Bitcoin Forum

Many bitcoin gambling sites state that they are provable fair.
Let's assume they are.

But what if they bet on their own game many many times, wouldn't they increase their profit by doing so?
If they create the highest betting volume, they have a higher stake in the whole game.

Do I miss something?

Not sure what exactly you're talking about. If you're talking about non-invest sites: They would just lose money to themselves which would only make sense in terms of promoting the sites('we have high rollers', etc.)
On Invest sites, the owner could actually bet on the site and win the investors' bitcoin, since they knows the server seed/secret. But the fact that investors must trust the owner with not running with their money anyways(which would be much faster if the owner wanted to scam) justifies trusting the owner to not bet on his own sites/rig his bets.

I don't think that there is any possibility of cheating when game is provably fair..
Here it is well described:

https://satoshidice.com/provably-fair/

I would rather have a source other than a gambling website.
I think creating large betting volume on your own website will benefit yourself when you are the owner.
When you win, you get the stake
When you lose, you lose to yourself.

Other tiny players can only win when they win  :-\ (dumb sentence, but I hope you get my point)

The owners of the site can increase their profit by increasing the betting volume. The only thing they really lose is the transaction fee I just figured.

The site operator could still cheat the investors. By knowing the server seeds they could predict any roll outcome and drain the bankroll. Checkout our site https://rolldice.io, we developed a solution specifically to this problem, also checkout our thread at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=920704.0

This probably applies to only invest only sites. I think thats a risk investors have to take. Some sites have tried to come up with a provably fair invest model as well. Not sure how successful that has beeen.

Yes. Now i get it! Hmm, interesting.. :) When he lose he losing only from his own pocket. :) That is possible. I must talk about that with my friend.. He is good in this stuff. I will let you know.  

They might not even lose the transaction fees if they just update the amoiunt in the accounts manually.
Also, how would this help owners in the non-invetment site ?

If the game isn't an on-chain game then there are no transaction fees. The only befit (at first look) is increasing the number of rolls and bets. So they can say that more than 1000 BTC have been gambled on the site, however in reality that 1000 is only 100 or even 10.

i always doubt if casino really provably fair, thats why i created this type of betting. its simple, and everyone will understands. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=930646.0

It looks like owner can probably always find a way to cheat customers. :(

Seems to be the safest solution in which the owner is sharing earnings with investors - more investors safer casino.

I think the only way to scam is running with the funds... Provably fair covers many trust issues.

That Provably fair stuff is about the randomness of rolls. Not about the owner or about what the casino doing with it's own coins. So that covers many trust issues indeed, but not all issues/possible issues.

I dont think it can..! other than the marketing point of view.. n generating traffic n stuff.!!

Sites not taking investmments can't run away with a lot. Its a good practice to withdraw all funds after gambling.

are you implying this as a way to attract bigger whales ot their site? if they play their own game type of thing.

But if a casino gambles with investors coins, the long term probability is to lose them... am I right?

No, he think that if owner play on his own (provably fair) dice site his clients have less chance to win. This is like theory - if someone play more have more chance to win.. 

so why invest in a site at all if theyre able to cheat investors? im kinda hijacking here but im curious

E:That was not about cheating investors, that was about cheating clients..

I was talking about possibilities. If owner have to pay dividend to investors. He have less chance to win if he will want to play on his own web. :D s**t :D thats crazy! I know! But there is logic!  ;D

they have house edge, so I guess they would not win.

Even if they do, they would have to pay from their own bankroll, so no advantage at all


Guess you meant something else

he means a situation in which they accept investments, and therefore defraud investors. Yes this is basically how it works - you need to trust the owners of the casino not to do it. Trust takes time to build.

Once I read a thread about dice cheating, it says the site admin can control the result, and admin can use new accounts to steal money from investors.

Unless the owner run away with the investors' money
Even if the owner try to cheat his customer (by backdooring the provably fair or something) the members would figured it out quickly.

Provably fair means if you cheat, there is high probability that you would get caught.
Doesn't stop a site from cheating / running away with investor funds.

The OP says to assume that the site in his example IS provably fair.

I see what you mean OP and I think it makes a certain sense.

makes some sense. The admin knows the server seed, so his sock puppet could always win, making the site go bankruptcy while he still has coins

No, the result is modifiable, and the is also provably fair. My friend opened a dice site in 2013, and he cheated so the scandal was famous in China. And the site IS also provably fair.

Many sites have been marked as scam for this. Sites can easily manipulate results, nothing stops them from doing so, you would require lots and lots of trust for people to invest in you. For sites like just-dice, doolgus have been well known before the site was even opened. That is what caused people to invest in his site, without trust nothing is possible. Just recently, a scam site called dicebitco.in has been found to be skipping nonce and cheating investors money. They blamed it on the previous developer who inserted malicious code. His activity seems shady and thankfully the site is shut down.

one way to reduce chances of the OP with running away with your hard earn btc is to use a trusted escrow to hold the funds.

Using a multisig wallet would work as well. But I think the site owner would always still be in control of some of the funds to process withdrawls.

This is what we are attempting to do, amongst other things. Anyone tried our site yet ?
We added an on chat tip-bot/faucet feature, it rains several thousand satoshies every now and then to active users  8)

played on your site earlier before the maintenance. will try again soon.

well, but once the malicious code is inserted, the dice stops being provably fair (correct me if I am wrong). So the main issue is how much you can trust the dice site operator? Secondly, to have publicly available long enough observation window on the roll results (test of provability) so that you can make your own idea on how good the site is.

Well, anyone who have access to the server can make changes to the website, including developers, they can very easily modify the provably fair system and cheat investor's money. Site owners will not probably allow third party to review their source code before making changes, you would very likely have to just trust them.

Correct me if I'm wrong but your site isn't provably fair and I showed you this.. lol

Check our Fair page, you will find a video which shows you how to do a manual verification.  Our site is 100% provably fair, please do not spread false informations.