According to a court testimony at Zeeland West Brabant, in the Netherlands, an unnamed programmer at Sheriff Gaming said that most of the slots created and designed by the company were rigged to never pay out players. Instead, they were configured to pay out only to friends and family of the company.
The Netherlands count released the case to the public last week. The parties charged are the now defunct online casino software provider Sheriff Gaming along with its parent company Bubble Group. The owners of the parent company, brothers Maurice and Michel Gregoire and Stijn Flapper are currently awaiting trial on a number of charges that took place between 2008 and 2013.
Firstly, Sheriff Gaming failed to pay more than €13.5m in taxes on the generated €46.7m virtual gaming revenue from the sites run by Bubble Group. This revenue was generated between 2008 and 2013, when the Dutch gambling authorities accused the owners of the company for money laundering and illegal gambling.
Furthermore, according to the court papers, a Sheriff programmer said that 95 percent of the Sheriff Gaming slots are configured so that they pay out only to friends and family of the owner. However, if a slot player changes his/hers betting range from €2 to €1, it would cause a system override and a payout will be generated. The programmer also said that this happened at least once and it caused a director to become very angry. Allegedly the winner never got the full jackpot amount he/she triggered.
Dutch media read that this director is in fact Stijn Flapper. Allegedly he would reduce the chances of players’ winning when a jackpot prize grew pretty big. Reports also say that he is also responsible for ensuring jackpot prizes go to “fake players”, while others go to “friends and family”.