Weird how Ripple's not on the list  

edit: In all seriousness though, accusations w/o solid evidence are bad news. I appreciate being removed from suspicion here, but I think if someone's going to point fingers there should be formal, serious evidence...not just maybes or could-be's. If someone comes to my house and I can't find my phone the next day, I don't write internet threads about how they might have stolen it. That's kind of jumping the gun. Same with these websites... basically there's evidence they're scammers or there isn't, in which case you shouldn't accuse them of shit.

You haven't responded to my post. I don't see why we should be listed as scammy in any way.
In a fair casino, as long as the player is informed of what the house edge is, they are gambling of their own free will because they want to win something. People who play the stock market can also suffer a financial loss when the market moves in the wrong direction. That in and of itself is not a scam, it's just the nature of the risk. It only becomes a scam if they're being deceived about what they're risking, what their chances are, or what they stand to gain. We don't deceive anyone about any of those things, and I feel I deserve a response for why you would have put us on this list.

I'm the owner of StrikeSapphire.

First of all, we denominate our accounts in USD because our software is built to handle multiple deposit methods. We don't hedge one currency against the other or take any trading positions with customer deposits. Once a customer's deposit is in, we convert it to USD and store it as USD -- the same amount you see in your account. What you see is what you get. When we opened in July 2011, BTC dropped from $30 to $2 in the span of a month, but we took no losses, and all of the players with USD in our system were completely unaffected by that.
It's been my belief from the beginning that BTC is, for now, better treated as a payment method than a store of value for us, because we already gamble once with very low- or no-house-edge games. We don't need to gamble with currency volatility on top of that.

We do not make a profit on our BTC<>USD rate. Our deposits and withdrawals are handled at the live rates from Bitstamp.

We have never failed to pay out quickly, and we maintain at least 5x the total customer deposits on hand in USD for immediate withdrawal. We do not have a client-side hashing algorithm built into our site, because most of our games are multiplayer. However every single shoe of cards we've ever dealt is available for public analysis, as well as our daily RTP figures for every game, at https://strikesapphire.com/reports . If you believe there is something unfair about our RNG, you are free to run a statistical analysis on it. If you've played at our site, then any cards you've been dealt can be found in there if you know the hand ID numbers.

I don't know if you're one of our players. If you are, I hope neither myself, FragileJD or Mike has been rude to you. If someone has, please let us know. We do our best to provide quick, excellent service. I know that I have had a reputation for being a hardass from time to time -- particularly in the case of Dooglus. And I have to say I really appreciate Doog for taking the high road here, since I know he doesn't care for me much personally. That does not make us a scam.

We've been in business for almost 2 full years, longer than any other Bitcoin casino currently standing, and have never once failed our customers or had a dispute which resulted in players not getting paid out. I think our record speaks for itself, and I'd appreciate being removed from this list.

Just a reminder folks, this bonus expires at Midnight GMT tonight, so lock it in now!

It's been a long time since I posted up here, so hello to people who don't know about us...

StrikeSapphire is the longest-running full Bitcoin casino, and more than that a multitabling "Gaming OS", in non-stop operation since July 2011. We have 25 games, many of them original and only available here - and two with a 100% or higher theoretical RTP (if played skillfully). All table games are 3-6 player including roulette, craps, 6-deck blackjack with up to 66% shoe penetration, three-card poker and our original SapphireRummy. Along with daily reports of every card in every shoe, every spin and roll stretching back to our opening on public display at https://strikesapphire.com/reports/ , multiplayer mode guarantees the fairness of our RNG (as player-level hashing is impractical on multiplayer tables).

We are the ONLY Bitcoin gaming site in compliance with the law, and we are only accessible outside the US.

This weekend only, we have a deposit bonus of 100% matching funds up to $50. The bonus can be used multiple times on smaller deposits, up to the $50 limit. Our regular rolling 30x WR applies (for details on our unique win-as-you-go WR clearance, visit https://strikesapphire.com/tos.html#compsandbonuses ) When you deposit, enter the code:

wkndr28

Come and join us, and good luck!

Not to nitpick here, but that's not exactly true. At least not in Vegas. Reel configurations in physical slots stay the same, but the par sheet changes based on electronic weighting which is not disclosed to the player. A reel with 5 single cherry instances on it can be weighted to come up cherry an extra 1 time in a thousand, if they want it to. That's how they adjust RTP without changing the pay table.

