Bitcoin Forum

Would this gambling system work?

Since that mining bitcoin is pretty much random, but the rule of thumb is that the more hashpower you have, the higher chance you have of mining the next block.

What if there was a service that you could bet on who mined the next block, with say a 2% house edge? Would you gamble there?

E.g. Pool x has 50% of the total hashpower. If you bet on pool x and they mine the next block, you get 98% profit.

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Or this

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You bet on who is going to mine the next block, based on the top 10 entities with the most hashpower. If you win, you get your share of the pot that everyone contributed to.

E.g.

- x is your bet in BTC
- y is the combined bet of everyone who bet on your same entity
- z is 95% of the total amount wagered for that block

So the formula is:
z(x÷y)

The house earns 5% of the total pot every block.

There were sites implementing your second idea in the past. http://block777.com/ and http://bettingblocks.com/ (both owned by the same person) allows people to bet on that, but the two sites don't get very successful it seems, and were shut down.

Maybe people would... My opinion is that people like to (1) gamble on games where they think they have an influence on the outcome or (2) on an event they really enjoy, like their favorite sports team.

Not sure this idea would get a big following.

i would prefer to have an interesting way of gambling so it will gain my attention to visit your site. At the same time it must have those old fashion table games to sustain me to visit as constantly as new type of games wont be sustaining.

Yes, I was just about to say the same that there was a site like that and the reason why I think they got shut down is because every now and then a block would get found by a miner not listed on the site(meaning you can't pick it, no matter what) and instead of making that bet void they would add the whole bet amount to the next 777 block as the cherry bonus and basically that means that you have lost your bet. And that is the part I didn't like at all. If there are 8 options to bet on, I expect 1 of those 8 to win, if a 9th winner is found then I expect my bet to be returned to me, but that was not the case.

I wouldn't want to because the chance of winning will be so low. It will be like a lottory almost. Low chance to win but only a low bet needed for very high earnings. I do think its a good idea though. Breaths fresh life into the betting scene which is always a good thing.

It doesn't seem like a bad idea to be honest. Although I'm not sure if it's going to be good either.
In my opinion, it doesn't seem exciting enough. You could maybe try it and see how it works for other gamblers though.

dice/gambling not good for earning btc
loser and loser

But you'd gladly take anything Primedice gives you for wearing their signature, right?
Such hypocisy...

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@OP:
IIRC there were already some services offering to gamble on the pool to mine the next block, would have to search for it though.
Nvm, they have already been posted.

Yeah I agree you should implement both the stuff that people like about gambling and look for and at the same time come with something new and creative. But it is very hard to be successful with this because you have so much competition.

I think its a really good idea to mix it up with. The problem is you going to have to work on a formula that will work well with what people want when it comes to gambling.