Right.  The best way to play is to risk as little as possible.  Running a single martingale sequence is a good way to do that.  If you run it over and over again, you're increasing the amount you expect to lose.

If you want to win more than a single unit, you need to redesign your martingale sequence such that you achieve your target in a single run...

This is the most legit Ponzi scheme I've seen so far:

1) it admits it's a Ponzi
2) it has a reasonable-sounding failure scenario

So long as they make sure they always keep hold of enough coins to pay out 82% to everyone when it inevitably fails, this could even be considered as honest I guess!

Details on the payouts would be helpful.  It's currently very vague.

Of course, it'll probably turn out to be just another scam, but at least in theory this one could be legit.

I too would like to run the Linux client, but:

a) it's only available in binary format.  I would much rather build it from source myself, so I can see what I'm running

b) it's not available for the version of Linux I'm using

Providing the source code would remove both of the above obstacles for me, as well as being a legal requirement for distributing the binaries they are already distributing.

You're nearly right.

The correct number is 100.  Let's use that number in a sentence shall we?

100% of the doubel site are scam.

Anyone who invests in this obvious scam needs their head examined.

Why would this guy want to borrow your coins at 100% interest to buy mining equipment when he could borrow them much cheaper elsewhere?  The mining equipment would have to ROI itself twice over before he can give you your payment, and most miners have a hard time hitting ROI just once.

There is a Seals affiliate link in a banner ad at the top of JD.

I like SwC.

But no.

Someone posted on /r/justdice about it:

http://www.reddit.com/r/justdice/comments/28e6ey/low_roller_wins_60_btc_with_07_btc_crazy/

As I understood it, the bet was on the total profit over the whole month.  If someone wins 3k BTC tomorrow, that changes the result of the bet completely.

It's currently looking like the site will book decent profits this month, but it's by no means certain.

These schemes don't work.

To double the first person's deposit, you need a 2nd person to join.
The double the 2nd person's deposit, you need a 3rd and 4th person to join.
To double those 2 deposits, you need 4 more people to join, making a total of 8.
To double those 4 new deposits, you need 8 more people to join, making a total of 16.
and so on.

Each each step you need twice as many places as in the previous step.
After 10 steps you need over 1000 players.
After 20 steps you need over a million players.
After 33 steps you need everyone in the world to be playing.

Do you see now why these schemes always fail, and why you shouldn't get involved?

Very little that I can notice.  Other than:

The site's busier than it used to be.  Generally 300-400 people logged in at any time.

You can play for fractions of a chip now, since 1 chip = 0.001 BTC ~= 60 cents is too big for microstakes play.

There are binary executables available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, but I'm not brave enough to download them.  There's also a .apk file for an Android client.  But if you don't trust those you're stuck with the same clunky flash client they always had.

This chart pretty closely follows the amount in the bankroll over time.  It's actually showing how many coins the site was holding in offline cold storage over time, which also includes player balances, and doesn't include the flat that is kept on-site, but those two pretty much cancel each other out.

So the bankroll was around 30k in mid July and around 40k in late September.  Those are the two times nakowa played a lot.

Here's a video somebody made of him playing on 20th September, when he was getting warming up for his 2nd attack on the house.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjMnKtTWeKM

Note the bankroll is 48k and the maximum profit per bet is 478 BTC.  Almost all his large bets are for 100 or 200 BTC, so he's not betting more than 0.5% of the bankroll even though he could.

Here's a table showing all nakowa's bets on account 2548 at 49.5% of 1 BTC or more:


The biggest bet was for 303 BTC.

I mean if nakowa flat bet at 9% for an 11x payout until he doubled or bust, what are his chances of success then?  What is the optimal chance-per-bet to double your bankroll before busting, given a constant profit per bet?  The equation we used assumes the random walk is taking equally large steps backwards and forwards, but in this case we aren't.


