Bitcoin Forum

Hi everyone,

I thought of an idea for a new and different BTC gambling site. This will not be another SatoshiDice clone and works off of information readily available and related to the BTC network. I've PMed one person already to see if they're interested, but I decided to make a thread about it too. I'm looking for someone (or a few someones) with knowledge much deeper than my own involving the BTC network and programming everything from the back-end to the website. This idea would take very little in the way of setup and maintenance costs (domain, hosting, etc). Looking to split 60-40 on profit if there's 1 person that can work with me and do it all. 52-24-24 split on profits if I must find two people interested in developing this project. I may also be interested in having this idea merged into an already established casino for a 50/50 split of profits on this game alone. This game should not require any capital to back the game itself. After further consideration, this project would need some sort of small backing in the beginning to entice betting and raise up max bets, though it could be recouped very quickly. I will be the one providing any BTC necessary to back the project's pool of funds for payouts. I estimate 150-200BTC would be sufficient. If discussions between developers and I determine that the pool should be larger, a bond or stock sale may occur on one of the BTC exchanges to raise target funds.

I do not wish to go into detail about it in this thread, since anyone could just read, copy, and go live with it themselves. Do know that I'm seriously interested in developing this. I would like anyone who is seriously interested to PM me and give links to past projects you've helped develop in the BTC realm. I'd prefer those with established accounts and track records here. I know I'm rather new, but we can talk via phone, Skype, or whatever to get more comfortable with each other. I'll even draw up a contract to be notarized to protect all parties involved.

Thanks everyone,
-Moose

P.S. I'm going offshore tomorrow (oil industry) for the next 1-3 days depending on how the weather is out there. If you PM me and I don't respond, please know that I'll get back with you Sunday or Monday at the latest. I will respond to all PMs to let you know if you were chosen to work on the project or not.

Well then what WOULD a programmer do it for? I'm open to offers. It's a really good idea that should be simple enough to develop and could easily steal interest away from SatoshiDice. Especially now that you have to wait for confirmations if you've burned through your confirmed BTC before it accepts new bets.

I'm not a "weekend businessman". I just work offshore 2 weeks at a time, then back for a week. I spend most of my time researching and investing in stocks and options. I've just thought of a different type of gambling site and want someone to help develop it.

I would be interested, but I would want to know more about the idea. I have experience in gambling sites and have already created tools for use. Depending on the idea a 60/40 split might be too small. Shoot me a PM when you get back and let me know more details.

As was said, all that matters is execution. If you haven't done hard work on complete implementation details then it's just something that occurred to you and it will occur to many people. And if you have done all that work then someone can't just come along and steal it, they'd have to 'catch up' to you all while knowing you'll be in their niche.

There is so much more to do than there is time that idea hoarding is pointless.

About to PM f1gm3nt about helping with this project. May have some financial backing from a trusted person on these forums also. Just giving an update.

I'm currently developing a platform to support projects just like yours.  Its still just in alpha stage at the moment, but if you haven't found a developer yet, I'd very much like to talk to you. 60/40 or even 70/30 is not a problem, just depends on what you are looking to do.

Ny,

Currently in talks with a couple of people. If I need a different developer or more people to help on the project, I'll PM you. (:

Thanks for the reply,
-Moose

i'm "developing" a platform for these sorts of projects. meaning that the hard work will already be done and an api will be available. i'd prefer for it to be a full sdk, but resources are limited. in the beginning, i'd certainly be willing to work with "idea people" closely in building their applications and ironing out the details of the platform. i have no idea what cptmooseinc has in mind, so its very possible that it wouldn't be a good fit for my model.

Would your platform also work for non-gambling games?

yes. the basis is that all venues (individual games, services, etc) will need to be 100% bitcoin (i'm also looking into limited use of devcoins as i'd really like to support the open-source community). in this regard, it will be much more tightly controlled than say facebook, where you aren't forced to only use their coins for monetization.

right now, i'm working on a free coin fountain as well as the developers center. once these two areas are completed, i'll be very happy to share with the community. based on the progress i've made and my current roadmap, the full platform should be out of alpha and into beta within 6 to 8 weeks.

if you already have something in mind, please pm me and i'll send you the link.
cheers!