Now it is true that a slot with a 1-to-1 instance to weight ratio of symbols on all reels -- or a game like VP where the deck odds are known -- can definitely be proven fair if the pay table and outcome are made known to the player. But it's worth pointing out that all that is needed to make the game provably fair is a pay table and raw data to conduct a statistical analysis. If you're providing that to the players, then actually giving cryptographic proof is kind of a pointless extra. It may make some players feel better, and I have no problem with that, but like you said once the player has the actual RTP values, the reel configs or basic odds of the game, and the outcomes of all the play sessions, that's already enough to prove whether the game is fair or show if it's rigged.

Of course a house could manipulate those figures. That's what licensing jurisdictions are supposed to audit, and why most reputable casinos operate out of Malta, Curacao, etc. It's worth pointing out that a "provably fair" casino using two keys could also cheat by discarding a hash that was unfavorable to the house without the player ever knowing about it. Unless all the stats are made visible at the end of the day, there's no way to know whether a skew like that is happening.

Do you mind if I ask where you guys are incorporated and/or licensed? I see Playborne's based in the Seychelles... I'm assuming they're a master license holder there, so are you guys directly under their license or do you operate elsewhere?

Not asking this to give you grief; obviously I'm looking at this from the casino's perspective, with all the tripwires and legal gotchas I know are involved. Is the jurisdiction willing to take this on with any special considerations or offer any special protections as a Bitcoin property, or is it just set up under the same license (or, like us in Costa Rica, without a license) as any other mainstream casino would be...?

Thanks for the nod, it's nice to know my work's gotten a good reception.

My interest in this is legal curiosity, as they seem to be using the first licensed, professional third party casino software to both enter the Bitcoin market and open games to the US. We've spent years trying to figure out the legality (or illegality) of doing this, either via our current situation in Costa Rica or through another jurisdiction. We've discussed licensing our software to people who would have no problem opening a parallel Bitcoin site taking US players, but ultimately determined the risks to ourselves would still be too high. Bodog and other mainstream casinos whose reps I've spoken with have also examined this option in depth; it would take them a week to launch a site like that, and the prize would be enormous, but none has yet done it. I know why. But I have an interest in anyone pushing that boundary... this is exactly what infiniti was getting all the press for always being "about to launch", but these guys appear to actually be doing it already.

I think the Playborne software is nice; obviously I wrote my own software and I think mine's better but they obviously have a damn good graphics department over there.

Cool game... nice looking software. I think you guys are taking Bitcoin gambling up a notch.

Am I right that you're the first legitimate licensee of a major, foreign-owned software platform to open to the US using Bitcoin?

We're back up and running on the latest version of Bitcoin... all systems go! Thanks for your patience.

Okay folks, the good news is that our software's running fine (and actually faster for transactions with the new client). The bad news is the new client's slowed to crawl getting the rest of the blockchain around 180k height and we're just going to have to wait to bring everything up to speed.

At this pace, and allowing for final testing and sleep, we should be open again by 12:00 GMT tomorrow at the latest. Our apologies to the people affected by this, I wish we could do more but just getting a new server and our software talking to it at the last second like this has been something of a nightmare (I actually leased 2 servers today because the first company we dealt with took too long to bring it online... grr.) In any event, if you need anything you know where to find me, we'll be back on the line at noon latest.

Thanks again for your patience.

We're running 0.8. Makes sense down the road... I think.

Update: Our new server is online but still getting caught up with the blockchain. If we are caught up by 21:30 GMT we will reopen tonight, otherwise tomorrow morning. Current height: 175088

Hi all, just wanted to make a public announcement on this:

StrikeSapphire is down right now until at least Midnight GMT; we're not sure how long it will take to get up and running again. We had been using bitcoind 0.2 since opening our wallet server in 2011 ("if it ain't broke, don't fix it...") and the blockchain fork has apparently broken the client.

We have halted inbound deposits and closed the site temporarily. We are currently setting up a new bitcoind installation which may take several hours to a day to bring up to speed and test with our system.

Let me stress that all player funds are safe, including currently pending deposits which will be credited as soon as we reopen. We believe we have already been in contact with all players whose deposits were held up, but if you have deposited in the past 2 days and not received funds please contact us at help (at) strikesapphire.com.

We would ask that for the sake of keeping our accounting organized, players bear with us until the new wallet is brought online. Should the situation stretch beyond a day we will issue refunds to any and all players from a cold wallet and negative-comp accounts manually. Thanks for your loyalty, support and patience.

