Bitcoin Forum

A while ago, a friend had urged me to run into a store and buy some tickets for a jackpot. For me, that's fine. The chances of getting it is astronomical but rewards on state jackpots are as big as any cheap gambling ticket can give you... They have a history of paying out and they're generally trusted for giving out the money when a jackpot is won eventually.

But he then asked if I would want to spend some time looking at the monitors playing a virtual game. You basically punch out some numbers in a card-ticket you buy, and every 10 minutes new numbers are generated. I respectfully declined but didn't explain why. In an occasion meant to have fun I didn't want to look like a dork, but It really made me think. Would old-school gamblers, people that gamble in bricks and mortars shops, in non-crypto casinos etc. be able to comprehend of the importance of provable fairness?

It just bothers me to no end that so many people don't realize that it's a problem if the house knows your numbers and also control the random number generation. I think that provable fairness could act as a good way to introduce people into bitcoin as provable fairness also talks about trustlessness. But that's another topic.

Do you have any experience trying to explain the virtues of provable fairness to your friends? To be honest, I don't have any other friends that gamble through commercial services so I don't have much experience. But I'd like to know if anyone else has achieved a change of faith with their friends.

Most, if not all, of my friends who are into online gambling are also into crypto. They're basically gambling using crypto, so the concept of provable fairness is not strange to them. However, I have to admit that many of us are playing in provably fair crypto casinos but do not fully understand the tool. While it is quite easy to use verifiers, it is not as easy to understand how everything works.

On the other hand, most of my old-school gambling friends are not even aware of crypto, do not play online, so it is quite pointless to explain to them such an alien thing as provably fair casinos.

People who are in crypto space won't be bother to play any virtual gambling so I guess it's a matter of trust with experience on a certain website. I admit I'm one of those people who don't fully understand the tools maybe because I play on different platforms where the UIs are different from each other. It always makes me laugh whenever I imagine myself explaining to anyone that virtual gambling is just the same as conventional gambling haha.

Well 70% of my friends are known to crypto so I don't waste time explaining which is which. We are just arguing about the best online casinos in existence ;D

Most old school gamblers only care about fairness as a function of reputation, e.g. they'll trust something based on its reputation rather than requesting actual evidence.

Because of this, it's quite possible that many gamblers are being ripped off in brick and mortar casinos thanks to fixed games, but because the casino has a great rep, they'll never question the outcome of their games.

Personally, I have only needed to explain the concept of provable fairness twice, the first time was to an idiot who thought that all online casinos use riggable RNG's to generate their results, and the second was to a casino I work with that was looking how to be more transparent with their users.

So far, I haven't had too much difficullty getting the message through, but both people were crypto literate so that may have skewed the results.

The first time I gamble yes I tried to explain to some of my friend but it seem they are not interested, but those few interested I explain to them about it. Also I only pursue to explain to those who really interested because they can give more time to do gambling without hesitation. And those who want to learn they are possible to do good in gambling and can lessen the loses.

I once tried to explain how the modern-day gambling is good because of probably fair mechanism but that person ignored my arguments and simply saying that "ball is in their court and they can do whatever they want". It means they are still believing that crypto gambling is just a rigged one regardless of whatever things we are having in the name of probably fair mechanism. I believe we must need more simple things to show them what probably fair things are.

It is not hard for anyone to understand what is probably fair mechanism but those continues losing streaks are still the tricky thing which makes doubting about the probably fair mechanism.

So you do basically mean on letting those old traditional gamblers to try out online gambling? When it comes to provably fairness i can say that most of them
are aware of that one.They wont play if they would see it a rigged one.

Here on my country where lottery events do happens live with showing off on how those balls being weighed in to show up fairness and with that
its already a convincing thing for the public to play with it, unless if they dont show off something will really lead to suspicions.

They won't do into details that is very complicated for them, maybe they will just look at the site's reputation, if there are a lot of gamblers playing without complaints, then they'll go play with the site. Nowadays, with the advent of internet, it's not hard to educate the old school gamblers, if they are interested to know, there's a youtube video that would explain about provably fair.

I my self would admit that I am not able to technically understand how to verify hashes on the provably fair system and how it actually works. I won't bother explaining something that I don't fully understand to other people. Honestly, I mostly depend on the reviews on the platform before trying to gamble on it.

Just like you and most others, I also dont understand how the site is fair for betting players and I would be confused if someone wanted me to explain to them how it was determined. Actually our inability to know this will give gambling sites the opportunity to manipulate and deceive the players so that there will be less wins and they will experience more losses.

