Bitcoin Forum

Hi everyone,

Bitscratch.org has been in a testing and development phase for a while, and the replies that we have had have been excellent.

The findings of sending out scratch cards came back with the following problems-

1. People were worried that there might be legal issues, especially with getting cards sent into america.

2. Distribution factor issues. Too few users of bit-coins to make distribution worthwhile.

3. Value for money. Factoring in postage costs, the value for money of buying scratch cards was low.


Taking into consideration the findings of our sample run, we have decided to launch a new product-

PHYSICAL LUCKY BITCOINS!

How does it work?

You buy and receive, physical brass 1 bit-coin tokens, in the style of Casascius.

http://www.bitscratch.org/games/bitscratch_bitcoin.jpg

But as you notice there is a hologram on the back-

http://www.bitscratch.org/games/bitscratch_hologram.jpg

Just like the scratch cards, there will be a random QR key code under the hologram with a prize loaded. Every coin is a winner!

The prizes will be from 0.01 to 0.005BTC. The prize distribution will go like this;

for every 1000 coins sent out;

250 winners;

1x  0.5
1x  0.2
24x 0.1
24x 0.05
100x 0.02
100 x 0.01
750x 0.005

making a total prize pool of 11.05 for every 1000 coins.

Asking price for coins, supplied in rolls of 10, will be .25btc a roll. That is 0.025 per coin.

We came to the conclusion that this answers peoples concerns in how the games could be played in the following ways;

CONCERN 1. People were worried that there might be legal issues, especially with getting cards sent into america.

Solution: these are not scratch cards, you are buying the physical bitcoin token, something tangible. The prize is a 'free gift with your purchase of the token'. No more issues in getting them into the united states. 

CONCERN 2. Distribution factor issues. Too few users of bit-coins to make distribution worthwhile.

Solution: we now will just ship direct to customers which removes the expense of setting up a distribution network. Coins will be made available in packs of 10. If you want to then resell them yourself, this is your choice.

CONCERN 3. Value for money. Factoring in postage costs, the value for money of buying scratch cards was low.

Solution: you are getting a reusable bitcoin token. once the hologram is off, you can reload your bitcoin like a physical bitcoin wallet. People are selling reusable bitcoin tokens for up to .2 each on their own. Being that each coin is loaded with at least 0.005, and we are selling them for 0.025 each, you are really playing for FREE anyway when you think about it.


SECURITY- the hologram is a 'use once' hologram that will tear off and cant be put back on the coin once used. so once you have opened and redeemed your prize you would not be able to pass it off again as an unused lucky bitcoin, only as an unloaded token.

We will shortly be putting an order and checkout page on our website.

Please come forward with your comments. We are not ready to ship for another few weeks whilst we prepare the coins, at the moment just looking for more comments and ideas, but dont be shy to put yourself down for pre order :)

Again I thank everyone who had the sample scratch cards and your opinions really did help make this game possible.

It says 2011 on the front and also "1 Bitcoin".
Especially the last part strikes me since the highest win-chance is 0.5BTC.

Other than that: This *looks* quite well-made.

As I said, it is token blanks of the casascius coins that they are stuck to. They are 2011 blanks with '1 bitcoin' on them- that people will be able to reuse afterwards to load with a bitcoin themselves. It is quite common for bitcoin blanks to have 1 bitcoin on them. However I can always change the style of the token, but I notice that many people on the forum are asking for 1 bitcoin token blanks.....we need to keep our product viable and appealing across all markets so this was the token of choice.

Added a poll to see what you guys think of our idea. I welcome your comments.

In my opinion the prizes are not worth the cost. You pay .25 for 10 coins but even if on one coin u win the .5 top prize, thats only double the .25 u spent. I know the other ones are winners but still. In my opinion it would be better to sell 5000 or 10000 total and be able to offer a prize like 3 or 5 BTC as a top prize. You could also make the "losers" worth only .001 and more of them and more bigger prizes instead. I mean honestly, people won't really be more disappointed with .001 then with .005, both are small amounts. Just my opinion of the product, good luck to you.

Our thinking was the novelty of the actual token being reusable for some people who want to make physical bitcoins and have a little fun at the same time......

what kind of prize pyramid would you then suggest. Does anyone else agree with that opinion? We are open to options for the prize pyramid.

wow I like the idea of this from just quickly reading over the first post. 
kudos and I hope this catches on!

thanks, spread the word :)

Very nice indeed. Tempting, very tempting.

Welsh, you usually have good input on things. What do you think about the prize pyramid I am thinking of?

My opinion?


I think it can be expensive. But, at the end of the day it's gambling. .25 for 10 coins. .5 top prize. So you have 10 chances of winning the top prize. That seems reasonable considering the price which you are selling for. Want I like about this, is you're going to win something, for example the Coin. I like the coins it's something which could be kept and shown off to friends & family. Also, "Every coin is a winner" is yet another +.


Now this is the down side:
1x  0.5
1x  0.2
24x 0.1
24x 0.05
100x 0.02
100 x 0.01
750x 0.005

1000 coins. buying 10 for 0.25. I could potentially win all the top prizes however it's very unlikely. If everything went bad I would win 10x 0.005. The total being 0.05. But, then again it is gambling. What do people expect? There's always a big % of the gambler losing. Also, like it says on the original post, these could be reloaded and sold on. So it does have a few cons and pros. Which one weights out the other? I think with the right selling skills you could resell these coins for a little & break even on you're winnings. Not guaranteed but I go back to my point it's GAMBLING.

I think if the price was reduced then more people would be interested, or maybe the odds of winning the bigger prizes were increased But, I don't know how much these cost to manufacturer or ship out.

