Bitcoin Forum

I just can't fathom people gamble on SD knowing they will lose.

I mean SD can be proved a loosing proposition

(baring the double spend before loss enters BC bot)

can some one explain the mentality here?

Why people play lottery? Or go to casino? Or why they buy unproductive things? Like jewellery, or expensive dinners? Or going to a cinema? Or paying for internet access to chat on bitcointalk.org?

Some people just find gambling fun, and SD makes it very easy.

And you're only guaranteed to lose in the long run; it's not like there's no chance of making money off it.

I stopped a while ago, but I am actually at 30 BTC of profit on SD. There's no trick to it, I don't have better odds than anyone else, but it is possible to make money. Like I said, this is only in the short run, which is why you have to stop eventually.

Because they find "it" fun. What is fun about playing a game where you are practically guaranteed (via mathematics) to lose money? No; surely losing money cannot be fun. It is the risk that is fun. "It" is risk. They find risk fun.

Risk - doesn't matter whether it's skydiving, having unprotected sex, streaking, gambling, whatever - has an effect on the reward circuitry in our brain that makes it very desirable to people with impaired dopamine function. And risk coupled with the slight possibility of very large reward - even MORE burn-out for our dopamine receptors. Wheeee!

Sure, in long run you'll lose but who knows what will happen on one roll of the Satoshi dice ;). Besides, Satoshi dice has an insanely high payout ratio compared to other gambling sites on the internet.

Normal people gamble for entertainment, not financial gain, so the expected value calc is simply irrelevant. Idiots and perhaps certain types of "problem gamblers" do it for supposed financial gain.

People find the variance fun. Simple as that.

FWIW, I live in Vegas. This town understands how to entertain.

There are situations in which it makes perfect rational sense to play satoshidice.

They are rare in real life, but most of us have been in a situation like that one time or another.

I'll repost an example I posted to a similar question on reddit:

You are traveling in a foreign country and you oversleep your alarm clock. You only have 30 minutes to get to the airport or you will miss your flight home, and your sister's wedding, which is a few hours after your scheduled arrival. You have no cash on you, only 0.9 Bitcoins on your smartphone.

There is a shortage of taxis because of a major sporting event. For the same reason, all the ATMs are empty. Still, you are lucky enough to find one of the few taxis still vacant. However, the driver doesn't accept credit cards, only cash or bitcoin. He charges 1 BTC for the trip. He is in a grumpy, take-it-or-leave it kind of mood so bargaining won't work.

(1) You can either give up on the taxi, but then your chance of catching the flight is practically 0%.

(2) Or you can bet the 0.9 BTC on a quick round of Satoshidice, and that will give you a 90% chance of catching the flight, and not missing your sister's wedding.

Which option would you choose? 1 or 2?

The worst that can happen is that you lose 0.9 BTC and miss the flight. But isn't it worth taking a chance? It's your sister's wedding after all.


Having said that, I doubt that this accounts for most of the volume on satoshi dice. People are just being irrational.

tl;dr expected utility != expected monetary gain

^ This.

People's utility curves can be pretty crazy.

ok, a supervening utility...though maybe a slight floor is that your more likely than not to still not get the flight, but I guess more than zero, so ok....good example