Good points about the software / saved bets / etc. I'm not sure what kind of glitch you're seeing with the wheel graphics, but we'll look into it. Unfortunately, we can't take US players, and that's why you haven't got the invite. No one's happy about it, but them's the rules.  |
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It would benefit from a "Saved Bets" feature.
Oh, I also could not figure out how to clear a chip from the table once it's placed.
You can drag individual chips off the table, or to other positions on the table after placing them. You can drag one stack onto another to merge them. Drag the chips down and off the table, then release, to remove them individually. To remove all bets, set yourself "Away". Good note about having both a Repeat and a Repeat & Play button! We've just broken that into two separate buttons in our interface, for Roulette and our other games as well. (reload the site if you're on it for the changes to be visible). |
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As an academic question, a technical cat & mouse question, I can't disclose to you much more than I already have about what we do to prevent the scenario you're talking about. As to what players do...we've seen a lot of attempts of various stripes and calibers to run the blockade. We've turned away over 250 US players so far, many of whom have tried one way or another to mask their identity. Believe me, I would love to have them playing in our casino. I'm really, really sorry that Americans don't get out in these numbers to stand outside their state capital and demand the right to do what they want with their own money, including playing it online.
Ultimately, we believe our legal and ethical obligation to obey US law and to block American players does have to have some rational end; we're just doing our best to comply here with all reasonable measures in our power.
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Im Very angry at the "shappire casino" While i Love the look and the games.
Under freeplay your roulette table Spun 24blacks 4greens and 4 reds, And the reds ONLY appeard once i bet on them.
Also Because i think this is impossible to be this unlucky, I say on the board covering 66% of it, And TEN spins were all losses ina row, Without ONE win. I call Shenanigans
Whoa. That's quite an accusation to throw around. And first of all, it's not true: You only spun for real money six times. All of our games work exactly the same in Play as in Real money. They run on exactly the same piece of code, and from the same random number generator. The generator is on a separate server and runs continuously with no knowledge of the bets or conditions on the game server. Looking at your history, I do see why you'd be worried. You seem to have some pretty weird luck. On the play table the spins went: 6 Blacks, 1 green, 6 Blacks, 1 green, 5 blacks, 3 reds, 1 black, 1 green. When you went to the real table, it's true that you bet two columns on each spin, and lost 6 times in a row. The chances of the same column coming up 6 times in a row are about 1 in 1010. But you didn't play the same two columns every time. Your spins were 5, 3, 4, 12, 23 and 16. After the fourth spin, you switched columns and remained unlucky. All those numbers fall within normal ranges on that day, except for 16, which came up less often than average. On the day you played, July 28th, our overall payback for real-money Roulette was actually 100.7%, with $1049.54 in bets placed. As we have it, your total amount bet was $2.70 mostly in $0.25 chips, on six real spins. Come back and watch players on the roulette tables, and join a multiplayer table if you want the assurance. You'll see clearly that we don't, and couldn't, rig that game. It's unfair to throw out accusations based on a very, very limited slice of what happens on one roulette wheel over a handful of spins. I'm sorry you had a run of bad luck and that it appeared strange, but it's bound to happen to someone, sometime. There are no shenanigans at StrikeSapphire. And you don't have to take my word for it. It's impossible for a multiplayer roulette table to cheat, and all our spins are published daily right here: https://strikesapphire.com/reports/ |
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I'm not sure what the point of this question is. Are you conducting an investigation?  We take our block of US players very seriously, and have from day one. We also block VPNs, anonymizing services and hosting netblocks. When in doubt we verify identity prior to deposit. We reserve the right to request additional verification from players at any point during play or prior to withdrawal. We believe this shows we have taken every reasonable measure to implement the legally required controls, above and beyond the steps taken by most legally operating non-US-facing casinos. To our knowledge, no one has played from the US for real money on our site. If someone did, they'd be in violation of the TOS as well as providing false information. |
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#1: This coming Wednesday, Aug. 3rd, StrikeSapphire.com is having our first Bitcoin Freeroll Bonanza. US$10 freerolls hourly, from 5pm-Midnight GMT, and you can join them ALL, played side by side, only on Sapphire's original software.