Josh

It's not ashes, dude. We have very fast support, solid design (have you been to our site?)  I'm trying to figure out if anyone outside the US gives a damn about playing poker in Bitcoin. So far, it doesn't look like it, and I'm pretty convinced the whole market or the vast majority, >90%, is there. Which is fine for casinos willing to take the risk, we could have whomped them in 2011 and since, but I'm not interested in going to prison and I've made my position on that crystal clear. I'm looking for feedback here from the Bitcoin poker community outside the US, if any exists which I suspect it does not. I don't care about commentary from Americans, payment gateways or people with random opinions about shit they don't know anything about.

Despite being the longest-running Bitcoin poker room and casino, and the only one with NL/PL/Limit Holdem Omaha and 7CS, we've never really developed a poker following. It's never been a core business for us. I blame this on our ban on American players. Poker players everywhere else in the world have easier deposit options than Bitcoin.

We've been running $0.50 24/7 hourly freerolls, lowered our rakes to 1% on low stakes ring games and sit & gos, and have nightly $2 freerolls. What we have is a core of players who don't really play; just a few freerollers.

So we're basically thinking about closing the poker freerolls and giving up on poker because the only other option would be to open it to Americans, and we don't want to do that. Before that, though, I thought we might make a final push to get some real players on the site. There are one or two guys who sit around all day waiting for a game and can't get one, because the freerollers just play and withdraw.

So here's my question. In your ideal, perfect poker site, what do you want in a game? 1% rake? Pot-guaranteed tournaments? Player points buyins? What would get you to come play at our site (other than, obviously, fish)? I want to put together a real night of serious poker and I want it to be whatever players want; to show off our platform and to get you to switch to us. So all Non-American players, tell me, what can I do to get you in? If you say you want a $50 guarantee on a 10 player $1 buyin, I'll consider that. If you want cash back on losses, we already have that up to 18%. Tell me what you want, and what time you want it.

All gambling software (at least, anything reputable) has audit logs that record player balances and interactions regardless of whether the game state itself is stored in RAM or is stateless in a database. In fact having detailed audit logs is one of the major requirements for licensing in any gaming jurisdiction. Playtech software definitely has such logs, which would prove if the player was online or not and what their balance was from one minute to the next.

I suppose if a North Korean got to our site and deposited a Bitcoin I would have to think about what to do with that. Probably wouldn't accept it.

People who don't do their research tend to get bitten in the ass. They're taking larger risks. If they take large risks and don't get bitten, then they deserve the rewards, so good on them. My point is that there's no logical inconsistency between my belief that Bitcoin is the foundation of a new kind of economy, and my instinct for self-preservation. I can believe in its potential and support it to an extent without choosing to be the guy standing in the bear trap when the US gov't decides to "do something".

Just because Bitcoin opens up the possibility of acting like a total pirate for the moment doesn't mean you should run your business like a 15 year old tweaker in a basement with no regard for risk. I think that was the OP's point. Your business is a liability. Risk can come from regulatory, technical, security or financial sides of your business. In our case we spent a lot of money on lawyers and determined that the risk of running our casino to the US was greater than the value of what we could make in Bitcoin, and we have good information and good reasons to support that decision. That doesn't change the fact that Bitcoin is an amazing avenue for online casinos to bypass third-party payment processors, or that it allows startup casinos lower their overhead, be more competitive and challenge the entrenched powers in the industry.

What it does mean is that each business should determine for itself what level of risk it's willing to take, and make that information available to its customers because anything less would be dishonest; and we've seen enough dishonesty already surrounding crazy Bitcoin schemes. We've been in business since July 2011. It always amuses me when Americans who can't even elect a government that lets them gamble, drink unpasteurized milk or smoke a cigarette get on my case for not holding up their "freedoms". What freedoms? You know, we're open to North Korea but we don't get any players from there either. It's not my problem.

I actually just stumbled onto this thread by a misclick, and didn't bother to read 6 of the last 7 pages. But I agree with OP about one point: Running a Bitcoin business is a liability as is running any other business where money's going over the table and some of it doesn't belong to you. Most people who run businesses where they hold money for other people are licensed to do so, have lawyers, large bankrolls and limited liability structures to protect their personal possessions from irate customers, regulators and the whims of the market. We in Bitcoin have, on the other hand, a fantastic chance to build a monetary and financial system from scratch. But we have none of the protections outlined above. And therefore every coin belonging to a customer in our accounts must be considered a liability and a valid claim against us. For companies and human beings who have failed and will always be the shit of the earth in this regard, look no further than Bitcoinica, Zhou Tong, Bitcoin Consultancy, Patrick and the rest of the vermin who now style themselves as conventioneering industry leaders. They're proof that stumbling into bankruptcy by being a shortsighted idiot is just as damaging to your future prospects as driving yourself there on purpose.