Board Game Arena

I go to Arena, and select a game. It says searching for players. I watch the counter "searching for 3 players, 2 players 1 players 0 players!"
Great, so the game can start? Nope. "Searching for 2 players. 3 players. 1 player. 3 players. 0 players!! 2 players..." and on it goes.

Why if it has 4 players ready does the game not launch? It makes no difference if I try with a premium or standard account. I let my premium membership lapse just to check this. It was happening when I was premium and with standard account it's still happening just the same.

So, can anyone explain why this is happening? Is the code just broken and it doesn't actually find the number of players the counter is saying it did? Are people somehow able to decline the automatic arena launch? Is the server unstable and randomly booting people instead of opening the game? Am I just cursed? Is anyone else seeing this?

You can queue up for multiple arena games at once. Once a table is found and the players are confirmed, you're automatically withdrawn from the other games.

It has nothing to do with premium membership. The counter is correct, even if occasionally weird. If it's irritating, just ignore it.

But if it has enough people to start the game why doesn't the game start? It sits on searching for 0 people for a good while. It's not instantaneous

Updates aren't instantaneous. When you're matched up in a game, you need to withwraw from the others. The server does that, but it may take a couple seconds until that status is updated on other players' screens. In that time, it may briefly appear that there are enough people to start a different game, but when the server attempts to verify participation the display is updated and corrected.

In short, games do start when there are enough people. The counter gives you an idea of how far along that is.