During that time, all ring games will also be rake free!
#2: And this one's really cool, because it not only involves Bitcoin, but also something few if any poker sites have done to date... we're experimentally opening our HOUSE BOT onto a real money $0.10/$0.20 poker table. Scary as that is. Here's what you should know about our house bots:
(1) We allow bots. House and otherwise. Because we're hackers and we're open-minded and believe that writing a bot takes at least as much intelligence as playing poker. But to go forward with this program, no bot on our site may ever play on a table not labeled "BOT", and no bot may be called anything without "BOT" in the name. Breaking this rule will result in immediate freezing of funds. And yes, we can write bots, so we can tell the difference.
(2) Bots are not allowed to see hand results. Not even if they win. They have to play based solely on their OWN history.
(3) Our BoogieBot's personality is based on a profile of 5,000 hands played by our best beta tester against real players.
(4) Use with caution. Our bot might kick your ass.
We won't guarantee the bot will be online with money 24/7. Hell, if it just chokes, all we'll guarantee is that we'll pay your winnings. It's an experiment, so know that...but we think it's a very cool experiment, because instead of frowning on bots, we don't see why they can't be treated as separate-but-equal players. Think you're smart enough to take 'em? Take 'em. Let the choice be up to you, the player, not dictated by the house. By setting some firm ground-rules, we can assure that everyone knows exactly what they're dealing with. In fact, we have a whole API ready to go so you can write your own bots for Sapphire, to play our bots and each others'. But first we want to see how this works out.
So here's what we're offering to Real-Money-Against-Bot players: IF you are the player who BEATS OUR BOT for the most money before August 14th, and you're willing to let us take a statistical snapshot of how you played, we'll create a new bot based on your playing personality, and give you 20% of all that bot's winnings on our bot-specific real money poker tables for life.
As far as we know, nothing like this has ever been attempted before in the history of online gambling, so it's fitting it should be done for Bitcoin, and done by StrikeSapphire!
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Hey, I've lost my 0.1 BTC!
I send it to the roulette, but then accidentallly logged out, and now I cannot find my money (maybe my withdrawal address was incorrect?)
Could you, please, return it back to me?
Who are you talking to? (we don't have a player named asper). |
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StrikeSapphire has good roulette. Only tried two spins though but won both times (f* yeah, red color ftw!). Or use this link if you plan to sign up and want to be a bro (referral link, it won't do anything to your account though, will only give me a bonus if you deposit). Note: US not allowed to sign upIf you feel like playing hold 'em instead of roulette please pm me and i will most likely join you  . Boosting this! StrikeSapphire has American Roulette (stats published daily), and the only 4-player roulette tables in the industry where you can see everyone's chips, chat and hang out. We do it to show our transparency. And the graphics aren't too shabby either  And we allow inside bets as low as USD 1¢, outside bets from $0.10 to $5. As many as you want, of course. |
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And the reason I don't like Strikesapphire is because I have to play with other players and find a time when they are playing too (but I like slots because it's simple and quick). If you don't get my attention in 15 seconds, I usually leave. Well... we're working on building it up. Try back in a month or two and hopefully you'll be able to find a game going on As for bitcoin games, I like the gambling games that are quick and easy...where you deposit some coins, play a few rounds, win or lose some money, and go live life. Minefield, BTC Riches, Luckycoin, and Kamikaze are good for me. That's perfectly rational. I think there's a difference between a site that is basically a game played in Bitcoin, and a site that's a casino that uses Bitcoin as a deposit/withdrawal method. We do have an extra step to deal with. EDIT: Oh my goodness. I just tried to deposit bitcoins onto Strikesapphire and you have to Skype with me?? No thanks. I'll go to another site
Make that two extra steps -- sometimes. But if you're seeing that, you're probably in the US, meaning we can't take your bets. Horses for courses. It'd be fun to make some one-stop "Sapphire-lite" mobile Bitcoin games down the road though, that might fit the bill. We couldn't be involved in making money off of it, but I'll throw out one little anarchist idea I had, and maybe some coder here wants to work on it with me: Suppose we sold a $0.99 mobile app that was like a tiny 10-game casino on your phone... the trick is, some person or persons in a local area set up a bluetooth network, load in bitcoins, decide which games at which stakes they want to make available, and then act as the bank... while other people nearby get on that network and play blackjack/roulette/craps against them, or play poker against each other, with or without a rake. Little covert BTC casinos could spring up anywhere, anytime... |
