Riverboat Gambler Hack 60.2.1 + Redeem Codes

As I indicated in the last release notes, I upgraded my development environment to support iOS 17 and performed extensive testing to ensure nothing was broken. Unfortunately, I do not have the means to regression test as far back as iOS 12 which is the minimum version on the OS that RBG will support. Well, it turns out there was a bit of an issue with that release as it applied to iOS 12.

The issue manifested in that RBG was crashing as soon as it was launched on an iOS12 iPad. The crash was immediate and was not providing me with any data in the form of “crash reports”. When Jim texted me using “Send Feedback”, I immediately started to diagnose the issue.

Luckily, I was able to uncover some chatter in the Apple Developer Forums that appeared to explain the issue and, following guidance, I was able to make some adjustments in this release. My fingers are crossed that it works. I have tested pretty extensively to ensure nothing breaks on IOS 17, but if you run into issues, please reach out to me.

Many thanks to Jim, a long time supporter, for reaching out and letting me know about the problem. As I told him when he apologized for "causing me trouble", I'm grateful that the issue happened to him (first?) because not everyone would have taken the time to let me know and give me the opportunity to address the issue.

There is another fix in this release: Josh also reached out to me using "Send Feedback" to alert me to the fact that the "bubbles" on the Blackjack games started displaying with with a black, square background behind the gold circle that contains the point count as cards get dealt. In his words, he didn't want me to get lambasted by OCD reviews. Little did Josh know how OCD I happen to be - he knows now! Thanks for letting me know, Josh. I've rectified that issue in this release and, unlike Jim's issue, I was able to definitively test that fix.

Lastly, Karen also reached out to me about a couple of edge cases in Pai Gow where the House Way was not properly optimizing the Low Hand when Straights & Flushes were played in the High Hand. Thanks so much for the text and the screenshots, Karen! They were extremely helpful in identifying the problems and making some minor adjustments.

If it's not been made clear from previous release notes, I sincerely appreciate the support, feedback, & collaboration with the RBG Player Community. I’m just one guy! A decently skilled developer who created an app so he could play Mississippi Stud on an iPhone. Little did I know that my app would grow to 60+ casino games based on Player requests. I cannot do what I do by myself. I am indebted to all of you who take the time to report a bug or let me know when an image is skewed or request a new feature or a change to the app. Though I may not be able to make every change immediately, they all end up in my product backlog and will eventually be addressed.

While it would be cool to be as successful as one of the "big box software companies” that have teams of programmers, designers, testers, marketers, and customer support people, I bet those companies don't have as much fun as I have when I get to respond to your texts and emails and interact with all of you - my virtual friends. Please keep your messages coming!

If you haven’t already, please encourage a friend or casino buddy to check out Riverboat Gambler. Also, a review in the App Store letting folks know about your experience with the app is always appreciated!

Please Stay Safe!


~Danny

Quite a bit of work went into this release. I hope you like it and I hope I didn't break anything!

The main thrust of this release was to adjust the screens for 11" iPads that have adjusted displays to use "More Space". Prior, screens were not being fully utilized & things were not nicely centered. Definitely an issue for my OCD. On a side note: if you notice issues with a screen on your device, please make me aware using "Send Feedback".

RBG currently supports 18 device sizes/resolutions and many of the game boards can be configured, in Preferences, for Left or Right Handed modes. This feature tends is extremely beneficial on an iPhone where you're overworking your thumb to reach buttons! On iPads, the games support both Portrait & Landscape modes.

Another huge benefit of supporting the increased resolution of the 11" iPads is that it makes Craps, Roulette, & Sic Bo (iPad only games) available.

As a result of these changes, it was necessary for me to exhaustively test each game. While doing so, I made some adjustments and enhancements and addressed some minor backlog items related to some of the games. In addition to these changes, I updated my development environment to support iOS 17 and tested the games on that version of the operating system.

Game enhancements:

1. Fish, Prawn, Crab: I've removed the "Roll" button to present it more in line with Craps and Sic-Bo. Now, to roll the dice, simply tap them.

2. Criss Cross: on iPads, I modified the screens so that the bankroll balance sits between the Deal & Fold buttons like it does on most games. I've been playing a lot of Criss Cross lately as I try to develop a decent strategy for that game and I accidentally hit “Fold” a couple of times; not cool!

3. Texas Shootout: I've adjusted the placement of the results message that gets displayed at the end of a hand. Sometimes, that message can be large and it was covering up too much of the Community Cards. Now, it should be easier to interpret the results while being able to see all of the cards on the table.

4. Criss Cross: if a Full House was Folded, the "Oops! Achievement” for "Folded Full House" wasn't being awarded. This also affects the other "Oops!" achievements.

5. 3 Card Fury: the alignment of the "Failed To Qualify" windows were not correct for iPads that were in Landscape mode and set to Left-Handed mode.

6. Ads: I'm so sick of shady advertisers that I could chew nails! Still, the infrequent ads do generate a small amount of revenue for me and I'll take every dime I can get. I have been running into situations where the ads (one should be shown after every 85 hands) are not defaulting to being on mute. Personally, I find that aggravating! I've made some changes in this release that I am hoping will mute them correctly.

There are still more than 100 items in the backlog. These items include your requests & suggestions and code refinement activities that I need to address. Please continue to use "Send Feedback" to share your thoughts with me. I take all input seriously and will do the best I can to satisfy your requests. If I can't, I'll be honest with you about it.

