseus Fairymeadow’, or should we just call you by your name ‘Tim’ ?) feels the need to comment here. Now you are here, why don’t you answer the many issues stated in the article and the comments? Zyngo is a gamblingdevice and the ‘autoplay’ only makes it worse. You state not everyone uses the ‘autoplay’ but that does not matter. What matters is that it is there. What matters is that Zyngo is random, like bingo is random, isn’t it? Why don’t you just answer that simple question: is bingo(=zyngo) random? Even though you know that and you consciesly distribute your slotmachine knowing that, you simply keep insinuating that there is skill involved. A guide to better play can also be made for most other gamblinggames you know. You are distributing a rigged gamblingdevice in a computersystem controlled by a Californian based firm. You earn thousands of dollars doing that and you probably don’t pay taxes in Texas for the dollars you cash out through your Paypal. Once your identity will be revealed, you better start running Tim.
27. 

    Anonymous
    

    Oct 17th, 2009
    

    I know a little bit of programming and one little bit of information is that no computer program is random, ever, it’s simulated with things like random number generators.
28. 

    JN
    

    Oct 24th, 2009
    

    I am pleased to find out that mister Aargle Zymurgy is a friend of the Lindens. They are even taking pictures of him and put his head on their Flickr page lol. If you want to look the devil in the eye, go to the page of… Teagan Linden: http://www.flickr.com/photos/teaganlinden/3883170188/
29. 

    Highroller
    

    Nov 16th, 2009
    

    I am playing Zyngo since years and able to say that the payout of such machines is much better than 2D Casinos in the www. The payout is fair and not like the statements above. And by the way the contest of blueline is in addition to regular payout and they are paying. Much of the statements above are wrong, they should they try instead of positing this bullshit.
30. 

    Anonymous
    

    Nov 16th, 2009
    

    Well what is the strategy you are using to win more often
31. 

    Highroller
    

    Nov 17th, 2009
    

    I wont post my strategy here, but there are serveral ways to have sucsess with this kind of games. There are thausends of Zyngos with small bet in SL, so every can try self.
32. 

    zyngolover
    

    Nov 17th, 2009
    

    im a zyngo player and playing most high stakes.
    ive won the many contests and this 500k contest too.
    most owners are honest,most the bigger places,cause theyre wont spoil theyre name and business.
    AND ZYNGOS GOT NONE REGULATED PAYOUT SCRIPT INSIDE;NO MATTER HOW MAYN GAMES WON OR LOST.
    MANY WINNINGS OR LOSTS IN A ROW ARE POSSIBLE.
33. 

    Tiraxi
    

    Nov 21st, 2009
    

    Well well Highroller, it sounds as you are an expert in the the scripting part of the machines. Why don’t you share your knowledge…

    I’ll add some other observations i made :
    1. The information MisterMasterCrack referred to in an earlier post, can be found in the description line of machine’s score prim, and can be manipulated directly by the owner of the machine.
    2. Zyngo has an major issue(bugs) in laggy environments, and i’d say most regions in SL are in that situation. The texture changes on the mainboard are often delayed. Each Zyngo player knows that e.g. uncovering the multiplier(2x) is of key importance. Whats the point of being “skilled” when you cant rely on info whether this happened or not, thus being unable to apply the appropriate strategy as of then.
34. 

    Anonymous
    

    Nov 23rd, 2009
    

    Yeah if you can’t find that stupid 2x you are basically screwed which sucks too. I have at a few places seen a new gametype where itll actually reveal where the 3 special ones are (2x,angel,diamond) called Revealer, but not alot of places have it yet.

    My one key thing is that I have never ever put a dime into second life so weither I have 1 L or 1000L it is all pretty much worthless imo.
35. 

    sammy111
    

    Nov 27th, 2009
    

    there are highly illegaly places with gambling in SL. this Game-Club-Neptune transfering illegal money into SL to wash it.
    theyre using kids in china in farms to play online games. and involved in illegal sports bets.i never would go playing there.
    i aslo owned a gaming place in past,i had none chance cause of this china-mafia-guys.
36. 

    cavaniago
    

    Nov 27th, 2009
    

    there is a lot of criminal energy in SL,just like in RL.
    but i wont let them spoil my SL.
    i dont need to play,no gambling no cry.
37. 

    Yonas T.
    

    Nov 28th, 2009
    

    most gaming places in SL are fair. not all people are cheaters or bandits.
    zyngo is fair and attractive.
    much better than regular 2d casinos.
    i played on 2d platforms before and always lost.
38. 

    Anonymous
    

    Nov 29th, 2009
    

    Well my luck with these machines flat out sucks
39. 

    zyngo-place-owner
    

    Dec 22nd, 2009
    

    we owners dont earn much.people getting most back.sometimes only losts for owners. and owners paying tier and adds.
    i often thought about to quit cause all this stress and bad earnings arent worth it
    so i dont understand this discussion at all

    merry xmas for all of you
40. 