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No one who's played at StrikeSapphire has actually even tried our Hexwars game yet... 2-6 players (though more than 2 is more fun). There's also this, for up to 10 players: http://youtu.be/gD4GqCAAsmoUnfortunately can't embed youtube video in the post but check it out. I'm always coming up with new/original game concepts, and once our initial launch slows down a bit I'm going back to the drawing board with a few completely new ideas. OP, what kinds of games do you like to see? Slots? Board games / skill games? Or things that can only be described as "other"? |
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Thanks for joining alkhdaniel ------ and winning as we found out. No worries about being shorthanded. Great beginnings are always humble. Next week, we'll warm up with a few low-stakes freerolls before the big tourney, and our 1st place winner for the week "satoshi" (that's his name on our site, folx, but he won't confirm or deny) gets a free buyin. Everybody's invited... free Coin for all For now, congratulations to the winners! |
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10 minutes until the first freeroll |
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...and we thought it would be too confusing for players to be converting in and out of bitcoin before sitting at each table, so we front-loaded it. What might happen, eventually, is we might just bail on USD and run the whole thing in Bitcoin. But that depends on how easy it becomes to move other currencies in and out... and we're planning to start taking other types of payments down the line as well.
Yes please bail on the USD. All of us are short USD and you don't allow new US players anyway. So why should anyone convert CHF to BTC to USD to BTC to CHF? Also why (aside from beautiful land, sea, and culture) have you specifically established in Costa Rica. Had you considered Antigua and Barbuda or other countries? Well, it's easier said than done (converting our site out of USD), and it might be awhile. As far as we're concerned, USD is as good a type of poker chip as anything else. Possibly better, because everybody knows what it's worth. One of our goals is to attract players who've never touched Bitcoin and may not be comfortable with it beyond using it as a deposit/withdrawal method. Long-term, conversion would depend on whether what we're doing works for us, and whether we end up doing a majority of our deposits in BTC or in other currencies. Any such change is at least six months out. EUR is another logical contender. We're based in Costa Rica quite simply because CR takes the (logical) position that online gambling occurs at the player's terminal, and in the player's country. This stance is valid under WTO rules and international law, and leaves us essentially with the problem of self-enforcement re: players and/or advertising in other countries we might want to visit which don't take the same view. Costa Rica's neutral position is why most CR casinos continue to accept US players. We've considered a lot of options, and continue to weigh licensing in other jurisdictions alongside our current data processing corp. Because of the sensitivity surrounding online gaming and the fact that it's a small industry where everyone seems to know each other, I don't really want to get into an interview on the pros and cons of various jurisdictions here. Check out the casinomeister.com forum for heaps of info on the topic. I think it's well-understood that CR doesn't perform the same types of audits as many other countries, but we hold ourselves to a higher level of transparency, as we aren't just a casino but a software company, and we need to be able to license our software to operators in any legal jurisdiction -- including, eventually, the US (see https://strikesapphire.com/reports and our TOS for more about our transparency and randomness measures). |
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I'm going to keep my banner. I like it a lot, actually. Whatever's workin', let it ride  |
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Maybe I was kind of stretching the analogy. Bottom line: We don't want to break the laws of any country. Even for loads of cash. Anyway, on a separate note...New banners for affiliates!!!--------468 x 60-------  --------728 x 90-------  --------300 x 250-------  |
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I repeat, why do you block IPs? It is absolute ridiculous! By doing this, you can only minimize probability that U.S. player can register, NOT eliminate it. Even your filter has 99.999% accuracy, chance to register still remains. With power that have USA law enforcement agencies they can easily cheat your filter, register, deposit money and charge you THE SAME you have not implemented any blocking. Give me 2 BTC, for them I can buy high-privacy VPN account that provides unique static IP in most countries and is not in any blacklist.
