Bitcoin Forum

We are introducing the gaming world to a new gambling crossover:


Unlike at many other 'minesweeper-like' sites, you'll be playing the real Minesweeper here: The game as made famous by Windows, where you use your skills as well as your luck to win BTC.

Bitcoin Minesweeper will always be free to play through our faucets.
Deposit any amount of Bitcoin to make things really interesting.

Bitcoin Minesweeper is still in its early stage and we are listening very carefully to our users to make this the best bitcoin gaming experience on the internet. So please let us know if you have any issues or ideas.

Give it a try at BitcoinMinesweeper.com and have fun!

Can you give me an invite? :P

i would like to get 1 too

Me three! I wanna review it

Watoshi-Dimobuto, elephantas1 and FanEagle, you will receive your invitations ASAP!

I'd like to give this a test run

I also want to try it out, please give me an invite. I love playing sweeper game.. one of my favorite is in my signature

Can i have an invite too ? thank you   ;D

Can i have an invite too? Thank you!

Absolutely! Cool that you guys are interested. We will give people access one by one, so have a little patience though.

Congrats for the site, there's a possibility to invest?

Well, when?

My thoughts as well! Looks like the house edge is 2% which is twice that of Coin-Sweeper's 1%

Can i have one invitation ? Well this site looks good .

2% edge is ok.

Does this game include strategy as I interpreted it? So, how is the payout determined, ie. for a 10 mine, in 10x10 field, what is the payout? For the minesweeper game in here now, like diggit and coinsweeper and satoshimines etc. it is 1.1x minus house edge
What will the payout for this one?

Quite an interesting idea! By a 2% edge, I guess you mean you generate minefields in such a way that with perfect play, there's a 2% house edge and with imperfect play it's much higher?

I would like to get an invite  :)

I would like to be invited too  :)

Just reminding OP, that I have not yet received an invite?

What about giving me an invite too?  :)

PS: How do I have to understand the house edge?
What do these 2% mean?

Can I have an invitation code?

Minesweeper is registered trademark , you may get problems with domain.
Anyway can I get invitation code?

House edge is an edge of the house against the player.
Read : http://casinogambling.about.com/od/oddsandends/a/houseedge.htm etc. google it to get an idea about it.

For eg., for a 50% bet at a dice site, your win should be 2x. But it is 1.96x for a 2% edge.
Just subtract 2% from the theoretical win amount.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110212102137AApnBmi
Copying the mechanics are ok then. Yeah, there might be a problem with the domain.

I don't think he gave an invite to anyone till now.

yep.. I haven't received an invite either, it seems that the OP is still busy with the launching of the site, we should have just to wait an update from him

Wow guys, thanks all of you for your interest in our creation!

Right now we are making our final rounds around the game area, making sure everything is ready for real play. When that's done we'll begin processing invite requests.

There were also some interesting questions being posted by some of you. Know that we've seen them, and will be answering them later today.

Thanks for your reply!

I do know what the house edge is, but I don't really understand how this is meant here (Minesweeper).
How can there be a house edge?

I mean, Minesweeper is a game, that you win, if you can think logically (except you hit a mine at your first move).

So, is this house edge for all people (smart and dump ones) or just in average?

That's exactly right ndnhc. We're hoping to offer a careful balance between strategy and chance.

i wanna try it :)

i love minesweeper too much <3

Thanks mkr, and good question! There are indeed a lot of sites out there offering games of chance
involving Bitcoins and unopened squares that may or may not contain mines. Whether you win or
not is completely up to chance, and there is no strategy involved.

Many of them call their game 'minesweeper'. And why not, you're sweeping for mines aren't you?

BitcoinMinesweeper.com is different. It is the classic 'Minesweeper' game made popular by Windows,
re-imagined for use with Bitcoin. What does that mean? It means that it contains both the random
element of unknown mine locations, but also the strategy element of numbered hints that tell you
where it is more dangerous to play and where it is safer.

Don't worry if it's still not totally clear at this point: You'll find out soon enough when you play
your first game of Bitcoin Minesweeper: this is really something you've never seen before!

Me too if is possible! I'd like to try it!  :)
Let me know..