    Anonymous
    

    Dec 23rd, 2009
    

    Are they ever going to have another part to this article?
41. 

    Ernestt S.
    

    Jan 27th, 2010
    

    im tired of all this. since the damn china mafia came into sl.
    spamming,harrasing,threaten me in sl and RL.
    i say goodbye to this evil SL.
    i never will come back until linden lab did fair and clearly rules.
42. 

    Joe
    

    Feb 14th, 2010
    

    We need to come together and go to PayPal and other businesses as a group to protest. I personally sent them info about the illegal gaming on Second life and got no where, I think they love the cash cow linden labs too. When I wrote to linden labs of course know response. I personally have lost $1000s of us dollars playing zyngo and do not even top the list for the high rollers. It is illegal gambling and needs to be stopped. I am also approaching university’s on second life about Linden Labs gambling activity’s. I do not think any upstanding university would want to be involved with a business who intentionally practices in illegal activity. Linden Labs may want this to be their own little world, but for now it is in the United States and governed by the laws of.
43. 

    Anonymous
    

    Feb 14th, 2010
    

    Not like there’s any other good ways to get it oh well at least I never have once put real money into SL as i dont trust paypal or linden labs with credit card info
44. 

    Zyngo Player
    

    Mar 14th, 2010
    

    I am curious to know what people have against gambling, gaming, skill games or whatever it is you want to call them in the first place? Also, why is it a bad thing that businesses, such as LL or the Zyngo rooms mentioned in the article are out to make a profit? Most of these businesses are NOT out to cheat players and are run by honest, nice people. They provide a form of entertainment, that is provided in numerous other ways over the web and in traditional brick and mortar establishments. I play Zyngo to have fun, and to those people who say that places dont pay out their contests, have you ever really gone after one? Or hit a really high score and been paid? I have, and sure, there are dishonest places out there, but there are dishonest businesses everywhere, I sure don’t trust every mechanic in RL or every lawyer. Also the people who attack zyngo room owners for not paying taxes, how do you know that? The tax form for any self employed person in the US is a 1099, and it is up to them to file that if they wish. They are no different than any other self-employed person working in SL, or in RL that resides in the US. The chance that a zyngo room owner may or may not claim SL income on his/her 1099 is the same as any other person.

    Now that being said, I am also curious as to how familiar everyone is with gambling laws in the US regarding internet gambling/wagering. First of all the definition of gambling/wagering is a tricky thing. Wagering is when you are able to make bets in a game and cashout whenever you like, which believe it or not is different from the format of a solo zyngo machine. When I am playing zyngo, I can’t alter my bet on the particular game im playing, and once i’ve paid in i have one game to play on one machine. Much different than playing on a casino table game like roulette or craps or blackjack, where I can have multiple bets/hands at the same time with varried betting amounts. Also brought into the context of that definition are games DETERMINED by chance, and those that are merely INFLUENCED by chance. If any of you have noticed, there have been several games besides zyngo that are deemed acceptable, and also many others that are not. Thats because there are certain minimum requirements to meet this criteria.

    So is Zyngo a form of gambling by popular definition? Yes, it probably is. Is it in the legal sense? That’s a much trickier question. But is it evil and all zyngo owners crooks? No. Just like anything in this world you can over do it, but just like everything that you can over do, they have support groups to help you quit, Gamblers Anonymous anyone?

    And so whats my point?

    If the ‘investigative reporter’ and others posting comments about the evils of zyngo applied that same amount of energy and passion into doing something productive, then maybe they wouldn’t have to worry about how others choose to spend or make money, and they might even get out of Mom’s basement.

45. NeilLife Blog Blown Up – Copybot Client Claims Script Exploit | The Alphaville Herald
    

    Mar 16th, 2010
    

    [...] But the story does not end here – a visit to Google’s cache shows the final days of the NeilLife blog included claims of a script exploit that allowed in-the-know NeilLife users to copy scripts from objects, opening the door to the code behind the popular Bloodlines game and Aargle Zymurgy’s Zingo games of skill. [...]
46. 

    bah
    

    May 23rd, 2010
    

    Anyone know any strategies?
47. 

    Grizzly Smith
    

    Jun 30th, 2010
    

    I just got three Zyngo games in my little jazz club to try to keep people in the place when they do show up… and now you’ve got me all worried and whatnot. I’m taking the usual wait-and-see stance on this.

    (sigh)

    SL used to be fun.

    Griz
48. 

    ZyngoZ
    

    Aug 3rd, 2010
    

    anyone know any places to discuss zyngo strategy?
49. 

    goldglimmer
    

    Aug 14th, 2010
    

    * ZyngoZ…wanna be sure to win? dont play at all
50. 

    ZyngoZ
    

    Aug 18th, 2010
    

    not like theres any other good means to get L anymore SL is totally dead

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