It's called due diligence. We have a multi-stage process, and this is part of it. Not blocking IPs would signal that we don't care, or that we aren't doing everything in our power to block American players. Look at it from our perspective. If someone lies about where they're coming from and has to use a VPN to access our service, they've violated our TOS in multiple ways and committed fraud. In the US, fraudulently gathered evidence is inadmissible. In some countries the age of consent is 16. If a Federal agent uses a US address to order porn with 16 year old girls, and the foreign company delivers that pornography to the US, the company committed a crime under US law. If, however, they use an address in Germany and a fake name, fake ID, and lie about it; then have the porn delivered to a house and boxed up by somebody who takes it to DHL and ships it to the States, then who is committing the crime? Not the company that printed the magazine. I think I've been pretty clear about our general philosophy on the matter...you're free to disagree and think it's stupid, of course, but we're a limited membership private club and we're doing things our own way. Are you in the US by the way? Are you blocked? |
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Well, Lemonginger, you're right on the money with that. It's the "black hole" nature of Bitcoin (and by extension the problem of how to tax it) that's going to draw the most governmental ire. It's their paycheck, after all. Sorry about the low blow at the US, I happen to be from Vegas myself and politically line up somewhere between Ron Paul and Larry Flynt (if that's possible)... but yeah, it would be a little crazy for me to just say "screw it all, let's take American bets, Anarchy in Akron!" I mean, what gets me (and should get people here) is that I actually have to pay American income tax on anything I earn from this project, even though I haven't lived in the States for five years. If I ever want to see my family again, anyway, which to me is worth plenty. So... pardon the flip response, it just makes me mad. But I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make this work, including paying them a vig they don't deserve, because it's one step toward freedom.
@BTCSports; about the bitcoin-isn't-money argument, it's just not something I can put to the people working on this, or live with myself. I'm not saying it's right or wrong; but if I told that to the lawyers who are working for equity in Sapphire the first thing they'd do is choke on their lattes and the second thing would be to ask how they were going to get paid if it's not money. It would be a daring argument to test in court, but we aren't willing to be sacrificed at the altar just to make a point. We're just trying to make a living, and I think we're of more service to everyone as a legitimate company than as an outlaw thing just waiting to get picked off. I do admire your six-ton brass balls, and I wish the best for your project.
@EhV: I'm personally a major privacy advocate, a member of the ACLU, donated to Wikileaks in their hour of need (they never got it, and Paypal never returned it) and I relay for tor from home every chance I get. I'm a big fan of privacy and web anonymity... but I'm also a big fan of my own skin. If it was a little thing like helping Syrians connect outside the country, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Maybe that's because I'm not scared of the Syrian government. You remember Lando? That's us. We don't f*ck with the Empire, we run our own little thing, and we hope they leave us alone. So what if Lando was a big coward. I still think that by working within the system we can change it.
And Lemonginger, you're right that a BTC exchange will probably be blown out of the water long before a tiny BTC casino is...it wouldn't even surprise me if Dwolla got shut down along the way. What is cool about Bitcoin is that as long as people want to use it, they will find some other way of moving it around. It seems ready to become a chain reaction. Anyway, thanks for coming to my aid here... I'll tell ya this, the day we can take bets safely from the US, without giving up either our morals or our freedom, it'll be a great day.
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lulz. I thought the answer was going to be that both are blocked from our casino |
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That's all I get from this web site, and I'm not using proxies, tor or vpn. Do you block entire ISP subnets?
We shouldn't be blocking normal home or business subscribers, although there are some subnets flagged occasionally for bot infestation. Or you may be sharing your IP with a tor exit node. We do also block satellite ISPs, however if that's the case we'll whitelist your range and just ask for ID if you want to deposit. Paranoid as we are, we're trying hard to make this as easy as possible for legal players...but do have a fair number of false-positives. If you can send us your IP address at help(at)strikesapphire.com, or PM me here, I'll check into why our system's blocking you. |
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