You're correct RHavar, the 2% edge is based on optimal play.
If you're stuck on a move, you can request a hint, showing you the optimal way to continue.

The site is loading a bit slowly. BTW can I try it?

Nice idea!

But how are those hints limited (if they are)?
Do you have to pay for each hint, or you can buy hint packs (like 5, 10... at once), or are there free hints (every game, every day...)?

Can I get an invitation please? I'd like to try.. I like coin-sweeper so I suppose Ill like this too

I'd like an invitation :) ... Also, the site loads a bit slowly

We are still tweaking the game types we'll be offering, and the associated payouts.

I can tell you this though: Because the game gives you helpful clues about where
the mines are, it becomes easier to solve. Therefore the payouts will be somewhat
lower than for the usual minesweeper-like game with the same parameters
(height, width and number of mines).
After compensating for difficulty, the 2% house edge is applied.

Hi, I still can't play the site.

Send me the invitation...

I'm curious what game will be

Is it like the original one ?

I must say this is really an interesting concept of gambling by combining chances with strategies. I just cant wait to try it out

I assume by optimal, you mean greedy (as it's NP-hard to calculate the optimal move without using hidden board state). So my question is, do you also use the greedy method to calculate the payout? Or put another way: If I always use your "request a hint" feature, I'll be playing with a 2% house edge?



Also have you given thought to how you prove you randomly distribute the mines? I assume you will need a client seed of some form. It appears that by non-random placement of mines, you can generate solutions that average significantly more difficult than random mine distribution, so to be provably fair you need to give users a way of controlling the shuffle.

When will this game be up to play?!

I'd like to try it. May i ask for invitation?

Thanks for the tip joksim! we're still in alpha so even the name is up for debate ;)

Hello. I just registered for an invite. E-mail : the.z.squared@gmail.com

Could you give me an invite?

And by the way is this like the normal Minesweeper on Windows? Or is it a different version, like for example the coinsweeper in my signature?

just tried it out the game is really hard if you dont play on 1.05x

Can i have an invite , i like to try it ? thank you

I would also like an invite. Which board configurations are you offering? Just the classic MineSweeper choices or can use arbitrary board size / number of mines?

Please send me an invite and I will test your site and give you feedback on it accordingly. Thank you and good luck to your business.

Somehow my Firefox crashes when I open the site, but Chrome does its job perfectly. Any idea?

I have no problem loading the site at all with Firefox 34 on Win 7. :)

hi,

I'd love to give it a try :-)

maybe you need to update your firefox.. my firefox works smoothly :)

Yeah, I think so. It is supposed to be easy for 1.05x.

I need an invite. :)

tried the game and lost 20bits already.. but i still love it <3

Cool to see so many people are interested to be involved in the alpha test!

Rounds 1 and 2 of the invites have been handed out; the rest wil follow eventually,
so if you haven't been invited yet, please be patient.

We are very pleased to see the number of games already played by the current
alpha group and to hear the feedback. It seems we have hit upon something :)

We love the compliments, but we're also welcoming suggestions. We are listening!

I'd like an invite

I want to have a try to please

Right now, hints are totally free. That’s mainly because we haven’t gotten around to creating a good payment mechanism for them.

Enjoy!

Ahh, we’re getting technical, great! Minesweeper was indeed shown to be NP-complete, and therefore it quickly becomes infeasible to calculate optimal moves.
To determine hints, a greedy algorithm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greedy_algorithm) is employed.

Good insight; yes this is true. By choosing your own strategy you may improve or worsen your chances compared to following hints.

Isn't this a saturated market? I've seen hundreds of crypto gambling minesweeper clones? This looks like a cleaner version of them but the edge seems higher here?

Well, that may be right, but in this case you play real minesweeper (like on windows for example) instead of a total luck game (coin-sweeper, satoshimines ...). And I've never seen such a game with bitcoins before.

Your site seems to be down at this moment.

Please count me in for your beta testing. :)

Interesting! I ran a greedy algorithm on a 11x11 board with 33 randomly distributed mines, and despite trying a few heuristics over 500k games, I haven't been able to win more than 7% of the games (which would be a 23% house edge).

