What does the term "house player" mean to you?

I just thought I would ask this question to all and see what kind of responses we get.

The industry swears they don't use them.

Maybe if we get a more clear idea of what players consider "house players", there can be a solution for a problem that seems to be getting worse on a daily basis.

My (my opinion only) idea of what a house player is as follows:

Someone is who constantly "comped" because they will not be cashing out anyway.

A nickname logged in and controlled by the the site , for any reason at all.

Any person who has an advantage in the games , including but not limited to, possibly being able to purchase more than the allowed number of cards.

I realize this will probably be one of the hardest things to ever prove, if in fact, it can be done.

I am tired of the old story "just a lucky streak". I have spent enough money on online bingo to be one of the luckiest people alive.

After playing at MANY sites...I find the same thing at all of them. At first you win and win. Then it slows down and then all of a sudden you realize you can't win for the life of you!

What is up with this? Not one site has ever let me down in this respect. I cannot and will not believe it is just me. Has anyone else noticed this?

I feel it certainly is not OLD news and that we should keep posting our feelings about it in order to let the industry know that we are still watching and paying attention. Also, to let them know that it does matter! It IS important!

Hi Sissy

It's not just you who noticed this crap from the bingo sites. If you call them on it you get called a whiner or poor sport. If you win enough to cash out yourself a few times they boot you from their site for a trumped up reason. I always kept my big mouth shut as did my wife and just logged in, set up the games I wanted to play and logged out again. Or if I did stay to watch I just lurked essentially. Rarely did I get into the conversations, other than to say hello to the CL when I first entered the room. It is too bad these sites act this way. I know there are plenty of people who would love to have a site to play on that treated them fairly with respect to their winning and cashing out. I am sure these sites would make an "honest" fortune , because we would come play there in the droves. I would like to find one that pays a decent pot and treats its players well and takes Instadebit. I never want to run into the likes of Laverne, Evil Lynn and Rich again.

To me a "house player" would be one who literally plays for the house. I wonder if they are actually the owners of the affiliates who are doing this? I think they also have plenty of shills to go around as well. Maybe they pay the CL's to run a couple of IDs as well? Who knows? All I know is that all is not Fair 'n Square in online bingoland, especially when they don't even have the decency to publish a phone number so they can be contacted and dont respond to emails either if they dont feel like it and when you ask the CL about it they ask the manager and then you get told you are under "investigation and being audited".

The bingo portion of the sites seems to be their "Loss Leader" and the slots and casino games their real money maker and what keeps the player locked in and unable to cashout since they have a 12x playthru usually. When they are forced to play in all the bingo rooms and buy lots of cards just to meet their playthru requirement it kind of makes them a "house player ", then too. Even though they are just like me and want their winnings to go into their account.

Anyhow that's just my 2 cents worth for today. Thanks for having this site and posting all your valuable information.

Rob D

The term House player did fit me well once upon a time at Party Bingo. They would constantly ( almost daily ) put money in my account and this money could be used anyway I chose. This meant to me, I was playing on their dime against the true depositor. Yes, I made my fair share but I played at 2 of their sister sites and gave a ton so my bingo was basically on the house. Fair ? NO WAY ! to the others. I am sure MANY others out there do the very same.

I BEEN THERE/ MISSY

I believe the houseplayer problem is still going on. Its intresting to hear the version of "I been there". Seems to be a new way to ask regular players to play for the house with their money. A high risk for any site if that comes to public. I am almost sure that most CMs or CRs are not involved in this "houseplayer pool". I know some CMs and none of them ever told me about it. They just know what they need to know to manage the room.

For me houseplayers are either employers from the site, playing with housemoney as much as they can. They can maxx out all the time. Of course they cant keep the wins LOL.
Or, its just computers or programs who generate "ooc players". You never see them in any chatroom but they win and win.

And of course they all can manipulate the software, so just certain players win over and over again. Like it was said in many threads, to keep the high depositors or new players happy.

I am sure, unless there is an insider, who is willing to tell the truth to public and how it works, it will be very hard to ever proof it. But this whole industry acts like a closed club, they protect their nice business. And thats said in friendly words, if you know what I mean

I have an idea that we will never know for sure until or unless somebody (or all members of BPU via donations) goes into debt to purchase/lease the software that is used by the majority of the sites and puts it thru its paces. Parlay readily admits on their website that their software can be manipulated pretty much at will, and without an admission from some former owner or manager of a bingo site, players will never get to know how much manipulation can actually be done.

