Pseudorandom number or just random - is there difference

[Barry_Glazer]

Supposedly even a live deck of cards is not random unless it undergoes at least seven “perfect” riffle shuffles (and my own assessment of that assertion is, that if they are in fact “perfect” shuffles, then you should be able to track every card that you knew the location of before the shuffle - theoretically, if not in practice).

I’d be more concerned that the machine is not using a random number generator of any kind, i.e., the ones (and I’ve seen the classification discussed here, but can’t remember it) that are more like a lottery in determining whether you’ll get a winner or not.

I think there’s more risk of a rigged machine than of one that is intended to be random by the manufacturer and the casino, but turns out not to be.

None of this is to say that the RNG can’t be flawed (intentionally or by design flaw), or the machine rigged, or that most anything else that we wouldn’t like, might not actually occur.

–BG

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3a. Pseudorandom number or just random - is there difference

Date: Tue Aug 22, 2017 9:15 am ((PDT))

I seem to remember reading, I think, VP random referred to as pseudorandom number generator. Maybe I am remembering wrong. Is it correct term, does it exist as the term or is it different than random as in a live deck of cards as opposed to electronic deck of cards?

[Norma_Posy]

“Random” is hard to define. There is a vast literature out
there on the topic.

For purposes of video poker, what is needed is a way to
provide for any card to be “as probable” as any other card, to within some
statistical criteria. That last phrase after the comma is “the best you can do.”

“Pseudorandom” is an admission of imperfection, applied to
any programmatic method of generating a random sequence. Some important person
once called this “living in sin.”

In the end, you have to realize that if a departure from
pure randomness is hard to recognize, you need not spend more effort on
improving it.

        I

understand that the RNG (random number generator) in a video poker machine runs
constantly, even between the deal and the draw. The precise millisecond that
the user hits a button is a natural randomness. So you have a random pick out
of a pseudorandom sequence. That’s possibly good enough for all practical
purposes.

I’m personally inclined to trust the Nevada Gaming
Commission’s dominion over in-state casinos. Seems to me that, say, a 3%
advantage for the house, averaged over a month for all the action on the floor,
would provide a satisfactory house income.

I have no such trust for “Indian” machines outside Nevada.
Biasing the RNG is programmatically trivial.

We folks here may play to better than 97% payback (on
certain payoff schedules) but the unwashed multitudes play well below that, to
the advantage of the house.

• • Norma