Net Winner is a free online sweepstakes/flash-game which rewards it’s members with points who can then trade in their point for gift cards (25,000 points = one $25 gift card). Along with their points system they have ways to win money which comes in a form of a check through the mail, and even claims a Jackpot that could be won. Well, I was a member of Net Winner for a little over 5 months. I didn’t really have a passion for the site because the site requires massive amounts resources at which makes the site run slowly, and even slows down your system it self. However I would occasionally log on and “try my luck” (as advertised). Keeping in mind for the majority of the time while I was a member, Net Winner had only offered one game (Money Wheel) which is a lottery type of game (Got very boring after a few tries). You pick 4 double digit numbers, and 1 single digit number (IE: 06, 76, 24, 99, 0) and then the game would reveal the numbers and if your numbers lit up you won according to how many numbers you matched. Over the course of the 5 month period I was a member, I had only made 58,000 points and never once won any money prizes which range from $25 - the Jackpot of $1,040,849.16.
Well, recently Net Winner released a new game called (Banko) which is “bingo with a twist” as they put it. The twist is kind of like the popular television show “Deal or No Deal.” Basically you get a bingo card (banko card) with a matrix of 5*5 spaces (5 rows across, 5 rows down). The numbers are then supposedly drawn randomly (try your luck - game of chance) and the number of balls drawn are variant between 30 - 70 numbers. As the numbers are called the spaces are automatically marked for you (you do nothing but watch - yeah real fun huh?) and throughout the game you cave 4 different ways you can win. The ways you can win are the traditional “bingo” (match 5 numbers, a straight line side-to-side, top-to-bottom, or diagonally), the next way is “4 corners” (match the number on each corner of the card), then there’s “pattern” (match the numbers that are in the shaded pattern on the card), and the last way to win is “banko” (cover-all, cover every number). The twist is, you can’t get a banko if haven’t yet got a bingo, so if you get a bingo, you would have to turn down that prize to continue further into the game. Problem is, you never know how many balls will be called total. The prize that you win is supposed to be determined by a rotating bar, every 5 numbers that are called the prize bar rotates to accommodate the odds of winning each way.
I banko for just over a week, and yes it’s still in it’s beta stages there were glitches happening all to often. While playing the game on several accounts it would not credit me the points (ie: I win 10 points with a bingo, turn it down for a bigger prize.. I get 4 corners for 10 points, so now I have turned down both the bingo and 4 corners for something bigger.. I then get the pattern but it fails to bring up the scorecard so I can claim the prize.) or another incident (ie: I am set to win the Jackpot every way possible, 5 different ways, and 3 numbers still need to be called, all of a sudden the balls come out as K-0, K-0, K-0). After the fourth occasion of this happening I reported it to the administrators and they told me it was a glitch and that their is nothing they can do about it. They did not honor any of the prizes that I should have won.
After being treated the way I did, I wanted to know what was causing the glitch and how can I recommend them as to how to fix the glitch. With my knowledge to flash programming, I downloaded the banko.swf file and recompiled the action script out of it so I can view the source code (completely legal, although frowned upon in the flash community). While observing the source code I came across multiple lines of code which raised suspicion of fraud. The site claims and advertises that their games are “games of chance, or games of luck.” But the content I was looking at suggest otherwise. The balls aren’t randomly drawn like at a bingo hall, their was no random block of code in there, the balls were reliant on a remote server which suggests that they them selves control which numbers are called. The numbers of balls being called per games wasn’t random as informed in the how to play instructions either, it was reliant on the remote server as well. I also found the array(s) in which the balls are stored. I say array(s) with an S’ signalizing plural because they are stored in 2 arrays, a “winning ball array” and a “anti-winning ball array.” The winning ball array contains the balls that are on your card, the anti-wining ball array holds the balls that are not.
What this all means is, NetWinner is rigged. How is it rigged? Well, if NetWinner has control of the numbers and the amount of balls that are called per game, they can manipulate which balls are called, when they will be called, and when to stop calling the balls. Which also means that the prizes will be predetermined.
So when I turned down the bingo, and the 4 corners for something greater and wasn’t credited when I won on the pattern it was because I wasn’t expected to go that far into the game. I wasn’t suppose to win more than 20 points that game so I wasn’t credited the 250 for the pattern that was uncovered. Likewise, when I was needed 1 number in 5 different ways (any ball that came out that was a number I had I’d win) to get the Jackpot, the anti-winning ball array ran out of items (numbers), trying to prevent me from getting it and defaulted to it’s default number of 0’s (ie: K-0).
I contacted the administrator my finding, and for the most part he agreed. He stated, “we would have to be complete fools if we didn’t have a control as to who wins what.” I replied with, “If your prizes accommodated the rate at which your sponsors pay you, there would be no need to rig your games. Instead, you have ridiculous prizes to gain peoples interest in your site but can not, nor attend to pay them if they should hit those ridiculously high prizes.” He then said, “OK heard enough from you and then quickly banned me and forfeited the 58,000 points I had earned over the course of my membership.
When I received a reason as to why I was banned, it had nothing to do with decompling the game and checking out the source code, why? Because I wasn’t in violation of the TOS. Instead they gave false accusation,
Dear finalgroundz,
Your profile was reviewed and rejected due to the following reasons:
1) Your profile information was supplied in the wrong language.
2) Your profile contains illegal information. Make sure that you: do not use black language, do not specify your contact information in the wrong text fields;
3) You have uploaded unacceptable photos to your profile;
4) We doubt that you are a real person.
–
Netwinner Community mail delivery system!!!
Auto-generated e-mail, please, do not reply!!!.
I didn’t do either one of those claims. As you can see, I am a real person… I have a blog, I’m posting accordingly. NetWinner is an English language site, I am speaking English. All my information was correct, I had even verified my account which has you verify your address and whatnot. I never one uploaded any foul our offensive material to my profile, here is my profile http://netwinner.com/community/finalgroundz only picture I can find somewhat offensive to certain crowds would be the picture of the girls butt, which is not on my profile she’s on my friends list so, I have no control of what she uploads and displays as he profile picture.
My overall assessment is, this site is truly rigged and unfairly treating it’s members (not to mention fraudulently adverting it’s site to be luck based). I wasted 5 months on there site and warn you, do not waste your time. Just to give you a idea as to what a waste of time it is, they have been around for about 3 years and are making hundreds-of-thousands of dollars from their members viewing ads on their site and only paying it’s members chump-change. Out of the 3 years they have been around they. they have only paid out $82,500.00 which is very misleading because they are accounting the values of the gift cards they give out which are given out by their sponsors at not costs to NetWinner.
I have since contacted the BBB and filed a complaint, and have notified an attorney to see about legal actions as well.
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If you would like to check out the source code here are the steps:
1.)Download the UN-plug add-on extension for FireFox that enables you to download .swf files.
2.)Download Flare, the program needed to extract the source code out of the .swf file.
3.)Go to http://www.netwinner.com/games/banko/game.html, then navigate to the top of the browser where it says tools, click it to open the menu and select un-plug.
4.)Select to save the banko.swf file.
5.)Exit out of the browser, and navigate to where you saved the banko.swf file, right click the file to bring up the list and choose decompile from the list.
6.)It will create a text file, open the text file with any text editor of your choice to view the source code.
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