Now that manipulation according to Parlay's site leaves it up in the air as to how much can be done by the site to increase their profits and how much can be built into the software ahead of time by the programmers of the software when it's purchased/leased. It sounds like, if the manipulation is done by the programmer, the site leasing the software would have to request what they want....the rest of the manipulation that can be done by the site itself could include easy things like setting up dummy accounts/bots that seem like real players with automated preprogrammed responses in a chat room.

I think the main 'same winner' syndrome that makes me the craziest is to do a google search for a particular player, such as 'jeaniebuck' and find that name popping up all over the online bingo net and it's hard to understand how she could possibly play at so many sites at the same time and still win so frequently at all of them simultaneously at times. Some could argue that she 'prebuys' at all of them, but even with the wins that show up for her, she would have to be Bill Gates' daughter to have that much cash at her disposal.

I wonder, regarding the cost of the software, if a mutal interest in finding out this information could be had by a partnership situation that would include other bingo forums. I am willing to donate towards that venture.

Not that easy NMM, sorry. There will be things in the near future coming into open forum that will let you know more clearly what I am saying. Correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe that Parlay does not "lease" OR sell their software any longer. There is a huge amount of work to be straightened out and brought forward but FIRST all our "peas have to be in a row".

Last I heard, just to UPDATE to a newer version of Parlay, IF in fact it can even be done any longer, is in the neighborhood of $300K... lol I don't think what I could donate would make a fly flinch!! When it was for sale, I hear the price was approx $750K. Just heresay, nothing solid as proof, but from someone reputable in the industry.

Another point I want to address is...... "manipulation of software". As I have said before, my husband is a programmer analyst. According to him, the software cannot be "manipulated" in the way we are all understanding this to be. Software is programmed. It is built from specific codes in specific order to make it do what it does. In order to make it do something different it would have to be re coded and re programmed. Not a plug and play type of thing. But yes it certainly CAN be made to operate as the programmer wishes it to. Bottom line, TRUST your site where you play. If you don't, then best to leave it.

Accounts can be made by the house, by a bingo site that has no integrity. As I am certain they probably have a way to let house accounts have more cards than normal players, although I have no proof of this. It is just my opinion. I also see a house player as a real person who is playing on site bonuses against those who pay to play the game, knowing they cannot withdraw should they win and choose to do so.

There are many things gambling sites use to enlarge their edge even more than the typical % of house rake.... the part that is taken from what you bet BEFORE it hits the pot.



The only other "bingo" only forums I know of are affiliate sites who could give a damn about how the games are run as long as they get their piece of the perverbial pie!! Do you know of any who would be willing to blow their income to the hereafter?? Because once someone who is willing to talk gets hold of solid information, they COULD have the proof to shut down many sites. It would be a life threatening situation also I might add. I do not say this in fun either friend....
the people who are in charge of all this money are serious about protecting it.

I understand most of what you are stating; however, we are all aware of programs, such as antivirus/spyware programs that are free that can be 'upgraded' with purchased versions. The free program gives the barebones minimum version of the fullblown version. Granted, these may be two separate programs entirely, but each one has 'options' just like BPU has where different types of check boxes can be 'manipulated' to give the customer what he needs/wants for himself. They also have browers that offer plug-ins to add features that the basic browser doesn't have, such as Firefox and ad removal, etc.

This is the type of 'manipulation' I'm talking about....The basic program (or barebones) can be added to, I'm sure, depending upon what the customer desires at the time of purchase or lease. As for the site being able to set up house accounts and then manipulate the number of cards those accounts get compared to paying customers, that is also something that could be a plug in without having to alter or rewrite the original code. Case in point, the game Doom....it had a programming code built in that allowed players to write their own levels and share those on the internet with other gamers. The game could be played forever by other gamers sharing their own new levels....my son was a real Doom player and he downloaded and 'installed' those additional level plugins on a regular basis and each one changed the game entirely and kept the gamers enthralled for a very long time. That was one of the reasons the game was and still is so popular....the ability to manipulate it pretty easily without ever changing the 'basic' game that you bought off the shelf.

I didn't realize the software for online bingo was so expensive....but that would be an extremely good incentive to give the customer a product exactly as the customer needs it to be, including plugins that allow it to be manipulated just as easily as a 'game' a kid would love. And, yes, that would also be a very real reason why so many people in the know would sit down and shut up about it.