If you haven't already, please consider leaving a review in the App Store to share your impression of RBG with others. I read and respond to all reviews. I don't have the financial resources to do mass advertising of the app, so you are my marketing team. I also believe that you are the best advertising I could have. As long as you are supporting Riverboat Gambler, I will continue to work tirelessly to improve and enhance it.

Best wishes to all! My mom will be returning to Florida for the Winter in the next few weeks. Her health is amazing! Thank you to everyone who continues to ask about her. The previous two years were a medical nightmare! She's had a heck of a journey and I'm happy to report that she can be expected to be around for many, many more years!

Thanks!

~Danny

I’m not gonna lie: I’m a bit nervous about this release because it contains a lot of code changes. I have done my best to test everything, but there’s always risk that something was missed.

I’ve been working overtime on implementing some changes that are required to support some regulatory requirements that come due in January 2024. The changes are related to displaying ads in the EU. While most of that code is currently in the app and was being tested, none of that code is active in this release. I was planning to submit it to Apple for review and approval to ensure everything is done correctly, but then I started to get some alerts about devices for which I did not have adequate screen support.

So, I did a quick pivot to work on supporting those devices. Given that there are 64 games in RBG and that many games support Left-Handed and Right-Handed variants as well as Portrait & Landscape on iPads, “new screens” are a tremendous amount of work; literally 100s of hours.

It turns out that some of the newer, larger iPads now allow a user to change the display resolution of their device to make it finer (“use more space”). Unfortunately, the only 12.9” iPad I own isn’t new enough to have that feature. Mine only supports “Larger Text” which basically makes the resolution identical to a 9.7” iPad for which RBG has always had screen definitions.

From what I can determine with my simulators, this “new” feature applies to iPads that are 11” and 12.9”. Again, given the number of games and the orientation variations, that means that I need to define layouts for about 256 game screens and then a handful of other screens.

In order to ensure there is a decent user experience for folks who have changed their display resolution from Default, I went through and updated each game to use an existing screen definition for a device in a manner that ensures that everything is nicely centered. Next, I will be working on updated definitions that will take better advantage of the extra space by making cards and chips and other elements larger.

IMPORTANT: Craps, Roulette, and Sic-Bo will not be available on these screens until I can create the custom layouts for those games.

While making these changes, I also came across a bug in the animation for Casino War. When the cards were being dealt, I was seeing a “partial ghost” of the cards remaining at the top of the screen; sometimes, they flickered. I have no idea how long that has been happening because I don’t play Casino War. The fact that nobody mentioned it to me could be an indication that nobody else is playing that game or, if they are, those folks are too kind to have “complained”.

Never fear complaining folks. RBG has evolved because of Player support, bug reports, suggestions, requests, and other feedback. I just ask that you reach out to me directly using “Send Feedback” instead of posting a bad review that, for some reason, folks never seem to update AFTER I’ve addressed their issues and concerns - LOL.

One thing I have noticed in the the new changes is that the “Failed To Qualify” windows seem to leave a light “trail” on the screen when they are animated from off-screen. I don’t know why this is happening; I suspect it’s a bug with the underlying animation engine for IOS. However, I have confirmed that when I get the screens updated to use the layout approach I normally use, those trails will disappear. That being the case, I’m going to leave it alone for now.

As always, thank you to everyone for your continued support. After this release, I am going to jump back into finalizing the changes that I must release in the EU before mid-January 2024. Then, I will start updating the screens for these non-default iPad screen sizes.

After all of that, there is another new game and some other great enhancements planned!

~Danny

This release addresses an issue that exists in the Pai Gow games. Andrew as kind enough to reach out to me using "Send Feedback" to report that the some wild Straight Flushes were being incorrectly classified as 7-Card Straight Flushes for bonus purposes.

This issue has likely existed for a long time and I appreciate that you took the time to report it, Andrew! It's the collaboration with Players like you that continue to help Riverboat Gambler become the best app that it can be!

More games and enhancements are in the works! Thank you to everyone for your continued support and please keep sharing RBG with your friends!

~Danny

Quick enhancement release to address a problem reported by Matthew, one of RBG's MVPs. If there's an issue, big or small, it will not escape Matthew! I appreciate your help and support so much, Matthew!

Many of the unique achievements for each game in Riverboat Gambler will award some amount of "bonus chips". For example, after your first 10 hands in each game, you should get a $50 bonus. Well, it turns out that "since Moby Dick was a minnow", if you're playing on an iPad in landscape mode, the award amount would be cut off and you wouldn't see the amount that was awarded. This means that many people may have been earning achievements and may not be aware of the fact that those achievements increased their bankrolls! While testing, I identified that there has also been an issue on the Achievements screen when it gets rotated on the iPad.

Thanks for letting me know, Matthew.

RBG continues to evolve and I'm focusing on adding some features like "tournaments". My idea for tournaments would be that, for specific games, folks would accumulate "points" based on their play over a 24 hour period. Then, at the end of that period, the top winners would receive some bonus chips. The challenge I'm facing is how to implement it. One school of thought is to leverage Apple's Game Center and another is to track the standings using some "cloud services". The former would require me to implement a hook into the Apple Game Center services - something that is extremely new to me. The latter would require me to pay for some services that could become more expensive than I can currently afford.