My first idea was to use it for a litecoin retro-game site. Should finish this little javascript game at some point:

http://coincombat.yunga.de/coincombat.html

I really like this idea. Right away it reminds me of Tank Hero (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.clapfootgames.tankhero).  How do you intend on implementing litecoin into the game? In-app purchases would probably work well (buying new weapons and such). I assume this will be multi-player, so players could certainly wager against each other.

The API that I'm developing is jQuery on the front-end and Node.js on the back. As I believe the most critical issue with using ANY crypto-currency is to minimize abuse/cheaters, server-side controls are a must. You will have to find a happy balance between the client and the server, but I think you're off to a great start. Let me know how I can help in any way.

You could help with the socket/networking part?

Or maybe implement a site to do player match-making? I think I already created a database scheme for the site. Have to search for it again...

socket/networking is not a problem. you're already fully developed in JS which is perfect for Node.js (sockets).

player match-making should be covered once the platform becomes functional.

As for DB, i've been experimenting with MongoDB. Its very interesting from the NoSQL perspective, and its scalability is something that's honestly got me a bit dazzled, but I'm still not sure if this will make things "easier" for developers. For now, I'm still thinking its best to just abstract an API over the DB to handle the model layer of the MVC.

but more importantly, how do you intent to monetize the game with litecoins? this would certainly be a key factor in at least my involvement in this project. truth is, the rest of it to me is just details, monetization is where the magic happens.

I don't know Node.js, so I checked the websocket concept. The chat demo worked in my browser, but it seems, that it's not the case in many browser versions.

I did a data model with mysql in mind, althought it's not too complicated. Could be done for other db types, too.

I thought about a site, where you have an account. You can send some funds there, so you can play several games in a row without having to wait for any confirmations. Each player would set 1 ltc (or so) for each game. The winner gets 1.5 ltc (or so). Rest goes to the game hoster.

I thought, the site should provde an API, so more games could be added later.

The site should hold stats on each user, so a rookie would not play with a very experienced player, who has won lots of games.

BTW: I have to admit, that the game has still some bugs with collision detection. It was never tested by any beta users, although there are some people interested (in the btc-e shoutbox).

For as long as I can remember, IE has been a pain in the ass for web developers (always requiring special case exceptions). I find it hard to believe, but it appears that IE10 is "finally" standard compliant, which makes websockets very much a reality. The rest of the major browsers already either fully support it or at least offer partial support based on the user's hardware specs. Regardless, there are fall-back solutions (e.g. ajax) for older browsers that don't yet fully support the protocol.

WebSockets are great for the desktop, but absolutely vital for mobile (the new frontier). As unlimited data plans become scarce to non-existent its important to be efficient with client/server bandwidth. Node.js isn't the "only" sockets solution, but it seems to be the most popular and community supported at the moment.

yeah, this is exactly what I'm working on now. basically a user would:

• deposit coins
• play with their credits till' their hearts content
• withdraw their coins when they're done

This is the problem that I'm currently faced with. Deciding on a good JS game engine to support the platform's apps. Obviously, as a developer, you can use whatever you want, but I'd really like to be able to offer "platform-specific" sample code for new devs to make things easy-as-pie. Here is what I'm evaluating at the moment (in order of preference):

• CreateJS - http://createjs.com/
• Turbulenz - https://turbulenz.com/
• Cocos2DJS - http://cocos2djs.org/
• MelonJS - http://www.melonjs.org/

if all goes well on my end, I can probably start helping you with you app starting next week. just let me know what you need and I'll do my best to oblige
cheers!

I have to admit, that I'm not really a JS coder. I prefer stuff like Java, C++, PHP etc. That's why my JS looks more like Java actually.

I tried a sprite lib for my little game, but I had too much trouble getting it to work, so I wrote my own stuff at the end.

Websockets seem to be a problem on Firefox, too. I gave up on windows in 1993, so I never had any trouble with IE bugs, but some Firefox version have sockets disabled by default as an example.

Helping with the game: maybe it would be a good start to get the networking going, so it could be played via network? Might be some fun to test it then, so new devs are attracted and creating some motivation to get the rest of the site going?

I have a server, when you need webspace for testing, or so.