So I guess my question would be: is your greedy solver better than mine? If I follow your hints, what % of the games will I win? If the difference in greedy algorithms is the difference between a 23 and 2% house edge, it seems quote possible that something more optimal will put you in -EV territory?

I would like to get an invitiation too please =)

When will you go live ?

It has to be better. 23% edge is too high. :(

I think it is just chance that you won only 7% games. It should be 10% right? I mean 9.98% of the games should be won ideally.

FYI: The site went dark unexpectedly for the last 12 hours, sorry for that. We've remedied the situation and are back online now. Enjoy!

We have a special page that explains the proof step-by-step for each game played.

An overview of how it works: There's a client seed, which is mixed in with a server seed.
The game shows you a hash of that server seed before starting each game, so it’s not
possible to manipulate the game board for either the player or for us. We use the seeds
as inputs for the random placement of mines. There is no bias in the placement of mines.

For the nitty gritty details, see: https://www.bitcoinminesweeper.com/provably-fair

It depends on the results of the closed alpha we are running now.
Keep an eye on this thread and we’ll let you know, or submit your
email address through our invitation request page (https://www.bitcoinminesweeper.com/request-invitation)

Hi KingZee,

Gameplay at BitcoinMinesweeper.com is almost identical to the 'normal'
minesweeper on Windows. But.. on windows, you can't win Bitcoin,
and at BitcoinMinesweeper.com, you can!

would somebody like to invite me there?
wanna play that.

it sounds great i would like to win btc to play minesweeper,
Can i have an invite too ?

i got my invitation, it is nice and cool game,
just played with free money, best of luck admin for your site.

You forgot me   =(

Please save my christmas and invite me too =)

thanks admin for sending me invitation, will give try after sometime,
your site is really nice and good.

If invitations are still available, I'd like to get one.

You can simply register i thinK? or it isn't launched yet?

Nope it hasn't been launched yet.

You can find the following paragraph in the OP,

and the following paragraph in the site.

Thanks guys! We'll be asking you a few more questions about your experience in a few days. Until then: enjoy the game!

i´d love to be invited :)

TL;DR: hints are based on solver recommendations. our solver has a >9.8% win chance on the 10x game (vs. 7% for yours). A better solver would put us in -EV.

---

A 10x payout after commission implies a 10.204x payout before commission, which implies a 9.8% chance of winning. Our solver gets at least those implied rates over a statistically relevant number of games.

By the way, we are working on ways to make those numbers independently verifiable without giving away the solver code. This is not an easy task, but we want to as transparant as possible.

Thank you ! Much fun :)

No way to compare that with satoshimines or the others ... they have nothing to do with minesweeper.

You could as well just throw some balls in a bag and take one out each time. Is that minesweeper then ?

Guess not :)

If invitations are still available, I'd like to get one.

I applied very early on and never got one?

Can i get a invitation? I would like to test it. :)

Hi 2ero, good you liked it and thanks for the valuable review you sent us by PM!

Indeed an important issue you point out here: we have chosen a fundamentally different approach than all other 'minesweeper-in-name-only' games available that are based on pure luck.

At this moment BitcoinMinesweeper.com is the only real minesweeper-game on the internet where you can play for bitcoins.

Can I have an invite? ;D

How is your alpha testing going on? Do you have any ETA for opening business?

Sounds like an interesting concept. I'd love to test it, can you send me an invite?

Yes it sounds cool. Are there any more invites available? If so please send me one.

Nice to see so many of you are interested to join the alpha test! We cannot invite everyone,
but we have just sent out a new batch of invites and will keep on doing so until the public launch.

Speaking of which, we don't want to communicate an exact date yet, but we want you to know
that the public launch will be soon.

So even if you have not received an invite; stay tuned and we hope to welcome you soon on
BitcoinMinesweeper.com!

Cheers,

Thanks got the invitation.

Played the minesweeper and i like it especially the hint thing. :)
I didn't notice any bugs which is good.

I'd like to get updated when it opens to the public. :) Will you be sending out PM's for that or will we have to watch this thread?

I want an invitation too, thanks!

We will post a notification in this thread once we launch publicly. Stay tuned!

I'm liking this quite a bit, go ahead and send me an invite please.

any free spots from your new site?