If you like the ideas of "tournaments", please let me know. I'm literally "sitting on the fence". I don't think the feature is crucial to RBG because it's intended to be an app to help you learn new games and work on strategies, but I also think it could add some additional fun to the mix.

As always, thank you for your continued support!

If you haven't already, please take the time to post a review in the App Store. Your reviews are my only marketing. What you say about the app may influence whether someone else downloads it. The more folks who download and play, the more pennies I get from Google from those rare ads. And, since I'm never going to be Candy Crush, I need to rely on economies of scale and a lot more pennies to make RBG profitable.

Stay Safe!

~Danny

Game 64 has arrived! That's 63 more games that I ever envisioned when I first created RBG to allow me to play Mississippi Stud on my first iPhone!

This game was suggested by my brother, Tracy, and it's interesting.

Three Card Sabotage is a variant of the classic favorite Three Card Poker. In the game, the Player is trying to form a better three card poker hand than will the Dealer. In this game, though, the Dealer receives four cards while the Player still only receives three.

What?!? How is that fair?

The twist is that the Dealer also deals an additional two "sabotage cards" from the deck. These two cards are dealt face down and, when the hand is ending, these two cards are used to try to sabotage the Dealer's hand: any of the Dealer's four cards that match a "sabotage card" get thrown out before the Dealer makes a hand. This means that the final Dealer hand could contain fewer than three cards!

Another difference from classic 3 Card Poker is that the Dealer ALWAYS qualifies; there's no wimping out when he doesn't have at least a Queen-high hand!

Sabotage is an interesting game, but remember that, if the two sabotage cards don't affect the Dealer's hand, the Dealer effectively has an extra card from which to make his hand!

Bug fixes:

1. Many thanks to Scott for reaching out via email to alert me to an issue with Wild 5 Poker. A bug in that game was not properly reading Straight Flushes. As a result of Scott's help and the screenshots that he provided, I was able to isolate and address the bug in this release! Thank you, Scott!

Additional Changes/Enhancements:

1. I've introduced a 3rd sub menu from the main games menu: "Texas Hold'em Games". All sub menu names are now prefaced with a "blue diamond" to help in quickly locating them while scrolling. Remember, you can still get to an alphabetized list of the games by using the Search icon! Also, if you mark a game from a submenu as a favorite, it will appear at the top on the main game menu.

2. I've also been cleaning up the code some more and just sliced out literally 1000s of lines of redundant code. Always feels good to clean up the code base but is also terrifying that something will get broken and not caught in my testing.

3. I am still working on identifying the cause of some sporadic crashes that appear to be related to the check for the Loyalty Bonuses. If you are impacted, please consider reaching out to me using "Send Feedback" to provide me with any details you may have.

4. I "tweaked" the layout of the Seach Screen because it was a little skewed on some devices.

I have a ton of great ideas for RBG and I have been playing around with some of them. As soon as I figure out the best (and most inexpensive) way to implement these new features, I think you're going to have your socks knocked off!

In the meantime, please keep sending your feedback, suggestions, bug reports, and requests. As many folks have said in their reviews, I do my best to respond immediately. I'm just a "text away" if you use "Send Feedback" from any game's menu.

Also, if you haven't already, please consider leaving a review in the App Store. I know it doesn't sound like a huge thing, but your reviews are my best marketing and I could really use the help letting folks know about my little app.

As always, I appreciate you and I will keep enhancing and maintaining this wonderful, little virtual casino training space as long as you continue to support it!

~Danny

This release is a bit delayed. I've been distracted with personal/family matters. BUT, at least it's here!

In this release, I've updated the libraries that are used to support the display of the infrequent ads. I've also started to lay the groundwork for "Daily Tournaments" that will ultimately be used to award even more bonus chips. At this point, I'm not sure if the direction I am taking is the right one. So, don't "hold your breath" waiting to see this feature appear. I suspect I really need to develop a better understanding of the Apple Game Center concept in order to deliver what I have in mind. It's all about "baby steps" though. I appreciate your patience while I try different things.

I am also doing my best to abandon Twitter/X as a platform. Honestly, it's become too toxic for me and I'm not convinced it will "survive" much longer. That being the case, I have opened an account on Meta's "Threads". You can find me on Threads at "RiverboatGamblerApp". As with Twitter, I use that account to provide updates on bugs, bug fixes, and pending releases. Please consider following me out there. Soon, I won't be updating Twitter any longer.

Additional changes:

1. Blackjack: In response to a request from LaDawn, I increased the size of the circle and font that is used to display the hand count on the iPhone12. This was done in order to make the numbers easier to read. Many thanks, LaDawn for reaching out via "Send Feedback".

As always, I cannot overstate how much I appreciate your support! It would be great if I had all of the resources that a major tech company has at its disposal, but I don't. It's still "just me" and I'm doing my best to address your requests. RBG started as a single game so I could play Mississippi Stud on my iPhone and now it's 60+ games on two platforms. Who knew?!?

Some more games are coming! Stay tuned!

Please keep your feedback, suggestions, and requests coming. It is our collaboration that continues to make this a great app!

~Danny

Some more maintenance items as I work to whittle away at the backlog of clean-up tasks. I've updated the diagnostic logging in an attempt to track down some sporadic crashes.

Once I've taken care of the maintenance items, I'll get back to enhancing RBG. Please keep your suggestions and requests coming!