For me, every gambler must get a fair play from a gambling site because all gamblers will feel disadvantaged by the site and very vulnerable for gamblers to get losses because gambling sites can manipulate and cheat gamblers without a fair play in gambling.

I don't try to explain about provable fairness to the old-school gamblers or some of my friends because I think that is no use to explain to them. After all, they will not accept the new idea from younger people or other people. They will prefer to use their way of playing gambling, and many of them still playing at the casino because they search the happiness to meet their friends and play together. Perhaps, we can explain provable fairness to new people who already play in the online gambling site so they can learn about that, and I think they will find out more about what they want to know. We know that new people who are playing gambling will have a passion for searching for something that they don't understand until they find more information.

I have, and they quite understand that there is an element of trust imposed in a gambling house wherein no physical location is present.

I have reiterated this to my older colleague in the past and told him that if he were to play in a crypto gambling casino, checj whether the games are provably-fair, else he would get ripped off of his money. That guy never touched a single online casino though was keen on learning how a provably-fair gambling game works. He may not have grasped the idea of hashes and checking it but at the least, he didn't impose that trust is the only thing he needs whenever playing for an online gambling casino

Provable fairness is something you won't see on traditional casinos and you can't tell whether a game is rigged. Nonetheless, people flock and lose money there because it is where most people are playing plus the fact that some are accredited by the government, so their notion that they are not going to get ripped off is somewhat false.

That's why if u explain provable fairness to your friend as they always go casino one then will be no sense. This thing only at online crypto casino.
And if u want to explain, u even want to explain crypto, so just let them play the website a while and teach them.
However win many rounds and not go away or place bet with same behavior (example always martingale on big/small) will be big percentage to be rigged off even online casino.
Unless your are big player who want to have big wagered to get rewards etc. 

I think it often happens that many sites often manipulate their own sites to gamble, even I feel playing gambling 2 days in a row but there is no victory even if this can be called manipulation? I think this is unfair for gamblers because they feel aggrieved by it and how to overcome this do we need to leave the gambling site?

Sometimes playing gambling feels cheated because of the injustice of the city so that many players complain about this.
When playing you must feel fair so that many gamblers feel happy with the site.

Provably fair is kind of hard to explain to old-school gamblers, one of which is because it is normally unseen by the naked eye. Not only that, gamblers often pick whatever casinos/sites they play on based on reputation/popularity. Probably because the more players there are in a certain casino/gambling site, the more trustworthy the system is the fewer the chances of them being cheated.

There's only a small population really. Gamblers who take the time to look into the inner workings of a virtual casino and the like. Most of the time, gamblers just look up in google "top 10  bla bla bla" and they use whatever comes up. There's also the difficulty of sending the message of HOW provably fair works, cause some mindsets work like " if you know how it works, then why can't you win?" kind of thing.

Actually is just really an acceptable loss if you do know that its fair or reasonable like youre making bets which do have some wins but end up on losing the entire balance
rather than on playing which you do experience loss streaks which would really stress you out and you would mind that youve been cheated after wards.This is somewhat
a psychological effect and next would set in is your emotion which is really very hard to control once your mind and emotion collaborates and tending to have a continous
play until you wreck yourself.

I always control myself every time I play and I want to know after I play all day and I think winning by losing is really unfair because most defeats than victories which finally makes the balance run out big even though I play very carefully in the game that.

I don't know whether this is bad luck or bad luck to my side so that bad luck happens to me and I blame it on the manipulation of the dealer so that the players cannot win properly.

I think that real old school gamblers who still gamble in shops are not at all familiar with provable fair logic.In fact even many of the regular gamblers who play in well known online casinos are not aware of this tool at their disposal.Even so this needs to be explained in easier ways in the casinos.Most of the casinos offer 3-5 rows of explanation when in reality it needs a whole more than that.

I did to a friend and he said how complicated systems are there just to make sure you can gamble with a peace of mind? wow! He said when he gambled he knew the other side was rigging and it was providing him with an extra thrill and fun to which I said how and he said he was testing his luck against the rigging lol. So yeah

The only friends into gambling I have are into online gambling already, so they're familiar with the concept and don't require an explanation. I think that online gambling is a much safer space than the traditional one, and only one of the reasons for that is provably fair gambling that means that unlike in physical casinos no cheating is possible here. Another reason is that you don't get to people who lose or win money (in person), so it allows avoiding face-to-face conflicts between the winner and the loser. Moreover, casinos are traditionally considered a place full of influential criminals, and mingling with those also doesn't sound like a good idea. I feel alright trying out various online casinos, but I would never even walk into a real one.