Hello

I just received my free invite. I will join the site and report back what I like and what can use some improvement.

Thanks

OP

please PM me an invite.

Are you still developing the site? It seems to be down now  :'(

Maybe they're getting it ready to launch publicly. :)

OP got online today but didnt update us on this thread..  :-\

I hope he hasn't given up on the project. :(

Thanks for the heads up. Our server decided to have a spontaneous reboot while we weren't watching.

We're up and running again now, sorry for the inconvenience!

When BitcoinMinesweeper.com launches for real we'll have more monitoring set up to catch things like this earlier.

Do you have a launch date yet? :)

I want to test your site, can I get Alpha invite?  ;D
Thanks

Please hold your horses for just a little more :) We are putting together the last bits & pieces needed to
release it to the general public and will let you know once we're done through this forum post.
Good to see there is so much anticipation!

Alright, thank you for the update. :D I'll just keep following the thread for more updates.

i am really excited to play the first ever real bitcoin minesweeper :)

I have a test for short time, can you make big again the box, I think that is small  ;D

cant access in the united states, hope that changes soon

quite a hard game to play at. lost all the coins.

Based on the positive results of the alpha test, we are happy to announce that we opened
the gates. No invite needed anymore!

A big thank you to all alpha testers who have helped us over the past few weeks. Examples of
changes we have made based on user feedback are improved board sizes and games that are
faster to play.
 
We are still heavily working on giving you the best gaming experience, so you'll see lots of small
and some large improvements over time. For example, we are working on a complete restyling with
full mobile and tablet support.

Go ahead and give it a try at https://www.bitcoinminesweeper.com.
 
Please continue contacting us through tickets@bitcoinminesweeper.uservoice.com and PM if you encounter
issues, need help or have ideas for improvements.
 
Enjoy the game and good luck to all of you!

There is no deposit address for me on https://www.bitcoinminesweeper.com/my-funds. Is the deposit system not yet ready?

Hi BigMac, it should work fine; probably a deployment glitch. Thanks for reporting; we are looking into it!

Depositing is working 100% again; thanks for your patience.

Yes I've been testing it out and its works great. Didn't do any deposits or withdraws but the game itself is pretty good.

Actually pretty addictive because it reminds me of Windows 95 and how I used to play it all the time

Yup the address is given correctly now. Thanks.
I will probably try my luck and skill later this week. ;D

If you play the perfect strategy you can cover te house edge?

finally, this is what im waiting for, its been ages that i requested access to the beta, nice site btw, tried it, and it really addictive i can tell

FYI: We are currently down for a little while due to maintenance by our hosting provider; will update you through this thread.

... and BitcoinMinesweeper.com is up and running again. Sorry for any experienced inconvenience.

hello im alrady play in here lost little amount but this games so excited haha
nice op

is the game provably fair??

Thanks for bringing up a unique game to the market. There are a lot of "minesweeper" games out there but none of them is the one I played when I was young. :)

Does it work in all browsers? I can't seem to see the game...

Site is blocked here at uni but I'll try it out as soon as I get home. :) Been waiting for this.

Hi Nikona,

That's correct, you can read all about this at https://www.bitcoinminesweeper.com/provably-fair

Best regards,

Sent you a PM...

Thanks all for the positive feedback!

Apparently, this was a non-browser-related issue that affected the creation of new users. Existing users did not experience the problem.
A fix for the bug has been deployed and all should work fine again.

Thanks for reporting the issue!

Cheers,

I am confused about the units?

What does 1 Bits mean?

is it 1 Bits = 1mBTC which is 0.00000100

Basically 1 BTC = 1000mBTC?

1 BTC = 1000 mBTC
1 mBTC = 1000 μBTC = 1000 bit
1 μBTC = 100 satoshi

as in clearly and simpler way to phrase this

1 bit = 100 satoshis

 :D


i got the same problem too, hope to try this site soon after the bug fixed, thanks, goodluck with your site

there is no "perfect" strategy, andyou cant beat the house on casino games get used to it

Tried it and it's really fun. :) Just kinda wish that you can claim free bits faster. Also could you make the mine grid bigger? It's kind of hard to see with it being that small.