~Danny

Simple maintenance release. I've updated some of the libraries that are used to serve ads and updated images.

I am working on additional games and enhancements, though! Please keep your ideas and requests coming. Everything gets evaluated and added to the backlog for consideration.

As always, thank you to everyone for your continued support. I truly appreciate you!

~Danny

In response to a request from Mike who messaged me via text using "Send Feedback", I've modified the screens to allow you to quickly access the Casino Wallet by tapping on the bankroll. The option still exists on the menu, but this shortcut was a great idea. Thanks, Mike! Please keep the ideas coming!

Additionally, I've updated some of the 3rd party libraries that are used to present some of the ads.

I have more changes planned and am continuing to refine the code base to correct some of the "rookie mistakes" I made when I first started RBG. I truly appreciate your support and feedback. Please continue providing your input. As anyone who has reached out should be able to attest, I take all input seriously and will do my best to implement all suggestions that are made.

Please keep telling your friends about RBG and, if you haven't already, please consider leaving a review in the App Store. Your reviews are pretty much my entire marketing strategy and can have an impact on folks who find the app and are considering taking it for a test drive.

The local Seminole casinos in Florida are close to offering Craps & Roulette, so I'm excited to try out some of the strategies I've been developing while playing RBG!

Please stay safe!

~Danny

This release contains a bug fix to Joker Poker (Video Poker) in which the Sequential Royal Flush (the ultimate monster hand) wasn't being read correctly. Thankfully, I caught this issue in my testing and nobody was bitten by it!

Additionally, I've modified the app to track Game Stats for the Video Poker games. I highly encourage anyone who uses this feature to reset the current stats as some have been recorded, but not correctly.

More changes coming! My mom made it back to Michigan safely and I am going to be spending a lot more time working on the backlog and some enhancements that I have planned. Please keep your ideas, requests, and suggestions coming!

~Danny

To be candid, I'm finding myself pretty addicted to video poker; my favorites are Deuces Wild and Double Double Bonus. Mom and I dropped into the local casino last week and I sat at a machine for about 2 hours and doubled my money. Granted, the payouts are not as extreme as a nice hand of quads on Mississippi Stud, but it's still fun to leave the casino "ahead"! My only complaint with the machines are that the "Bet Max" and "Deal/Draw" buttons are too close together. On at least one occasion, I hit the wrong button and it proved to be expensive! For that reason, there will never be that type of button in RBG. In RBG, you still have to pick your increment and tap the wager space up to five times to make your bet.

In this release, I have added a sixth video poker game that I noticed on the machine I was playing: Triple Bonus Poker. It's very similar to Double Double Bonus, but, like most video poker games, there are some minor differences on the pay table. In this game, the differences apply to how quads are paid out.

Additionally, in response to a suggestion from Kyle, I've updated the VP games to change the "Deal button" to a "Draw button" after the initial cards get dealt. Definitely an idea that needed to be implemented. Thanks, Kyle!

I've not been getting any additional feedback about the dice images for Craps not matching the final roll. I STILL have not seen the issue myself. I'm hoping the lack of feedback means that the changes I made in the previous releases crushed the bug. If you experience a situation where the final dice images do match the roll outcome, please reach out to me using "Send Feedback". For now, I'm going to consider the issue resolved.

More changes and enhancements are coming. I am about to take a couple of weeks of "down time" to hang out with my mom and get her relocated back to Michigan for the summer months. She has all but recovered 100% from the health issues that she's had to deal with for the past 2+ years and, now, it's time to start enjoying her "Golden Years". Many thanks to those of you who have reached out to ask about her and for all of the prayers.

~Danny

I received some feedback that the last set of changes for Craps DID NOT properly address the incorrect images so I've reverted those changes in this release. This reversion activates the previous fixes that can result in the dice "popping" a bit at the end of a roll. While the popping is not desired, this will have to suffice for the present; at least, the final dice images should match the final dice roll. I am dedicated to continuing to pursue this issue. It's a challenge, though, given that I am unable to reproduce the problem in my development environment and on my production devices. It's a mystery. Please keep your feedback and thoughts coming.

~Danny

More work on Craps! Of all of the games, Craps is the one of which I am most proud. Before adding it to the iPhone, it was flawless and, I believe (and have been told), it is one of the best Craps simulators in the App Store. Something changed when it was added to the phone that has screwed up how the dice images get updated when a roll occurs. Given that it’s impacting iPads and iPhones, I don’t think it has anything to do with the device type.

Somewhere along the line, the dice animation got "hosed up" (technical term). While I cannot, for the life of me reproduce it, I have received screenshots that show final dice images that do not match the actual roll. This is a problem. Especially because the design of the game is to randomly generate the roll value, change the dice images in the background, and then generate some "fancy" animation to make things fun.

In the last release, I made some changes to update the dice images a second time; AFTER the roll animation completes and immediately BEFORE the results are shown. Now, as I feared, there are cases where the animation stops and the dice "pop" when the images change. Though the images now match the final roll, this lag in updating the images will certainly create some conspiracy theories about the game being rigged; trust me - I've gotten used to it.

In this release, I've made some additional refinements in an attempt to ensure the dice images are updated properly and in a timely manner. Despite the fact that there is a chance that this will simply revert the "fix" in the last release, I feel it's important to try. Animation is tricky (at least for me because I'm still learning).