Some other gamblers doesn't really care about the fairness of the site since they are aiming to have a adrenaline rush upon betting and I know some of my friends doing that but they still manage their bankrolls, but I still advise them not to do this nor play with that sites frequently since it could rigged them up until their wallet is empty.

I never tried yet explaining provable fairness thing to my old-school gamblers? Why? Because I don't think so that they will have an interest in this kind of gambling. It will be uneasy for them to trust unknown virtual users on the internet. They are contented with those traditional gamble games and they are not that techie to try complicated things and not having time to study how it really works. In addition, they are only playing with real players that they can see physically to have fun and spend spare time with their friends.

I never had an experience explaining what provable fair is to old-school gamblers because they just simply don't understand, or if they do, they have no way of verifying if the game they are playing is provably fair. It will only kill their excitement knowing that the host of the game is maybe not honest with them.  And I don't want to be the one doing that, joy killer.

^ Definitely right, if they are good gamblers they are intelligent enough to investigate how gambling work and if there's is a provably fair system in the virtual gambling industry. Commonly, most of them know what is provably fair once they know crypto but the problem is they don't know how to verify with it. Explaining will take too much time for them to understand, let them warn what is provably fair game and let them do their own research about it.

I don't. I doubt those old school gamblers will show their interest since they cannot show their expression through online, I am sure that they will prefer to do the old way than to try our way of gambling. They might also not understand how it works since most of them are not into technology.

This is true!

Most of them are old and arent to technology thats why they wont really be that interested in terms of online gambling and would stick to the things
theyve got used to be.It will vary though since there are people who do listen up on others suggestion or words but i doubt that they would
still stick to physical ones because the essence and ambiance is totally different when you do gamble in front of other people rather than into
your own pc.Its a matter of preference though.

I have tried it with my uncle which is really into gambling,

But he then deny's everything I have said, his reason is because he want to be together with his co-gamblers. He explained a lot to me even the enjoyment they feel when they get their winnings in their hands.

You said that most of them aren't into technology that's why they don't have their interest in a new way of gambling,

But then you also stated that you have doubted that they would still stick to the physical or the old way of gambling. That contradicts your first statement.

They are more confident doing whatever they've think is good for their own good while playing inside this industry. Gambling wizards are uneasy to changed up minds as they will keep playing the same style that they've used.
Things is complicated as they will  continue closing their minds  believing luck will continue following then doing the same old strategy.

No I haven't tried it yet I have a family member that used to gamble a lot offline she would go to casino and also other types of gambling.
But I haven't tried to tell her anything about online gambling since for me she is only doing it to hang out with her friends,
And because of it I don't feel that she needs to learn any new things about gambling at all.

Ball is in their court, now since they gave this example let's assume that he watches basketball and does the home team always win in NBA? Obviously no because there are referee (although I heard some of the refs are rigged) and that's how gambling works, we deposit money to a casino then we obviously trust them and if we trust them that much there is no harm trying to test the provably fair system as suggested by the casino.

I was able to find a quick link for a guide and don't know if it's accurate but here it goes - https://dicesites.com/provably-fair

But I do agree with you that provably fair games can be tough to explain since not everyone is familiar with seeds, sha algorithms and other key parts. I remember when I tried to explain to an online buddy of mine, he said what "probably fair"? Lol they don't even believe there is something called as provably fair.

Yes of course but to those interested only because explaining is easy but wasting time in someone who is not interested are too frustrating, particularly those people who seem want to earn but they dont want to learn because they want a easy money. I feel pity to those people who want to win and involve in gambling but have no enough knowledge to do it because they dont listen to others.

Correct. Old school gamblers prefer the old strategy and old gameplay in which they are seeing live the players that they are playing with because it helps them to read the cards of the players who are holding it and the typical expression of the gamblers also matters. In live casino it matters the expression of the gamblers if they see their cards bad or good so the old school gamblers mostly prefer this kind of gambling than a technology based in which the gambling will be just through online only. The thing is they are not so familiar on technical aspects so they are just prefer the old gambling style.

Actually I had experienced this to some guys but they never wanted to accept the facts and wants to continue as old school gamblers forever. :(

I didn't take too much efforts on convincing them because they might never hit a jackpot in online gambling just same as in the casinos but they will portray that gambling sites are cheating the users so let them to choose on their own.

Based on my experience, I have no one that I could listen to but I really research on my own to understand my chances in the games I play in gambling.
Now actually it's not hard to educate ourselves, we will become responsible and mature if we continue to learn and improve ourselves.

Gambling is one of most risky venture to make money, therefore we should know how to manage the risk properly.

And though getting successful in gambling is possible but this is not for everyone, only few of the many can be successful.

