Bitcoin Forum

Is starting an online chess bitcoin gambling site like online poker sites illegal? I've heard that because chess is a game of pure skill it does not fall under the typical illegal status in the United States. Is this true? Supposing that online chess gambling was legal in the United States what would happen if players from outside the United States started using the site? Could the company running the site from United States be in legal trouble with regards to the law in other countries because their citizens accessed the site and gambled?

Not sure about the legality of this, but I'd imagine that you'd run into the problem of cheating using bots or chess engines.

How about a chess site where the players just play and observers can place bets on the outcome of a game?

Now that the states are starting to approve licenses for online gambling (Nevada just gave permission to IGT and Bally to operate online poker) the category will grow, but it still is very regulated.  (there were 30 applicants to offer online poker, and only those two approved.) 

Here's a Bitcoin chess thread:

 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=79290.0

Here's an article on the Nevada licensing that just happened:
 
 - http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20120624/NEWS/120629917/1001

As a potential player I'd mostly be worried about this.

I've seen three separate attempts at creating Bitcoin chess.

None worked.


Good luck!

I agree with most of the comments posted here.

What about a Computer Chess tournament?

Computer chess tournament gambling sounds good. But that doesn't answer the question, what happens if people from outside the United States uses the site even if the United States itself calls it legal.

Chessbase is one of the world's largest chess site.
They are selling "ducats" for euros to pay for chess lessons or chess games with grand masters.
Why not get them to offer bitcoins instead of these crummy ducats of theirs.

I think chess variants are a pretty good solution to that. At least it will narrow the cheaters from "anyone with Chess Master" to programmers with skills.

Damn, I've seen your site under your profile pic "e-ducat.fr" but it wasn't until you mentioned Ducats that I clicked. I'm so slow - ducat is money, so bitcoin == e-money.

I'm guessing there is a market out there for bitcoin stratego. Much less prone to cheating. I would play.

It was mentioned that the observers would only bet on the outcome, not the players. The betters will be able to see the stats of the players: Games played; wins; loses; draws; forfeits; game lengths; etc. Whatever information that could be provided to prove that no hanky-panky is (has/will) taking place.

Backgammon also comes to mind. That was just about to take off prior to the US being locked out of online poker, I remember.

~Bruno~

Seems quite a task to stop players from placing wagers as observers. It also opens the possibility that they'll bet against themselves. The hank-panky will occur.

Backgammon +1

I am starting to think that my blog domain name is too cryptic  ;)

Chessbase offers this feature: do you have an idea how they can detect cheaters ?
I am guessing they are running chess bots in parallel with the games and looking for similar move patterns but that's a feat given the very large numbers of simultaneous games.

Have a look at this great HTML5 powered chess site.

http://en.lichess.org

Running on opensource package

https://github.com/ornicar/lichess

This could be integrated with bitcoins for playing advanced chess. :)

I thought I was the only one who played that game...!

I'd totally wager micro-amounts on online Stratego games.  :P

As I'm a real enthusiast of that idea (BTC prizes for chess fans), I will post here my suggestion in order to increase the success rate of any further attempt (IMHO):

* Allow human/computer matches  (there's no way to avoid that kind of cheating);

* Maybe people should post their codes (turning them open source) in order to play;

P.s. I'm not sure about that, but it would boost the development of chess bots around of players community;

* Try to add weekly / monthly tournaments with jackpot prizes;

* Players pay some amount to get in (buy-in tickets) and that value fills the jackpot;

* a higher percentage of buy-in tickets (e.g. 83%) goes to current tournament's jackpot;

* a lower percentage of buy-in tickets (e.g. 16%) goes to next tournament's jackpot;

* Prize goes to first 3 winners or more depending on jackpot's value;

* House's profit should be something around 1% to 8% of total tickets sold;

P.s. strategy (online) games are far harder to turn into a viable and steady way of playing 4 money than (online) gambling. It all becomes programmers/coders battles.

Some references:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Chess

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_chess

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_engine


It has already evolved: https://github.com/ornicar/lila

P.s. strategy games are far harder to turn into a viable and steady way of playing 4 money than gambling.

Cheers!

There are some strategy games that don't really have this problem.  Go and Hex both fit the bill (I'm sure there are others).  There are active AI groups for both of these games but the top level, even with serious computing power, falls significantly below strong amateur human play.  As a bonus, Go is quite popular in Asia and gambling is very popular (and usually legally grey).

better you do work on chess site and in this you have section for cash rewards who will win have his reward and also for 2nd and 3rd places also so its better and not illegal you can work on it

I dont tink its cheating to use bots, you can also use a bot if you think it is a benefit.
Algorithmic participation in stock markets, poker games and other games cannot be stopped since it is part of the evolution.

oh man i miss playing go.

The legality depends greatly state to state.  There is skill gambling on sites like worldwinner (although the site is highly flawed because the site rigs it so you only compete against people nearly identical in skill to you, and the house just collects huge fees, and bans you if you win too much).  I remember the site not letting me play when I was in Arizona, but was legal elsewhere.

Poker is one of those grey areas where it hasn't really been tested in courts, although some states are super strict with this stuff and others aren't.  Some have rules about the house taking a cut, etc...

Isn't hex entirely solved?

Pure skill games suck for gambling, though.  You need a lot of variance, at least, which is why backgammon is at least somewhat better.  You need a healthy supply of people who are playing at a loss to fund players at the top, and players at the bottom simply will not play if they keep getting destroyed.  They at least need the illusion of having a chance of winning against anyone.  Look at how many people make a living playing chess (besides giving lessons) vs. those that make a living playing poker.  Backgammon has a significant luck element where a poor player can upset a good player, but the good player has a large advantage.  If I played a grandmaster in chess, I would have < .001% chance of winning.  If I played a world class poker player for an hour, I would have at least a 1% chance of winning money against him, and likely much more.  If I played chess against a player 10 percentile points ahead of me in chess, he still would likely win each game 95% of the time, but in poker it might drop down to 60% (depending on the game).

Good luck in trying to beat a modern GO engine as even a stong amateur... Yes, computers still are being beaten in that game, but it is more a question of computing power etc. than the game itself.

Very well stated analogy.

I liked that point of view!

I was researching some types of games lately, and it's hard to find some that's not too much a Game of Chance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_chance) neither a pure Strategic Game (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_%28game_theory%29) but rather something like Combinatorial Games (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_game_theory) or a good mix among them.

Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_classification#Classification_by_causes_of_uncertainty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_classification#Classification_by_causes_of_uncertainty)

I'd like to do some arcace style games, but it seems that people will start cheating then by coding bots?

yes and you must be very soon look like a scamer and peoples talk about you scam not work

Don't be scared

for what ???

bump ;D ???