While I am trying to get to the bottom of this issue, the dice will turn grey while they are rolling and the result message will now display the dice values. If you hit a situation where the dice images are wrong, please text me a screenshot using "Send Feedback". If you've been experiencing this issue and notice that it no longer occurs, please let me know that as well.

~Danny

This release is solely focused on trying to address an issue with Craps where the final dice images do not match the final roll value. I have been unable to reproduce the issue and I am all but convinced that the issue is not "code/logic" related, but more related to the wrong image files being retrieved.

In the last release, I added some grey dice to use during the animation sequences and asked folks to send in screenshots any time the final dice don't match the roll value. My hope was to isolate which die was not updating properly with the expectation that one or both dice would remain grey after the roll ended.

Kyle reached out to me last night to share a screenshot and some information. In his situation, his first roll after opening Craps was "Midnight" (12 - my favorite number to bet). However, the dice showed 1-3 instead of 6-6. To top it off, the dice images were Red which indicates that the animation properly completed and cleared.

So, in this release, I have included three "Hail Mary" changes in the hopes that they will address an annoying bug that never existed in Craps previous to the iPhone release:

1. I have renamed all of the dice images to ensure they are unique enough to prevent any confusion by the compiler
2. I have reorganized the image catalog to remove reduce some levels of organization that I believe I added while working on the iPhone
3. I have forced the images to update a second time immediately before the results message gets shown. NOTE: if the first two changes don't address the bug, the dice may seem to "pop" after the roll when the images get changed. If that happens, please let me know.

Many thanks to everyone who has reached out on this issue. I'm being told that it's not "frequent", but from my perspective, one time is too many times. I'm very pleased with how Craps has turned out and this little glitch is putting my OCD into overdrive!

Please keep sending your ideas, requests, and feedback and please keep posting reviews and sharing RBG with your friends. My mom's health has dramatically improved and she is about to head back to her home in Michigan for a few months. Both she and I sincerely appreciate all of the thoughts and prayers that have been sent her way. The RBG Player Community has some really awesome people in it!

I have some great ideas for RBG and am hoping to make some progress towards them during the remainder of this year. Woo Hoo!

~Danny

This release contains a couple more refinements to the Pai Gow games and how the House Way rules are applied. It also fixes the issue that was introduced to the Pai Gow games in the last release that caused Broadway to fail to be properly classified.

More updates coming, but I wanted to get these out before I re-group and start to attack the backlog!

~Danny

This release contains a couple more refinements to the Pai Gow games and how the House Way rules are applied. It also fixes the issue that was introduced to the Pai Gow games in the last release that caused Broadway to fail to be properly classified.

More updates coming, but I wanted to get these out before I re-group and start to attack the backlog!

~Danny

This release was supposed to be a really "cool" one because I just spent a lot of time refactoring Pai Gow Poker and Asia Poker to better optimize how the hands are played. Unfortunately, it turns out that a "minor" change I made during the last release had a HUGE impact on a lot of the standard favorites. For those games, Folded hands were not being treated properly and the hand was continuing.

I cannot thank Joshua enough for alerting me to the issue so that I could get it fixed. As I told him, I've been playing nothing but Pai Gow and Asia Poker for days. Had I only played a single hand of my normal Mississippi Stud, I'd have caught it immediately. Just one more example of how failing to properly regression test is ALWAYS bad practice; no matter the perceived complexity and scope of a change. One of these days, I will learn my lesson!

This release does include some major refactoring to Asia Poker and both Pai Gow Poker games. After some collaboration with Gregory, I went through the code that governs how the House Way rules are applied and performed some relatively major surgery.

DISCLAIMER: While I have run the Pai Gow games through 100,000s of simulated deals to ensure that none of the changes will crash those games, I still have more testing that I want to do. I believe that the new approach better optimizes how the lower hands get played. If you are a Pai Gow Player, please reach out with any feedback you may have. Currently, I have almost 100 specific use-cases that I validate against and they are all passing. If it turns out anything got mangled, those games may have to be taken offline.

Here, I'll express my apologies for the last release, but I won't ask for any patience or forgiveness. I need to get organized and manage my time better. There's no excuse for that bug. It was pure amateur hour.

On the "brighter side" of things, RBG has been 99.9% crash free as of late (knock on wood!). For me, that's a huge metric!

As always, thank you for your continued support. More updates are coming, but hopefully not as rapidly as of late.

~Danny

This release contains a new video poker game and a couple of nice enhancements.

1. BUG: Video Poker games: Kyle was kind enough to let me know that on games like "Royal Flush" that have different payouts for 4 of a Kind based on the denomination of the "quads", the engine was not selecting the correct win. Thanks for texting me with "Send Feedback", Kyle. I appreciate you helping to keep the game bug free!

2. ENHANCEMENT: Video Poker games: As I expected, there has been some confusion about how the VP games pay out. The table at the top of each screen represents the number of "units" (chips) that get paid for each hand that wins. They ARE NOT odds. If you bet in $5 increments, a unit is $5; if you bet in $25 increments, a unit is $25. That means that if you hit a hand that pays "25", the payout is 25 x your increment/unit. To help with the confusion, the main wager button will no longer display the total amount wagered when it's tapped; it will show the number of wagers that have been placed and the table at the top of the screen will change to highlight the column that matches the wager count. While I'm sure this will cause additional confusion, it is a little closer to the actual "machine experience". I encourage everyone to take 5 minutes to read the "How to Play". While I am finding Video Poker games to be a great distraction, they are not table games; there are differences of which you should become familiar.