I would definitely allow the betting to happen. Since the bankroll is crowd-funded, each individual would decide for themselves whether they wanted to take on the mighty nakowa. Historically it has been a losing proposition to do so, but even at the height of his power when he was kicking us all over the place, the vast majority of the crowd had faith in math and the house edge, and were quite vocal in protesting me reducing the maximum profit per bet to 0.25% of the bankroll.  They wanted a rematch.  They wanted their chance to take back what he had won from them.  I'm sure most still feel the same way, that math will win in the end.

I don't know if I would personally remain part of the bankroll myself. I couldn't help but take it personally when he won so much, like he was attacking me and the site. I know that's stupid, but it's how I felt. Not being a part of the bankroll made it a little better, and allowed me to sleep at night, so that's what I did.

You're saying that you have a higher chance to turn 10 into 15 if you bet it all on a single bet than if split the 10 into smaller pieces and bet them at a higher multiplier, smallest first, until you win one, and then quit?

Because that seems obviously incorrect to me.  Betting all your coins you expect to lose more than betting just some of them.

An easier example:

Suppose you have 7 coins and want to have 8.

You could bet all 7 on a 1.125x bet.

Or you could bet 1 at 2x, then 2 at 2x, then 4 at 2x, stopping if you win at any point.

Is the single 7 or the 1,2,4 martingale better?  What are the odds of success of each one?  What's your expected return for each?

Work it out.  The 1,2,4 martingale is *better* than the single 7.

Do at least a little research before trusting a stranger.

Nobody can double your coins in 4 business days.

The way the game works is he pays out old players with new players' deposits.

He can't keep the game going because of math.

The way not to lose money on these games is to stop playing them.

By playing them you are only helping the scammer.

Here's a chart of the JD profits over the last 3 months or so:



April is over 1500, May is under 1000, and June so far is around 1200.  So your numbers look about right to me, yes.

I think you should use the same time and date each month.  If you start the month at 00:01 on 1st June, you should end it at 00:01 on 1st July (not 23:59 on 30th June) or you have a gap between months.

It probably doesn't matter, but it's best to define these things exactly.  For instance, say you'll take the 1st June data point on bitcoinproject from the 1st July data point to get the monthly profit.

So OP is saying "I don't have your coins because I gave the cold wallet to one of the site's investors".

If it's true, what the fuck?  Why would you give the site's cold wallet to anyone?  The whole point of a cold wallet is that it keeps the coins safe.  Don't give it to anyone, especially not an anonymous stranger you met on a forum!

And if it's false, what?  OP still has the coins, is lying about it, and wants to keep them for himself?

So which is it?  You gave the invested coins to a stranger, or you stole them?  Neither one is acceptable.  Did I miss a third possibility?

Mostly because I hijacked it and use it as a place to post anecdotes of the Martingales that happen daily on my dice sites.

Here's one from a few hours ago.  In this case it didn't works:



Here's the tail end of the betting:

I try to treat everyone the same, no matter what their bankroll, to the point of making a point not to look at people's balances most of the time.

That can lead to problems, with high rollers feeling snubbed because I don't go the extra mile to cater to them.  One guy was upset that it took over an hour for me to manually process a large withdrawal that he requested on a Sunday afternoon.  Another seems upset that I don't buy him steak dinners when he loses, though I think that is mostly tongue in cheek.

I'm sure most whales recognise that all the "free stuff" they get at the big casinos is paid for by the large house edge on the games they play.

You're using the equation found in section 12.2 of http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/teaching_aids/books_articles/probability_book/Chapter12.pdf



Briefly:


I hadn't see it before.  Thanks.  

1% house edge means that in the long run you will lose 1% of everything you gamble.

Your example of the $1.99 payout doesn't do that.


You need your bankroll to be significantly bigger than your maximum payout.  If you have a small bankroll you can avoid the risk of going bust by reducing your maximum bet.

Research the "Kelly Criterion" for the gory details.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion