Bitcoin Forum

Think about how much entrenched power that the casino industry and the feds have over gambling, offline and on. Aren't they talking about trying to legalize commercial online gaming by making the industry host it in gambling-legal states? They see all the money being made and everyone wants a piece of the pie. With bitcoin, we all have the pie and we're baking more every minute!

The odds are more in my favor here by playing these silly Ponzi schemes or chance games because I can be very choosy about who I play with based on how they write English, how they respond to inquiry, etc. I know nothing about casino CEO goons or their customer service record. :-)  We all have the power to promote the individual games (or just the Marketplace) and thereby increasing the odds that lots of people walk away happy. The stakes are not that high and the pressure is very low. You don't have to pay Vegas it's due ($$$ for meals, hotels, rides, or lots of $$$$ at the table).

I don't understand why people even find Vegas (or other gaming cities) fun. The whole place is designed to slowly rob you of both your money and your health while convincing you you're having a good time. Is there clean, organic, pesticide, GMO-free food in the casinos yet? Don't they pump chemicals/oxygen into the air supply? I know people will disagree with me, but the times I've been there (for Defcon/BlackHat, usually), I walked away feeling a little more cheated than before. I didn't ever gamble more than $5 during a trip because I was so put off. I felt the same way about Louisiana and other areas too.


Here, you just have to scan forums or IRC channels and play and the fact that you can start with your free .02BTC from the BitFaucet means that anyone can do it, and you can probably always get a fresh start if you wind up empty. :-)


All of this is world changing. I'm not sure exactly to what extent yet but I'm pretty sure it is going to be for a lot of people. :-)



I agree with the other posts that it probably needs to be it's own section.


Even if you think some of the games are silly, remember, in Vegas the house always has the edge. Who has the edge here? Those people that actually play.

I like the games here. They are often honestly transparent, and the operators don't take much off the top – 1-3% is not much compared to what's kept by the bank in in traditional gambling.

But, I agree with the point that they are crowding the marketplace board.

Post something in this thread (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=19918.0) that I created a few days ago.  Gotta get interest shown in it so we can get a gambling subforum.

I already posted something in newer thread on the Meta board and in the one here asking what's become of this board, suggesting a "lounge" forum that would not only hold gambling, but also other threads that have too little substance for the regular Off-topic board.

I added support to the gaming subforum request.

For now, everyone just needs to watch http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?board=5.0

Incidentally, I learned about all this just by scanning the #bc-news channel on IRC. It's a great info source.

Bitcoin seems to works pretty well for the lotteries that use it.  Using BitLotto as an example:

• All tickets (wagers) are seen in the block chain so the operator cannot misreport the number of tickets sold.
• The payment to the winner is also seen in the block chain
• The winning numbers are derived from the picks of a state-run lottery so you needn't trust that the winner picked wasn't truly done so at random.

The lottery operator does not know the identity of the winner, only the address that was used to buy the ticket.

Because bitcoin already takes care of the hard parts of operating a lottery, there is little cost to the operator to offer this.  As a result, even a 99% payout can still leave a comfortable profit for the lottery operator.  Compare this to 70% or whatever state run lottteries will pay out, though it is understood that profits from state lotteries go to the government.

The block chain is a fantastic innovation for helping make it so that we don't need to extend trust -- we have the block chain providing the evidence.  

The lottery example has one significant gap yet though ... and that is that the operator of the lottery has the ability to walk away with all the wagers and not pay out.  Using some trusted escrow would help with that risk.

Things get especially crazy when you introduce things like the 1.1 or 1.2x pools, where the goal is to have a long-running pyramid scheme. In the current one I'm operating, 16/19 people in it have been paid so far, and there are partial refunds based on the current pot.

The beauty with this is that everyone knows what's going on, and can check a pool's history.

those aren't games those are ponzi schemes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-yield_investment_program

I don't see an issue with there being a forum for gambling only.  Scanning through the marketplace it almost feels like it's become the gambling forum already, and i think that might be a sore issue for those of you with just a regular non-gambling business.

But consider that since they removed the gambling section from the bitcoin wiki (because it's illegal in Japan?) that this has become our home, if you will...

As a runner of a bitcoin lottery, I also appreciate that people don't have an issue with the 1-3% rake that we take.  I myself do a 2% rake, but my site is not that popular yet, and most of my payouts (actually all of them, i think) have been < 1 btc, and as such Im not necessarily raking it in :) 

And I absolutely am grateful for the trust people put in my site (and other lottery sites).  As others have noted, we could take the money and run at any time.  Personally, I love doing this just to be a part of the bitcoin revolution.  It's a labor of love and over time I hope to establish the fact that no matter how much btc ends up in the pot, I'm not going anywhere with it.   Honestly, I would take on the transaction fees and pay every sitting bettor back before taking any money if I were ever to have to stop doing this for whatever reason.

And for those pooing the idea of the "ponzi scheme" games here, I think anyone who is partaking in them knows whats up.  Can it really have the intent of a real-world ponzi scheme if the entire process is transparent?  Sure, some people won't make btc in them, but we're not talking life savings here, just a few btc.  It's all fun in my opinion, perhaps even for some of us a way to replace the rush of online poker :)

Thanks to everyone who's played my games, and also thanks to those of you who have sent me pm's to help me in my game and on these forums.  It's really appreciated!

Isn't the definition of a real, fraudulent HYIP that the scammers usually claim that the profits come from an actual investment in something?

Message deleted.

You pretty much said what I would have said. Bitcoin does enable whole new techniques that provide secure methods eliminating cheating.

Trusted escrow is the problem. I understand that. I really would do it if I knew how!! With an anonymous lottery it's even harder. Sure we could have a known person but what if they played and bought a lot of tickets. No matter what, someone, somewhere, has to hit the "PAY" button. Someone has to be trusted. Escrow just adds another person ON TOP of me. AND depending on where they live, competing lotteries may not like the competition and get the government to eliminate the competition. Governments can steal too. I hope with time I can build trust with the bitcoin community. I explained in another post why I would be crazy to just leave with the jackpot:
-thousands of highly technical people would probably be able to find me
-I would have committed a blatant crime -theft
-I would be miserable always worrying if I would get caught by some bitter hacker
-I can be happy making a comparatively small profit without too much worry - making it honestly - it's in my own best self interest to operate an honest game