I am by no means a JS expert, but coming from a Java background, I don't see you having much difficulty at all.

Yes! the learning curve. Never fun, but sometimes necessary when looking at the big picture. I've only browsed your source (which makes sense) and what I noticed is you working really, really (actully too hard) to perform certain functions. This is the beauty of libraries like jQuery (and others) which usually make the code shorter, more readable and most times cross-browser compatible (which can be very tedious otherwise).

Speaking based on my OWN experience, I feel that once devs "understand" the the capabilities of these libraries they immediately jump on board and never look back. My advice would be to take a weekend and play with a few. If they still don't do it for you, well then I guess you lost a weekend.

I am not aware of any version of Firefox that would have sockets disabled. Can you give me an example?

Websockets are not there yet, but the last holdouts are now fully on board, so I predict a very quick adoption.  I am speaking specifically about the online gamers (not necessarily the general public) who are used to meeting minimum system requirements. And that is market that you will be "primarily" targeting (i think).

Here is where things stand as of now:
http://caniuse.com/#feat=websockets

Your code is entirely in JS already, so putting together a client/server (using Node.js) is actually trivial. But, I'm trying to look at the bigger picture here. By employing a full game engine (it would initially complicate things) moving forward you may find yourself with additional opportunities in functionality (and scalability for that matter).

I have only just started "deep" exploration of the web gaming environment, so there is SO very much that I have to learn and understand. I don't want to divert too much attention away from getting the initial platform online, but at the same time this could be a key piece to the puzzle.

I plan on creating a basic prototype for my own game over this weekend, so that I can finish my testing of the various game engines and complete integration with my platform's API. If all goes well, I'd be happy to apply it to your game as well, then you can evaluate it based on your own needs.

BTW - I came across this and immediately thought of your game (it was written using EaselJS):
http://www.atari.com/arcade#!/arcade/combat/play
(or try http://bit.ly/PH09jH)

Firefox 4/5 had sockets, but they were disabled by default.

I used jquery mobile for a small btc-e app, I started recently, and it was ok. Not great, but good enough to use some of it's functionality. But as an example, I don't feel very comfortable with the used syntax.

My game was obviously intented to be a clone of the old atari combat game (one of 3 modules, I once had for the vcs 2600). The game in your link looks great (I can't do any graphics. Took me some days to draw the 2 tanks), but it's unusable on my machine. It takes very long to load, and then it runs with 1 frame per second, or so.

But I have to admit, that my machine is not very fast (AMD Sempron 1.7 GHz under a heavy load) and the browser under Gentoo Linux are usually quite dated.

You should start here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=124441.0).

Thanks MPOE,

Things are going well so far on this project, though. The developer I'm working with already has some of the elements already built and is working on the basic architecture for the program now. Meanwhile, I'm working on the other aspects of getting it up and running (domain, hosting, legality, website development, etc). I see your posts mentions not to be secretive about the idea, but unfortunately I don't wish to disclose the exact nature of the project to anyone other than the two people I have already. I know there aren't many out there that could take the idea and run with it, but seeing as how BTC gambling seems to be one of the most prominent things in development for the currency, I'd like to keep this one under wraps until it's ready for testing or release. (:

I also should not need nearly the BTC I was expecting to back the site. Maybe just a few in the bank to cover return tx fees and losing payouts, which should be recouped rather quickly via the house take. Most of the starter cash I had planned to use to buy BTC will now be redirected to secure some of the things I mentioned I'm working on above.

This project will probably be in development over the next couple of months, but I'll make sure to announce it when it's ready to go live.

Thanks,
-Moose

I can't wait to see this train wreak if someone actually took the 70/30 they are not a good programmer at all.

Also WE DON"T NEED ANYMORE GAMBLING SITES waste of time you greedy person. Just trying to scam people out of money cause that is what gambling is a just a giant scam on weak people.

Better than 70/30 for the developer. I'm confident in his abilities, too. And as for not needing another gambling site, that's up for the internet to decide. If the web doesn't need another gambling site, then I'll lose the money I'm putting into this. If it garners some interest, then I could make some money. It's not going to be anything like the volume SatoshiDice does anyway. This will be just another fun, but different, type of BTC-based gambling site.

Chill out man. (: