Some people believe nothing is random, and that everything is “meant to be”. Others believe that there is no luck; that you “create your own luck”!
Regardless of our spiritual or metaphysical beliefs, it’s good to understand the concept of randomness. After all, it’s what underpins the basis of games of chance, like at the casino.
But without the ability to let physics play out and literally roll a die, how does the binary, digital world of 1s and 0s act out randomness? Can they, or are we being tricked?
Understanding theoretical vs practical randomness
True randomness is, by definition, inherently unpredictable. Computers, however, are deterministic machines meaning they follow instructions precisely. So, once a program or calculation is executed, its fate is sealed.
Generating true randomness purely through software is considered impossible. So instead, online casinos rely on Random Number Generators (known as RNGs). The most common type is the Pseudo-Random Number Generator, and these are algorithms creating sequences of numbers that appear random and pass rigorous statistical tests for randomness.
So, the 777 dice games you may come across are unpredictable in practice, even though they aren’t truly random in the strictest theoretical sense.
However, this isn’t so different from real life. When rolling a dice, the speed and height you throw them at will determine the fate of the dice from the moment it leaves your hand. But we don’t have enough information to predict what it will be, so it doesn’t matter.
How PRNGs power online dice games
PRNGs are the digital engines that drive the apparent randomness in online dice games. They begin with a secret “seed” number, and the seed feeds into a complex mathematical algorithm. So complex, in fact, that it produces a very long sequence of numbers. While the sequence is determined by both the seed and the algorithm, knowing both is practically impossible for outsiders. So, you get pure unpredictability.
So, how does this generate a dice roll? Well, imagine the PRNG produces a number, and then the game’s software maps this number to a specific outcome for a pair of dice. For example, the vast range of possible PRNG numbers is divided into 36 segments corresponding to outcomes like 1-1 1-2 up to 6-6. These segments are sized to precisely match the real-world probability of each roll. Each roll is of course entirely independently generated, meaning it’s without memory of past results.
Simulated randomness you can trust
A dice roll on an online casino may appear to be not random or easily fixed, but of course, this is the point of regulators and licenses, to keep things honest. Plus, it’s not the case that the casino platform is programming anything, anyway – it’s third-party game devs, who have no such incentive to fix anything, and all the incentives to come up with the best PRNG algorithm.
So, randomness does exist in online casinos. Maybe not in a philosophical sense, but in the sense that truly matters. So when you see a digital dice rolling around pre-programmatically, just remember that it’s not all that different from our laws of physics.
