While, most of the time, humankind represents the pinnacle of evolutionary success, our species is still prone to the occasional accident or lapse in judgement. In business and technology circles, this fallibility is known as human error, and its effects have caused millions of pounds in damages to taxpayers, as well as to the NHS, British Airways, and the New York Times, among others. Perhaps most famously of all, though, an engineer’s failure to convert imperial units to metric left a NASA orbiter adrift in space.
Demonstrably Fair
While AI and automation are considered a potential solution to human-derived problems, both are young industries with applications mostly in freight and manufacturing. That still leaves many sectors at the mercy of innocent mistakes. However, online casino gaming sites have made strides in eliminating human error and bias from roulette. Consequently, providers like Paddy Power now offer transparent and “demonstrably fair” experiences.
Roulette, one of the oldest casino games in the world, having debuted at the Palais Royale in 1796, is a simple wheel and ball-based guessing game. However, elements of the game, like ball weight, the speed of the roulette casino wheel, and, of course, human error can alter the outcome of a spin, making it unfair to players. As money is almost invariably on the line in each roulette game, errors causn prove costly for both casinos and players alike.
The Human Element
At Paddy Power, for instance, the option to play without any croupier involvement at all improves the speed at which winnings are calculated and eliminates human error once and for all. The use of a digital version of the roulette wheel also reduces the possibility of manufacturing defects and problems caused by wear and tear. In the latter case, old wheels have longer deceleration speeds, which means that two roulette games in the same casino can produce different results under the same conditions.
Of course, it’s not possible to remove the human element altogether – even Skynet from the Terminator franchise was dependent on humans for a good chunk of its early history – and the loss of distinctly human traits like creativity and appreciation of art is almost invariably an undesirable outcome. Gaming companies, ironically enough, can also add more humans into the mix to reduce the potential for mistakes.
Random Number Generation
Almost all casino games utilise Random Number Generation (RNG) technology but, once again, it’s possible to weight the numbering one way or another. Paddy Power has its roulette wheels audited by several independent parties, all operating outside the influence of the company itself. This is what demonstrable fairness usually indicates; that a company cannot tamper with its games and can provide evidence that each spin of the wheel is unbiased.
The onus is always on casinos to make their games fairer with each passing day and the shift to online roulette has given companies both the ability to enhance security and game quality and to prove that everything is as it should be. Increased integration of AI and sophisticated RNG software should offer increased peace of mind for casino gamers too, going forward.