Glad you like it! Thanks for your suggestion; we will take it into account.
Have a blast! ;-)

Thanks a much easier to remember this way. I for some reason kept thinking it was 1000 satoshis.

Anyways yes the site is off to a good start.

Pretty addictive game. Can you make instant deposits and withdraws yet?

This has been fun. :D Also want to know about updates on instant deposits and withdrawals.

I notice the game multipliers have been lowered a bit. IIRC, you mentioned the house edge is 2% with a optimal strategy.
So what is the new house edge now?

Last week we improved our solver. As a result, we now use more realistic multipliers.
In fact, our edge was even a bit negative during the previous month! The house edge
we are aiming for is still 2%.

Best regards,

Deposits need one confirmation. Withdrawals are immediate.

Just had a game! Well done making the first Mine Sweeper Bitcoin game like the original  :) I like it!

i dont like it.

what is the reason you do not like it?

Negative edge, that's the first time I've seen that, let alone that you openly admit to it!

I really like this concept, refreshing to see that skill is factored in.

Yes I can confirm, the house edge was negative in the beginning. But can you recheck your calculations? I think the edge is now significantly higher than 2%. What sample sizes did you use to determine the payouts?

Yeah, don't just complain without explaining why. :-\

Unfortunately it  is impossible to  determine  the  exact house  edge, although
we aim at an edge of 2%. To approach this as good as possible, our algorithm
continuously  monitors the played games.  We adjust the payout if players are
winning or losing more games than expected.

Best regards,

how is that you the owner of the sites says that it is impossible to dtermine the house edge, because i dont really get his

Due to the nature of Minesweeper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-complete (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-complete)), this will not be possible for anybody.

Have you considered making a mobile app for this? It looks fun to play on the go. :D

Hi Fearlesscat10,

Good one! We are definitely considering building a mobile version, once we think there is enough demand for this.
In our page footer, we have two buttons that allow us to analyze user interest.

perhaps some more advertisement to boost the marketing of this site?great site, tried that already, all you need is a great marketing

Maybe you could at least try a sig campaign here on the forum?  :D

As a matter of fact, we are considering some advertising options at the moment :) Thanks for thinking along with us!

FYI: Our hosting provider had a problem over the past hours, making the site unavailable. It is up and running now; we are very sorry for the inconvenience.

Best regards,

Deposits are still unavailable.

Thank you for letting us know. Deposits are now working again. Enjoy playing!

Thanks. Playing again, site was down for a while.

Our site is temporarily unavailable. Our apologies.

UPDATE: up & running again !

We are excited to announce the new BitcoinMinesweeper.com release!

Two features we think you'll like very much:
* Unlock the 'King Of The Day' achievements if you win 3, 6 or 10 games within 24 hours
* You can now claim a free bit every minute of the day!

Much more other changes, so check it out at https://www.bitcoinminesweeper.com

Your feedback is always appreciated; drop us a note through the forum or tickets@bitcoinminesweeper.uservoice.com.

Another new BitcoinMinesweeper.com release!

Besides many small improvements there is one feature we are very excited to introduce you to:

From now on, you can protect yourself against suboptimal moves! Whenever the game detects that your move might be more risky than needed, it warns you about it.
The result: winning more games!

Check it out at https://www.bitcoinminesweeper.com.

As always, your feedback is much appreciated; drop us a note through the forum or tickets@bitcoinminesweeper.uservoice.com.

Cheers,

Why have deposit methods like Facebook Credits and Debit Card showing if they aren't available? Was gonna play a few games with some money from my card only to be told it's unavailable... so why have it there?

Hi Pushtheghost,

We want to investigate whether players who do not own Bitcoins want to deposit, and if so, what payment method they prefer.
Depending on the amount of people who try to use one of the other payment methods, we may implement one or more of them.

The dialog we show after choosing one of the methods allows you to +1.

The newest BitcoinMinesweeper.com release contains many new board types, from the very small to the very large, so pick your favorite!

Check it out at https://www.bitcoinminesweeper.com.

As always, your feedback is much appreciated; drop us a note through the forum or tickets@bitcoinminesweeper.uservoice.com.

What has happened to you guys? I know the site is down but do you still have the backup available?

Its offline for more than a year.