Bitcoin Forum

EDIT: (6 Apr.)  Thanks to everyone who commented and voted.  This "analysis" has clearly been overtaken by events.  Orb has changed their payouts, BitKing is advertising like mad, and there is a new "tree" game that has payouts so complicated that it includes a calculator to try and estimate them for you!  I've shut down the poll and each of the games I think now has it's own dedicated thread to explain its relative benefits.  I'd stress that the key in my opinion is the spread between what you pay and what you get and how well promoted the site is.  Good Luck to those of you who choose to play! --SRG



I was recently intrigued by the start of so many ponzi/tulip mania gambling sites that I decided to do a little comparison.  FWIW here you go:

Name	The Orb (1)	Bitcoin Gem (2)	Crown (3)	Gold Bar (4)	BitKing(5)
Player Payout	16%	10%	15%	10%	18%
Price Increase	20%	15%	25%	12%	20%
Reset Chance	3%	1.56%	1.5% *	3.125%	3%
Time Limit	1 day	1 day	2 days	30 days	2days
Base Price	.1 BTC	.25 BTC	.01 BTC	.05 BTC	??
Forum “owner”	AunOMau	maxmint	the_crown	??	ytwg

(1) http://theorb.biz/
(2) http://www.bitcoingem.com/index.php
(3) http://www.bitcoincrown.com/
(4) http://bitcoingoldbar.com/
(5) http://thebitking.com/

Other notes:
• The Crown gives back 20% on a reset
• A key issue is how easy the site is to find, how much advertising they do, I can’t find BitKing from Google and have never seen it advertised.
• These are obviously clones of each other.  I believe someone was selling a template for them.

Based on this analysis the BitKing barely edges out the Gold Bar except for the hard to find part.   As much as I like the Crown giving back 20% on a reset that is not enough to overcome the 10% “rake.”

I am not affiliated with any of these sites and there are no affiliate links in this post.  I’ll update the missing info if I discover it.  Happy Ponzi!

Edit: Found the post selling the template: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=144335.0  I don't think we'll see any shortage of these types of games any time soon.

add this too http://btctreasure.com

edit: i saw somewhere you could buy 3 bears too but i dont remember what link it was.

what if no one comes and buys it do we get to keep it forever

In this game http://btctreasure.com ? It's Treasure Map will reset after 36 hours of inactivity.

Edit: i found bears http://bitbears.com/

Looks like people are playing those games and buying without too much risk up to 1 BTC. Higher price means there is higher chance of not selling your ingame item. But when you watch how games go, there is always high competition to buy low and get easy profit.

Yeah I lost 2 bitcoins on one of these when it reset because of time. A lot of these sites have very little traffic so I think the risk for reset over time is probably around 60-90% especially if you have a higher price on your item.

They have traffic, some of them have over 100 people watching current price on twitter and jumping to buy cheap when it resets. Question is how much they are willing to risk to loose.

This sort of thing is exactly what's needed. Start a blog, do this sort of analysis weekly?

Thanks for all the leads and feedback!

btctreasure 45% payout 50% price increase 3% reset .01 base 36hour reset
btc bears    10%            15                         3.125%   .25        7 days

So gold bar still looks like the best balance of payout and expiration time though you gotta admire the appreciation of the map.


I'm sorry you lost two BTC.  This highlights the key issue, how visible is the site you are gambling on?  I'm not sure how to quantify this, maybe number of twitter followers?  The runup in the price of BTC also probably discourages purchases, especially above 1BTC.

Anyway thanks to everyone for voting and the encouragement/help.

If somebody lost money due to a reset the best thing he can do is to buy again for lowest price. It is small return but still something.
Best thing to do before investing in a game is to watch its history for few hours or even days. If there is no trade, then there is high chance nobody will buy our bag.
But if there is enough people playing this games can be entertaining and fun :)

Considering goldbar long reset i dont think it is good. If for example game has some people waiting for reset, and someone will buy too high, then the game could be idle for a month  forcing those people who are waiting to simply abandon this game and find another. Maybe it looks nice for the first time, but in the long run it can hurt.

The people who make it look like they believe there is a winning strategy are often sockpuppet accounts trying to push the entire thing.

@odolvlobo
This is true but you can say this for all gambling sites. Someone has to loose for others to win. Site owners have costs like hosting or domain too, they have to spend time to manage site, answer to questions, make repays etc. so its business like others.
Also, everything is clear before you send your money thus i dont understand why some people are so angry because of this implementation of gambling. If someone dont like it then they dont have to play but why wave your stick at people who are having fun.

@MPOE-PR
This might be true for starter sites because it is hard to make game belivable if there are no buyers, especially in this type of game where you are expecting that others will buy something from you. But as soon as things start to move by itself, there is really no need to.

My game is ofcourse inspired by other of this type, but i created it from scratch as my learning experience with processing bitcoin payments and foundation framework. Now im ready to create more complicated and better games so be aware ;)

Considering mechanics of chain games i see it not much different from other hazard games. For example in lottery you are paying small amounts of money hoping to win big prize. In this game it is the opposite. You are winning small hoping to not loose big ;) But in the end, always it is casino who earns money and no one is trying to deny this.

Bitcoin Gold Bar used to use my custom developed script, but it has traded hands a few times and I don't actually know who owns it now ???

BitJade
www.bitjade.com
Starting Price .05BTC
Player Payout 20%
Price Increase 25%
Reset Odds 3%
Time Limit 1 Day

I found funny version of chain game
http://chromaticcreative.net/bitcoin/tree/#subcontent
But dont know if for regular people rules arnt too confusing.

BitcoinGoldBar
http://bitcoingoldbar.com
Starting Price .05BTC
Player Payout 10%
Price Increase 15%
Reset Odds 3.125%
Time Limit 1 Day

BitBears
http://bitbears.com
Starting Price .05BTC
Player Payout 35%
Price Increase 40%
Reset Odds 2%
Time Limit 3 Days

Templars Treasure changed game rules and added Hidden Treasure for anybody who will not sell his Treasure Map. It gives 9%, 5% and 3% of next rounds income which means there is chance to earn even more bitcoins.

Ya, and dont forget Bitcoin Tree. Thou our alglorithm make take you some time to think about, but yu will get that :)

Site:http://tree.chromaticcreative.net
Calculator:chromaticcreative.net/bitcoin/tree/calc.html

Base:0.05BTC
Raise per round: 12%
House cut: 3%
Reset chance:0%
Reset time:7days
Owner: me
Payout: Varies, Please refer to calculator

I have found this some time ago: http://chaincheck.tk/

It is still missing a lot of sites though.

maybe it's time for a drink  ;)

http://bitcoholic.com

i bought a sword