3. NEW GAME: Kyle requested that I prioritize "Video Poker: Double Double Bonus" as a game. Given that most of the work was already done, I did my best to deliver! Here you go, Kyle. Thanks so much for your help! As a side note, I spent about 5 hours in a casino on Mother's Day and all I played was video poker. It's a great game! You don't have to lose much and the upsides were pretty rewarding.

4. ENHANCEMENTS: Gregory, a Pai Gow and Asia Poker Dealer, pointed out some issues in how hands in those games were not being properly optimized by the House Way algorithm; namely as it applied to Straights, Flushes, and Straight Flushes. I’ve made some additional refinements and am feeling really good about how those hands get played in Pai Gow. Next, I will be focused on using the same approach in Asia Poker. Thanks so much for all of your help, Gregory!

~Danny

This week has had a couple of "rapid fire" releases. If you're able, please review the release notes for the previous release, 57.0.1. to read about the new games, bug fixes, and enhancements that were made.

In this release, I am trying another "Hail Mary" fix to Craps. After changes that were made to address crashes on iPhones, a bug appeared that randomly impacts the dice; they are not always updating on the screen to match the final roll. There is no rhyme or reason. Hence, the artillery-strike approach I am using to address a bug I cannot reproduce.

In addition to working on this issue, I am working with Jeffrey on addressing some edge-cases in the Pai Gow games. There are some situations in which the House Way (which also controls the Dealer's cards) is not playing the hands in the most optimal manner. Because my goal is authenticity, this is important to me. However, I do want to make sure that folks realize that if their hand is not played optimally using "House Way", they should gain some solace in the fact that the same algorithms apply to Dealer hands.

RBG is "on fire"! Please keep telling your friends and others about the app. I need to spend a couple weeks working on the versions for "other platforms", but I am filling up the backlog with some really great suggestions and ideas. I truly appreciate the support from the Player Community!

Please, if you haven't already, consider taking a couple of minutes to post a review in the App Store. I know it seems trivial, but it really is the only marketing that I have. I don't have the funds to invest in expensive ads. The greater the number of people who play , the greater the number of hands that get dealt. In keeping with my commitment to you, an ad continues to be shown after every 100 hands. The more "100 hands" that get dealt, the higher my ad revenue becomes. It's not a fabulous amount of income, but every penny helps!

Also, please remember that you can get $1000 in chips every 24 hours by playing the Reward Ads in the Chip Store. Nobody says you have to watch them, but you do have to play them....

Please keep using "Send Feedback" to submit your ideas, requests, and suggestions! I think 2023 is going to be an exciting year for Riverboat Gambler!

Since I'm assuming this release will hit the App Store BEFORE Mother's Day (or very close, at least): Happy Mother's Day to my Mom, YOUR Mom, and all Moms!

~Danny

In response to many requests, I have added a handful of video poker games to RBG! Personally, I never really understood the "draw", but having created these four games and played them, I now see why others like them! I will likely add more video poker in the future if these become popular. NOTE: please read the "How to Play" if you're not familiar with the differences between video poker and table games. While they are not slot machines, they are also not table games. One important difference is that if you hit a win, your initial wagers are not refunded. Instead, like a slot machine, once wagered, those chips are gone.

When I added the new games, I also started to add a sub-menu concept to the main menu as a way to continue to get that menu under control. Soon, I will make additional changes to group other games by "type"; like Pai Gow, Blackjack, Hold'em, etc. Your favorites will still be at the top of the menu and all games will still be sorted alphabetically on the Search menu.

Additional Changes/Enhancements:

1. BUG: Rob reached out via "Send Feedback" to alert me to an issue with Heads Up Hold'em on the iPad 12. In Landscape mode, the "Odds" wager button was being covered up by the Ante wager button. Since the Odds wager is a forced bet that increments automatically as Antes are placed, it was a bit confusing to see the bankroll decrease by twice the Ante each time a wager was made, but to not see the chips on the board. That has been fixed in this release. Thanks, Rob!

2. BUG: Jeffrey reached out with some screenshots of Craps. This bug is a head scratcher and I'm not 100% sure I've resolved it in this release because I cannot reproduce it. The issue is that after a roll completes, the dice on the board are not always updating correctly to reflect the final roll. I made some "Hail Mary" changes in this release and will also continue to try to reproduce the issue in order to get to an actual root cause. I suspect this is the last remnants of the issues that were previously causing Craps to crash on iPhone. Thanks for letting me know, Jeffrey, and please let me know how this release works out on your device!

3. ENHANCEMENT: Double Draw, Lunar Poker, and the Video Poker games require the Player to tap cards to Hold or Discard them. I cleaned up the code that was handling those operations and re-styled the indicators that are displayed on the cards. Now, they look a lot nicer. They are dynamic based on the size of the cards so please reach out if any of them are too small. I did my best to check all impacted games on all devices, but you've seen me drop that ball before!

4. ENHANCEMENT: I had a little fun with graphics and added a new style of dice for the games that use dice. Check out Preferences in those games!

5. BUG: Ties in Pai Gow Tiles were not being properly resolved. Many thanks to Gregory, a Pai Gow Dealer, for reaching out to me using "Send Feedback" and helping to educate me. He is also advising me on some tweaks that are required for some Asia Poker edge cases. Gregory: your help is invaluable!

I have a question for those who made it this far in the release notes: My mother has gotten me addicted to a non-casino game that offers "tournaments" in which you can play against a bunch of other people and the top finishers win "prizes". I'm curious: would anyone be interested in "RBG Tournaments" where the Players who amassed the most chips in a particular game during a period of time would win prizes? If you are, please reach out via "Send Feedback" or via the support email address and provide me your thoughts. On paper, it looks cool but it would be a ton of wasted work if I “build it and they DON’T come”.

I'll close with my standard "Thank you for your support" line. I really do appreciate the support of the Player community. There is no way that RBG would have become what it is today without your support, patience, suggestions, and feedback.

~Danny

In response to many requests, I have added a handful of video poker games to RBG! Personally, I never really understood the "draw", but having created these four games and played them, I now see why others like them! I will likely add more video poker in the future if these become popular. NOTE: please read the "How to Play" if you're not familiar with the differences between video poker and table games. While they are not slot machines, they are also not table games. One important difference is that if you hit a win, your initial wagers are not refunded. Instead, like a slot machine, once wagered, those chips are gone.

When I added the new games, I also started to add a sub-menu concept to the main menu as a way to continue to get that menu under control. Soon, I will make additional changes to group other games by "type"; like Pai Gow, Blackjack, Hold'em, etc. Your favorites will still be at the top of the menu and all games will still be sorted alphabetically on the Search menu.

Additional Changes/Enhancements:

1. BUG: Rob reached out via "Send Feedback" to alert me to an issue with Heads Up Hold'em on the iPad 12. In Landscape mode, the "Odds" wager button was being covered up by the Ante wager button. Since the Odds wager is a forced bet that increments automatically as Antes are placed, it was a bit confusing to see the bankroll decrease by twice the Ante each time a wager was made, but to not see the chips on the board. That has been fixed in this release. Thanks, Rob!

2. BUG: Jeffrey reached out with some screenshots of Craps. This bug is a head scratcher and I'm not 100% sure I've resolved it in this release because I cannot reproduce it. The issue is that after a roll completes, the dice on the board are not always updating correctly to reflect the final roll. I made some "Hail Mary" changes in this release and will also continue to try to reproduce the issue in order to get to an actual root cause. I suspect this is the last remnants of the issues that were previously causing Craps to crash on iPhone. Thanks for letting me know, Jeffrey, and please let me know how this release works out on your device!

3. ENHANCEMENT: Double Draw, Lunar Poker, and the Video Poker games require the Player to tap cards to Hold or Discard them. I cleaned up the code that was handling those operations and re-styled the indicators that are displayed on the cards. Now, they look a lot nicer. They are dynamic based on the size of the cards so please reach out if any of them are too small. I did my best to check all impacted games on all devices, but you've seen me drop that ball before!

4. ENHANCEMENT: I had a little fun with graphics and added a new style of dice for the games that use dice. Check out Preferences in those games!

I have a question for those who made it this far in the release notes: My mother has gotten me addicted to a non-casino game that offers "tournaments" in which you can play against a bunch of other people and the top finishers win "prizes". I'm curious: would anyone be interested in "RBG Tournaments" where the Players who amassed the most chips in a particular game during a period of time would win prizes? If you are, please reach out via "Send Feedback" or via the support email address and provide me your thoughts. On paper, it looks cool but it would be a ton of wasted work if I “build it and they DON’T come”.

I'll close with my standard "Thank you for your support" line. I really do appreciate the support of the Player community. There is no way that RBG would have become what it is today without your support, patience, suggestions, and feedback.

~Danny

Major bug fix that impacted ALL games. Thank you very much, Brad, for alerting me to this one! It's ugly and it's sure to generate a lot of noise if folks don't see the alert messages and updates I have posted on Twitter (@RiverboatApp).


Board controls became disabled if you changed the screen during an active hand (e.g. accessed the Chip Store, How To Play, or Pay Table after cards were dealt). The issue is resolved in this release.

And, here I thought it was going to be a nice, slow, easy week after finally getting to the bottom of that nasty, elusive Craps issue!

~Danny

Game #57 has arrived and I love it! Requested by Linda, "Cali Lowball" is sure to become a favorite of many! I've played this game for hours and feel like I'm becoming addicted to it! What is really wild about the game is that, like a 2-Way Bad Beat, you actually WANT the Dealer to have better cards than do you because, in Cali Lowball, the WORST hand wins! Be sure to read the instructions to fully understand the game. There is no such thing as a Straight or a Flush and ACES ARE ALWAY LOW. Check it out and let me know what you think. Many thanks to Linda for reaching out with the request!

A while ago, I made a change that impacted the games that require the Dealer to "qualify". In those games, the first time the Dealer fails to qualify, a message displays to explain the parameters for Dealer qualification & what happens should the Dealer fail to qualify. These messages were served once and only once. When I started to get a lot of support questions on the topic, I opted to make those messages show up once, per session, per game. While doing that helped to reduce the support questions from folks who were new to an impacted game, it created a whole other "problem". Namely, experienced Players had to deal with seeing a message that was really a "Duh! No kidding!" message from their perspective.

