Tag Archives: issued
With The Deck Of Casino Cards To The School Blackboard. Part Three.
Together with this rich heritage these decks of cards created for education purposes. In 1662 the German publisher Johann Hoffmann published a book “Reproduced antique art cards with 36 figures created by Johann Pretorio”. The Bavarian National Museum in Munich stores the cards issued by Johann Schtridbeck in 1685 and they can be related to the series “Worthy Men”. These cards present outstanding men of the Ancient Rome and Greece. Other cards have pictures of the Roman emperors starting from Caesar. In 1936 issued a pack of cards called “History” in honor of crowning of the English King Edward VIII. The cards were hand-painted and with English text on them. The cards depict 53 rulers of England. A very beautiful pack is stored in Victoria and Albert Museum: the picture on the sleeve is a scene in front of the Coliseum with the Latin inscription – “Testis Temporum”. Each of the four suits is devoted to one of the monarchies: coins refer to Assyrians, cups correspond to Persians, swords to Greeks, warders to Romans.
Events of the Bible history were also reflected in decks of the playing cards. The Church did not approve cards and the artists who chose Bible scene as subjects of their works, found an interesting interpretation of symbols of card suits. For example, on German cards called “spiritual deck”, the jack of leaves (many eastern and southern Germans prefer decks with hearts, bells, leaves, and acorns (for hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs) is presented as Jonah under a green tree and the ace of acorns symbolizes the prodigal son who fell as low as that he had to eat acorns together with pigs.
Cards with religious pictures were probably intended to entertain the clergy who as a rule were forbidden to play cards. One pack of this type is known and it was produced in Germany in XVI century. It depicts monks and nuns, cardinals and lower clergy. The queen in these cards is presented as abbess. (probably the influence of Tarot).
The Geographical decks of cards. The British museum has a pack of cards with counties dated back to 1590. We have already mentioned the pack “Geography” used for teaching Louis XIV. Probably the childhood impressions of Louis XIV were so strong that in 1701 he issued a law on uniform canon of gaming cards for each of nine provinces of France (this way making all the French cards somewhat geographical). In 1678 Nürnberg publishing house published a book called “European geographical card game”. Fifty-two pages of the book demonstrate all exiting kingdoms and countries with the main cities in Europe. Besides the description of the countries, cities and the most interesting sites, it also tells about the most significant events in these places. The Frankfurt Museum of the Applied Art has a deck of another type of cards: each card has a picture of a representative of a particular population group.
In general context any game is educational as in the course of the game the person performs cognitive activity. Virtually every game either commercial or gambling incarnates the basis of many sciences: the theory of probability, mathematical logic, and of course, arithmetic and elementary logic. You cannot play the bridge, poker or chuck-farthing without the latter. Besides the game indirectly teaches you the basics of law and ethics and helps to develop your memory, attention and intelligence.
Are TST certificates reliable?
If you walk into a real-world casino in the US, you can be reasonably sure the games are fair. Each state runs oversight of the casinos operations and, so far as it can, ensures we all have a reasonable chance of winning. Put another way, real-world casinos have a claim to be transparent. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the online gambling world. Most of the virtual casinos are based in countries interested only in taking the licence fees. This produces a real lack of transparency so that, even when there are legitimate complaints made and the regulators “investigate”, theres little to explain what the investigators actually do and how aggressively they enforce control over the casinos in their countries. Its all about killing the goose laying the golden jackpots. If the regulators are an effective police force, the casinos will move their virtual operations elsewhere and the state treasury loses out.
Which brings us to the certificates issued by Technical Systems Testing (TST). This is an organization making its living by compliance testing games and it works closely with the regulators in Canada, the UK, Australia and other countries with developed gambling industries. Most recently, it has been certifying the random number generators used online. All the fair and honest sites based in highly regulated countries like the UK carry certificates such as those issued by TST. So how reliable are the TST certificates?
As TST honestly states on its own site, its not a policing body. It works in the same way as the auditing profession. It looks at what it is given and gives its opinion. Because of the nondisclosure agreements it signs, it can never discuss how or why some certificates are (or are not) issued. You have to take on trust the assertion that TST is an independent body and gives an unbiased opinion. This is rather like the defense raised by the rating agencies in the financial meltdown. They certified the investments issued by the banks as AAA only to see them worth nothing a few months later. When an organization depends on the fee income from a single source, theres an inevitable conflict of interest. If you do not certify, you get no fee income.
But, the real question comes about what happens to the software TST tests and certifies fair. As it rightly says, its not a policing body and its not a regulator. It has no power to check whether the software it verified is the software in play a few weeks later. For any certificate to be worth the pixels used to display it on a screen, there should be monthly testing on site. With Bodog and other casino games operators using TST certificates in their press releases, the burden of proof is now on TST to prove its certificates have real value. As it stands, there would seem to be every chance that TST could end up in the same unhappy position as the auditors who declared Enron accounts a fair representation of its trading position. Without regular, routine and random testing on site, there would seem no guarantee the certificates show fair and honest casino games in play.