You cant really tell that online gambling is pure clean when it comes to fairness of games if you do compare it on offline ones.

Majority of them wont really care to play online and just like what being said above that they arent open for learning new stuffs or the tech and instead
they do just stick on the things they have been doing for ages.

When it comes to fairness talks they might really have that of perception but who knows on whats up to their minds.

Same reason why I don't want to explain it to the old school gamblers,
I don't know if they could win and I don't want to be blame for their future addictions or lost.
I also think that they wouldn't like it or they aren't open to try out new things.

Old school gamblers usually playing the game traditionally such as cards games or dice and it was PvP players which mean there was no system to handle it such as online gambling and it wouldn't be suitable if you attempts to explain online casinos system such as provably fair to them because i'm sure they will not understand it or maybe they will ignore your explanation and for them fair games can be recognized if there is no players who cheating in the game and no more or no less

Right. Once they feel comfortable with what they did, they will not show their interest in something new. They will hear what we tell them, but they will not try to follow what we say unless they can open mind about something new. Usually, they will say oh that is okay, and maybe someday I will take a look because that is happening to me but not in the gambling industry ;D

Maybe some of them feel it is difficult to try a new one than to play in the game they usually play. They don't want to try, or they don't' want to learn about that.

Hard part once they've start to listen to you and begin their journey, this types of gamblers are people who really attached to this business, when they learned this new venue you can't stop them anymore, though it's their responsibilities if they've got addicted or lose a huge amount of money but there's always inside you that whispering the guilt.
Explaining ain't hard for people who are ready to learned while to those who are attached with old school ways try do deal with it the hard way..

i have a friend who are old school gamblers and only plays offline but i havent tried to explain them on how online gambling works or how provably fair system works on an online gambling   but did provably fair system only applicable to online casino's and not on a offline one   ?

 i think offline gambling are more rigged or more manipulated than offline ones but sometimes i also feel that online gambling are also not fair especialy the moment when you keep on loosing on a low payout  . that is why they are being called gambling anyway because the win is not always guaranteed    .

and some gamblers don't really understand this "Fairness" thing in Gambling sites(even in real life gambling) becaause all they know is Bet,Win or Lose and that is what matters to them.

but at least advice old school gamblers about this as what i am doing to my friends specially those new to Online gambling as they have no Big idea on whats this all about.

My first question here, is how you get friends that are in crypto and online gambling in the first place? The very few people I have stumbled upon that knew about crypto dice (arguably the most well k own form of gambling with crypto) were also passionate IRL gamblers and would go in a casino any chance they had.

Same here, I know how to verify bets though but that is by entering a hash to some verification website and they will tell me if the roll was correct but technically I don't know how to verify it manually. There are tools online you can use to verify bets like me but this is one of the reasons I mainly bet on sports and avoid dice because there have been so many cases of dice scams that I don't even understand whom to trust and whom not to.

I tried to introduce a few friends to online betting and dice too but always asked them to gamble at their own risk and now my friends too like my usually bet on sports and e-sports on dota and league of legends. I would never explain something to a friend or anyone which I am not sure how to do it myself manually.

Actually these verification no matter how experienced we are still sometimes trick users, I mean recall what happened with dicebitco.in they were scamming users since a long time  and they were caught only after a player was brutally getting losing streaks of 10 and he started to suspect there is something wrong happening.You may find all details here, read a few posts around this one and you will know the story: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=716312.msg8717762#msg8717762

By the way, if you are making lower number of bets its possible to verify each bet but if you make bulk number of bets it is usually impossible to verify them all, I am talking about bets where we start automated betting at 500-1000 satoshi minimum bet

I haven't tried to explain provable fairness to old school gamblers.
The reason is because they simply cannot understand it the same way they cannot understand the blockchain technology.
If anyone is into new technological advances then they are going to know by themselves about such terms.

there are people that know what is blockchain but they dont gamble  . i also think that blockchain tech is not related to gambling or to provably fair  but blockhain is fair or transparent  . 

you havent tried to explain it to them but you already came up with your own conclusion  . i think that is not right , we shouldnt act or think that way   .  if we are willing to educate or teach someone , we should approach them with a clear mind and we should also accept if what will be the result of it  .

Introduce Bitcoin by way of crypto gambling? Why not? After all Bitcoin is a digital currency and it has proven all through out these years that it has multiple purposes from being a money to be able to trade it and earn some profit. People are already hook with playing on a crypto gambling site as it is more convenient to them and is easily accessible compared to a traditional casino where you actually  need to visit before you bet. It might be a tough sell to them but once they understand the process I think it will be easier for them to join in.