Overall, I think this could be awesome. You have started out well. You have asked for peoples input into you're idea and have been more than willing to take advise. I don't personally know what you could do to get more people interested because I don't know how much it costs YOU to produce these. Obviously you have to make profit as well as others. Maybe someone else with a good idea can give us some input because at this point in time I can't think of anything. I do know some people will buy these. I would most likely try them out myself and then cry when I lose, lol.



EDIT: These are made out of brass correct? 1lbs is $2-$3. So that's pretty good. It is however a rather large house edge which I think needs to be considered and looked into a little more. The max win 0.5 only happens once in 1000 coins, that's quite a lot.

The EV is currently -0.01395 per coin which is more than half the buy in price. Compared to other gambling this sounds like a rather big house edge. But then again: this is a novelty thing.

Thanks as usual welsh for a nice thought out input.

The reason why we developed this game is the problem with our BITSCRATCH cards in highly regulated markets like the USA, which don't allow import of anything lottery related. So bitscratch cards because they look like fiat scratch cards, would stand the risk of getting seized at the boarder. Plus once used, they are pretty much useless. So, with the shipping costs and production costs, plus a large market chunk being closed to us, it makes it hard to be able to offer a good edge on the cards.

So the coins are there to circumvent the legal issue of importing gambling instruments- its supposed to be, you are paying for the coin, and the prize itself is a freebee. As any customs officer who would be inspecting the coins coming in, all they would see are tokens with holograms. Any person wishing to resell them would not have to risk dubious legal issues peddling scratch cards without a lottery licence. They would simply be selling bit-coin souvenirs.

As a by product of 'every one is a winner' they would make great giveaway gifts to people, becuase the person who you hand them to, to use it or find out if they have won, would need to open a wallet and load it. So these could help people get friends/family/collegues into bitcoin as people want to see what they have won. Then the person once loaded it, still have a funky souvineir that they can drill a hole in and put on a keychain/necklace/use as a conversation piece.

Basically, we wanted this idea to stick to our company motto- Brigining Digial Gamint to LIFE- whilst at the same time offering affordability and a broad spectrum base of appeal.

This is not supposed to be something for hardcore pure gamblers. They have their 99.9% payout house edge blah blah websites with no overheads at all. 

The issue we have is production costs. As you can imagine we have gone to expense out of our own pocket to produce the holograms and coins with no guarantee that there will be any uptake, as well as the development of the scratch cards before that. So there is investment that needs to be recuperated. There are labour costs involved making the bitcoin wallet codes, putting them on the coins and then there is shipping, etc. Plus the cost of hologram production and the coins themselves. Plus it would be nice to make some money in the mix- although the markup is not what some people thing, as some person rudely suggested on another post of mine that these blanks could be made for a penny each, yet failed to take me up on my offer to make them my supplier and place an order for 1000 that day.......

I could do a few things- up the larger prizes and not make every one a winner, and reduce it to around about 1 in 5 which would also cut out the labour cost (it is much less labour cost to glue a 'better luck next time sticker inside a percentage of the coins that hash out 1000 codes, print and stick them) and put the labour cost reduction into more prizes. If the 750 0.005 prizes and the 0.01 prizes are removed which make up a large portion of the prize fund and also distribute them across the other prizes. for example;

2x  0.5     
10x  0.2     
25x 0.1     
40x 0.05     
250x 0.02   
250 x 0.01

5.77 chances out of 10 to win.

So in theory there is at almost 6 chances to win in every pack of 10, and more chances to win higher prizes- in theory the maximum prize for one pack if it happened to have all top prizes would be BTC2.6 for a BTC0.25 gamble.

Another option we have is to run 'bronze' 'silver' and 'gold' games- I can have coins made in different metals or different denominations (IE 0.2btc, 0.5btc and the 1btc) and then run lower cost but lower prizes. so the 'bronze' game could have a smaller top prize and every coin a winner, satisfying people who want to give them away as novelties, and the higher grade games could have a higher price tag with a better jackpot for more serious players. Non denominated, aluminium or steel bitcoin tokens I could source for a lot less than the high quality brass ones, so, could do a pack of 10 for .05btc with a payout maximum of 0.5btc with every coin a winner.

Don't forget that another bonus to this is the jackpot is per batch of 1000- with a minimum purchase of 10 coins per lot that means only 100 people will be sharing the jackpot, and then it starts over again. Larger jackpots that sound attractive can have 10,000 players competing for the top prizes.

And dont forget all in all at the end of this you still have a loadable bitcoin token to use as your own physical bitcoin wallet or give away/sell etc.

All in all, this is supposed to be a fair deal all round with no complications from gambling laws due to the presence of a 'free' prize and a tangible product.

More comments wanted :)

what about shipping to people living abroad?

For example I work in China but definitely want to get some of those coins as gifts to friends or just for fun,
but at 0.25 /10 coins I doubt you guys cover even the cheapest USPS international priority which takes almost 3 weeks to ship?

Actually, they are made in and shipped directly from china.....

Right, but you still have to pay for shipping somehow, or is that already included in the price?

I'd buy a pack if the coin was better quality.

standard shipping included in the price for most international destinations. There is not as much of a mark up on this as people are thinking......


Your input on what would improve the quality of the coin would be very welcome?

when can we buy some of these?

these would be nice if they had a different design with nice metallic silver plating of some sort  :)

this still happening?

I want to collect a couple :)

Do you have an example of what a coin looks like when opened?

How much will earn coin cost?

They are for sale, sat at the factory. I didn't release them yet becuase some work just called me away for a two month contract. I am back now though, PM me if you are interested.

Asking price for coins, supplied in rolls of 10, will be .25btc a roll. That is 0.025 per coin. thats loaded with a prize. if you want blanks or in bulk we can talk.