Deliberately rigged competition?

mjm3346

Looks like we have gone from evidence to "prove" rigging to not knowing the method used to determine winners.

If it is an instant win I have won on all the long running daily instants and other instant wins this year include Quidco, Topcashback, Zoflora, Sudocrem, Refreshers, Yazoo, Cravendale and Keno.

easter65

Really Sad but nothing shocks me any more with comping, it's not what it used to be

oliveoyl

Most of the instant win type games are set up to decide on winners with either a preselected time or number, so it would seem completely logical to me that the main coding is set to a non win, and at the preselected time/number, it changes/forwards one player to a winning screen.

Why would people on here claim to have won, but not - that doesn't make any sense at all.

jajaja

hertzyabazas wrote: »

Are you saying people have set up accounts on here to tell us about a win even though they've not?

Not really - I'm saying those are the only two options to explain what I have impartially observed †

jajaja wrote: »

1) the competition is rigged to use different rules for different groups of people (it has been chosen so it is impossible for one group of players, but others are allowed to win); or
2) the posts claiming "wins" are fake and designed to get more people excited about the competition.

The first seems unlikely to me only because there are far simpler ways to write a program to let some people win and some people lose. †

The second seems unlikely to me (and also replying to ...

sleepyjones wrote: »

I would tend to believe that they are actually winners based on their involvement / reputation within the community.

and

oliveoyl wrote: »

Why would people on here claim to have won, but not - that doesn't make any sense at all.

) ... as a fair number of different accounts have posted here and on twitter claiming wins. Some of the ones that have posted on MSE forums have a significant number of posts to their name. It would therefore seem to me that they are genuine, although I don't know these people to judge that in any way other than that "reputation" score.

† There is a third option which I didn't consider originally:

oliveoyl wrote: »

Most of the instant win type games are set up to decide on winners with either a preselected time or number, so it would seem completely logical to me that the main coding is set to a non win, and at the preselected time/number, it changes/forwards one player to a winning screen.

everyone gets the "no-win" code until it is decided they can win on the server, then they get the "win code" for just that attempt. It is still an odd way to do it, for many reasons - you're still sending "can win" code to the browser and it could still be exploited.

jajaja

sleepyjones wrote: »

When you say "recommended" by the MSE community, I assume you just mean that the particular competition has been posted on here before?

Actually both: the company is recommended by MSE, and the competition has been recommended by a few forum members.

sleepyjones wrote: »

It might have been better to just ask "Has anyone on here ever won on the xxx xx x x x x competition?" and then move on from there.

I have seen forum users on MSE post that they have won, but it may have been worth trying to get a single thread going for winners to post screenshots of their wins. If nothing else it would be nice to congratulate some lucky winners and feel like a winner vicariously.

jajaja

fzz33 wrote: »

Could it be a mistake? Like the Crabbie's comp recently where everybody won, it was an error their side.

Probably not, some people have publicly posted about winning. Others have moaned about the same symptoms that led me to look at this in the first place. It would seem that this is not a mistake. (Wish I'd seen that Crabbies one though)

robbies_gal

so why cant u say what the comp is if its recoomended on here then we can work out ehther its a scam or not

jajaja

mjm3346 wrote: »

Looks like we have gone from evidence to "prove" rigging to not knowing the method used to determine winners.

That's a fair comment. I'll freely admit that my original post wasn't well written and the language is potentially emotive. I did originally say that I was unsure and I could see that there are elements I cannot know in order to say if this is fair or not. If I had been absolutely certain I would just have reported it. I've actually found all the feedback on this thread very well-balanced and informative, it's been worth posting what I did.

mjm3346 wrote: »

If it is an instant win I have won on all the long running daily instants and other instant wins this year include Quidco, Topcashback, Zoflora, Sudocrem, Refreshers, Yazoo, Cravendale and Keno.

Now that sounds like a very good year! Well done! :beer:

jajaja

robbies_gal wrote: »

so why cant u say what the comp is if its recoomended on here then we can work out ehther its a scam or not

That's a good question. I would be reluctant to cast aspersions on a company without being 100 % sure I was right. I'm not sure it is my place to do so publicly as it could be damaging to a company's reputation, I would think that there is some kind of official body that would be responsible for doing that.

jajaja

Phew! I think I've now responded to everyone who has replied to this thread so far. Thank you, all, and thanks for the poll votes so far.