In this release, in response to inquiries from Robert (a long time supporter, advocate, and advisor) I prioritized making such messages optional. Now, Players may turn these messages off using the "Show Popup Instructions" switch in Preferences. I want to thank Robert for bringing this to my attention and mostly for his patience. I can relate to the fact that having a "dumb" message pop up while trying to play a game with which you are familiar can be annoying!

Enhancement: For Craps on IPads, I removed the "Roll" button. Now, to roll the dice, simply wait for them to appear enabled and then tap them.

Enhancement: I received some rather cool/educational feedback from Eric, a former casino Dealer, about Faro. I turns out that the "final sequence" option in that game was historically referred to as "Chasing the Turn". It makes sense when you consider that that is basically what is occurring. For that reason, I've rebranded that part of the game. Now, instead of the boring "final sequence" verbiage, all references to that "bonus game" should be reflected as Chasing/Chase the Turn. Thanks Eric!

Bug Fix: Rabbit Hunter: If the Bad Beat Bonus was wagered and there was a Push with a Pair of Tens or higher, the app would crash while trying to calculate a bonus that should not be paid.

Bug Fix: There were a handful of crashes that appeared to have been caused by the 3rd party libraries that are being used for logging. It's pathetic that trying to log some information could create an exception that would crash the app, but it's the reality of app development. Hopefully, the changes that I made will prevent such situations from occurring in the future!

Bug Fix: I was able to build a simulator that would roll Craps repeatedly and that allowed me to consistently reproduce the sporadic crashes that were occurring on iPhones. I scoured the code and refactored things and was able to roll over 30K consecutive times on multiple physical devices without a single crash. I believe that issue is resolved! Many thanks to all who were helpful and patient while I figured that out. I still have no idea why the problem didn't manifest on iPads.

Bug Fix: The Try Lux Bonus on the Blackjack games was not properly paying Straights, Flushes, and Straight Flushes. Thanks for using "Send Feedback" to let me know, Laura!

Finally, I never get tired of saying: I sincerely appreciate you! Your support and patience are amazing and your input continues to improve RBG as an app! Please, if you haven't already, consider leaving a review in the App Store and, please, encourage your friends, family, and complete strangers to "check RBG out"!

~Danny

Game #57 has arrived and I love it! Requested by Linda, "Cali Lowball" is sure to become a favorite of many! I've played this game for hours and feel like I'm becoming addicted to it! What is really wild about the game is that, like a 2-Way Bad Beat, you actually WANT the Dealer to have better cards than do you because, in Cali Lowball, the WORST hand wins! Be sure to read the instructions to fully understand the game. There is no such thing as a Straight or a Flush and ACES ARE ALWAY LOW. Check it out and let me know what you think. Many thanks to Linda for reaching out with the request!

A few releases back, I made a change that impacted the games that require the Dealer to "qualify". In those games, the first time the Dealer fails to qualify, a message pops up to explain the parameters for Dealer qualification and what happens in the game should the Dealer fail to qualify. These messages were served once and only once. When I started to get a lot of support questions on the topic, I opted to make those messages show up once, per session, per game, when the Dealer failed to qualify. While doing that helped to reduce the support questions from folks who were new to an impacted game, it create a whole other "problem". Namely, experienced Players had to deal with seeing a message that was really a "Duh! No kidding!" message from their perspective.

In this release, in response to inquiries from Robert (a long time supporter, advocate, and advisor) I prioritized making such messages optional. Now, Players may turn these messages off using the "Show Popup Instructions" switch in Preferences for games that are impacted. I want to thank Robert for bringing this to my attention and mostly for his patience. I can relate to the fact that having a "dumb" message pop up while trying to play a game with which you are familiar can be annoying!

Enhancement: I received some rather cool/educational feedback from Eric, a former casino Dealer, about Faro. I turns out that the "final sequence" option in that game was historically referred to as "Chasing the Turn". It makes sense when you consider that that is basically what is occurring. For that reason, I've rebranded that part of the game. Now, instead of the boring "final sequence" verbiage, all references to that "bonus game" should be reflected as Chasing/Chase the Turn. Thanks Eric!

Bug Fix: Rabbit Hunter: If the Bad Beat Bonus was wagered and there was a Push with a Pair of Tens or higher, the app would crash while trying to calculate a bonus that should not be paid.

Bug Fix: There were a handful of crashes that appeared to have been caused by the 3rd party libraries that are being used for logging. It's pathetic that trying to log some information could create an exception that would crash the app, but it's the reality of app development. Hopefully, the changes that I made will prevent such situations from occurring in the future!

The backlog of general "TODO" items has been significantly reduced. This is great news because it means I can get back to focusing on enhancing RBG with new features! I have a lot of exciting plans for the app, but I will always prioritize Player requests and bug fixes above those plans. There are still a few (very few) crashes occurring on Craps for the iPhone. Those issues are my number one priority. If you have any suggestions or requests, though, please make sure that you reach out using "Send Feedback" or via the support email that can be found at TheRiverboatGambler.com so that I can add them to the backlog.

Finally, I never get tired of saying: I sincerely appreciate you! Your support and patience are amazing and your input continues to improve RBG as an app! Please, if you haven't already, consider leaving a review in the App Store and, please, encourage your friends, family, and complete strangers to "check RBG out"! The more that YOU help with the marketing, the more I can focus on writing code!

~Danny