If you yourself don't know how to verify provable fairness, the existence of such technology means that every bet is verifiable by anyone. If you don't to it yourself means that you still trust that it works. But it's much better than verification by third parties. If let's say the casino has a seal from a trusted authority, the tests only happened in one time at a certain point for their games. This is also trust based but much worse than having every bet at any point as provable fair. With fair technology, anyone COULD verify their bets if they ever felt the need to. Everything else is pointless in comparison.

This is not an easy task and to be honest I stopped trying. Old school gamblers have their own world and their own rules so just a few of them are ready to accept the concept of crypto gambling. For some it's even hard to use online platforms for traditional gambling.
However, sone of them are flexible enough to listen and learn so don't give up immediately.

From the little understanding of Provable fair, I think it involves Transparency and data reliability. One of the simplest ways to create a provable fair-like solution in physical world is through open source development of hardware/software, community participation in a casino, transparency etc. Am trying to understand the best analogy for the provable fair mechanism in Crypto-based gambling.. The analogy will best explain things to your friends and probably help them appreciate its importance.

An example of provable fairness in physical world is probably voters holding copies of election results rather than trusting the election officials not to change the results

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From the little understanding of Provable fair, I think it involves Transparency and data reliability. One of the simplest ways to create a provable fair-like solution in physical world is through open source development of hardware/software, community participation in a casino, transparency etc. Am trying to understand the best analogy for the provable fair mechanism in Crypto-based gambling.. The analogy will help explain things to your friends and probably help them appreciate its importance.

An example of provable fairness in physical world is probably voters holding copies of election results rather than trusting the election officials not to change the results

This seems like a complicated thing to explain to them since they might think that online games can be cheated, but actually I haven't meet one who are interested in online games like within the family and I doubt they'll ask question pertaining to "provable fairness " when they are not online gamblers.

yeah and they tend to believe seeing actual game and hand of the dealer than waiting for computer result that for sure they will think that can be cheated.
it will be harder for them to understand and leave their old ways of betting,like my Grandma that still a lover of lottery each day for sure she will buy a ticket if there is a draw.

They can think like that, but we never know until we meet them and try to explain. But I won't try to explain the online gambling that I know to them because I know that will be hard for them to accept the information because some of them will not know how the life on the internet and they will think that is not impossible to place the bets by online. Some people in real life cannot imagine about what is on the internet, but they never try to check by themselves, so sometimes, we will feel difficult to explain, not just about gambling but about another thing.

I have and it was one of the easiest things I have done in my life. What you guys are doing wrong is explaining them all the details of what is provably fair and how it works. I never do that because when you go into detail they will have more detailed questions as well and you may not know the answers to those questions which is why I try to explain to them as simple as it gets.

I just simply tell them there is a p2p proof of what goes around and no one person has control over it so even if  one person wants to scam you, they can't because technology prohibits that option. If you tell people like this, or even find a simpler way, just explain that way and you will see that they won't have too much questions and simply agrees.

This brings up another question: What's the best way to explain what provably fair gambling is? Astonishingly, there's no video as intuitive like the ones created by weusecoins  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc2en3nHxA4). It's surprising to me that nobody has worked on making an easy to understand explanation, not even casinos. Perhaps crypto gambling businesses would rather remain underground with their existing userbase?! Who knows. I think the possibility of somebody to understand the advantages of provable fairness are also based on their propensity to understand trust-based structures. If somebody can't comprehend that gambling can be done in a trustless way, or what even "trustless" means, then they have a lot more to understand other to be able to comprehend provable fairness in gambling.

It's easy to tell other gamblers but the hardest part is to convince them. They might not trust this kind of technology easily because they think and look first of its legitimacy. And we know that scam is everywhere on the internet. They also think that they will be playing with a robot that is being manipulated. So they still stick to choose to play with other real gamblers in front of them

That's disappointing to hear words like beinf manipulated using bots, and it made me lose trust over these gambling stablishments. Online gambling usually is prone of this kind of unfair system, and personally I am preferring real world gambler who played fairly in physical betting.

But I realize then that there are possible ways for them to understand this provable fairness in the simplest introduction, we are just thinking advance that it is complicated for them to understand. Try to show or demonstrate them in live using your smartphone or laptop on how it really works. So they will have an idea and see the process, just start with the basics.

I have many friends who like to play on online casinos but they do not know about what is provably fairness. Frankly speaking, I was the same as them when I started my gambling journey on online casino before I know about crypto casinos that uses provably fair system.
I have tried to tell my friends about it but it was not an easy thing to do as they have a mindset that all casinos are able to manipulate the result of the game because they do not understand about provably fair mechanism.