BitcoinsForChristmas.com is still fully functional, and will act as a free service this Christmas just like last year. It does have a nice walkthrough tutorial when someone sends you coins, explaining how to set up MultiBit and receive your gift, and then goes on to show you places where you can spend your gift. Unfortunately, both founders (GoWest and myself) have been too pressed for time to promote it properly this year. We could use some help; PM me if you're interested in being involved.

with a week left in this auction, this doesn't seem like it's going to make sense at the end. but what the hell.
1 @ 15.

btw - any way to limit this geographically? We don't need/want ads in the USA.

2@11

It's a very good question. But law is a funny thing. Imagine trying to convince a judge and jury that you had the ability to set up an online casino with a cryptocurrency, but didn't have the ability to check IP addresses. I think the question that the US Government would ask would be: Did you take all reasonable steps within your power to prevent breaking the law? And for us it's important that we have.

sold out?

In terms of sunk costs and infrastructure, our casino (StrikeSapphire) was far and away the costliest and most complex casino -- or website of any kind -- ever deployed to cater to the Bitcoin market. Bitzino is a good HTML5 app but is nowhere near our level of sophistication in terms of multiplayer tables, multiple game windows, variety of games, etc. They do very well at their core competency, and I have nothing but respect for them. I have no idea whether they've recouped their costs already. But I think I'm qualified to comment on this, and I can lay out a couple of reasons why I think Calvin is interested in Bitcoin and why it's not correct to say that bitcoin casinos are pointless; and also explain why Bodog will not be adopting Bitcoin anytime soon.

For the average casino player: First of all, hashing methods for proving fairness are not actually the biggest advancement brought by Bitcoin. Strictly speaking they are not actually Bitcoin-related at all. They can be, if they're tied to the block chain; but the way Bitzino implements them is essentially the same as a GNU-licensed casino system devised under the name Fairdice back in 2004. While it's a great feature for paranoid libertarian Bitcoin types, those are not people who bring profits to a casino. In case you're wondering why no mainstream casino has ever implemented Fairdice or another "provably fair" hashing scheme -- first of all, it doesn't work in a multiplayer environment, and secondly online casinos just don't make their money from geeks. If you understand math well enough to figure out how to check that hash, you also understand it well enough to understand house edge and stay away from slot machines. It's accurate to say that the people who understand hashing schemes are not going to blow their retirement on an online casino, and another reason that's accurate is that they don't have any retirement to begin with; they're almost all under the age of 40 which is not the prime demographic for online casinos. This is the biggest problem for online casinos operating in the Bitcoin space; Bitcoiners are too young / too tech savvy to be the kind of gamblers that online casinos want.

However Bitcoin does offer one thing to the average online gambler - I mean the 40-65, gainfully employed, top-10%-net-earner who spends a few hundred to a few thousand a month on online entertainment. What it offers is immediacy. Bitcoiners who aren't habitual online gamblers in mainstream casinos take instant transactions for granted, but this is far from the norm in the e-gaming world. Most online gamblers are completely resigned to waiting at least a week for their withdrawals, and usually longer. This is an advantage that's easily understood by the mainstream audience and is probably the best selling point for Bitcoin casinos as they attempt to compete with mainstream ones. Unfortunately, the average player just says, "Bit-what?" and that's about as far as we've gotten.

For the casino: The benefits are numerous. The overhead is extremely low if you're trying to do something at a small scale. A real gaming license from Malta, the UK, Isle of Man, Antigua or Kahnawake will run around $250k when all is said and done, and all the lawyers are paid. That can secure you a (low) 4-5% credit card processing fee in and out, if you're willing to float at least $50k + 10% rolling with the card company. A cheaper gaming license may mean you're paying anywhere up to 9% to the card companies. Obviously Bitcoin lowers the bar to entry by about half a million dollars, and if you're willing to put even a fraction of that into decent software development you can put together a fairly good site. For large, existing casinos, the advantage would simply be lower fees. However, the drawbacks for big players like Bodog are also apparent. As stated above, the Bitcoin player doesn't match the average demographic for high rollers or the people who keep a casino in business. The fact that transactions are so rapid means that deposits also tend to be smaller, which means play periods are shorter, which means less churn for the house. Less churn means less drop.

Ultimately, in my opinion after doing this for about 14 months, it's a wash. The lower overhead is great, but the revenue is far lower than we would see from mainstream processing methods. Despite services like Bitinstant, there is still a severe psychological and technical barrier to buying Bitcoins for the less technically savvy 40-65 year old audience, who are naturally an online casino's core market. Until or unless that barrier goes away, Bitcoin casinos will remain small players and Bitcoin will probably not be adopted by Bodog or other mainstream outfits.

Every once in a while I get a little chuckle out of this thread. I love your attitude, lib. I'm constantly amazed that you haven't lost your cool yet.

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NSlots - a fully adjustable 3-line slot with 3 to 7 reels, and 2 to 10 fruit items which you can weight yourself. A player from this forum just hit $136.50 on a 3-line $0.25 per line spin about an hour ago, with his own adjusted combination 


Sixty Watt Slots - one of the world's only 17 payline, 5 reel slot machines. As you hit higher pays on each line, the lights on the sides light up. Fill all the lights, and activate the bonus meter. If you fill them twice, you can immediately activate a 2x bonus on the following spin, or you can keep spinning to build up to a 6x bonus. After you use the 6x bonus you still have a 5x, a 4x and so on left on the meter!


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Come check 'em out!

AFAIK they were never accepting it directly... I think we'd have heard more about that. They have definitely expressed an interest in it, though...

Of course, I agree we shouldn't have to police their citizens for them... however. In terms of online gambling, American law does not make a distinction between dollars or other currencies, or even non-currency items of value. Even if Bitcoin is in no way a currency, if it can be exchanged for something of value and an American can wager it online, that's illegal gambling. It doesn't matter what the thing of value is - it could be gold or baseball cards, or Linden $. This is why Second Life had to shut down all the in-world casinos.


This is not quite correct. The US has a history of directly prosecuting the owners and operators of online casinos that have taken US players, even if those operators are not US citizens and the company is based outside the US. They started this by arresting the chairman of SportingBet when his plane touched down in New York:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/technology/08iht-gamble.2743111.html?_r=0

This goes up to the present day with the indictment of Calvin Ayre, a Canadian citizen:
http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/news/story/2012/02/29/bodog-calvin-ayre-indicted.html

And there is at least one story of a US citizen being pulled off a domestic Australian flight that was code shared with American Airlines, and flown to the US for connections with an online casino that was taking US players.

It's just not worth the risk to accept American bets - even if it is only Bitcoin. However,
This is of course true, which is why we welcome players from outside the US!

StrikeSapphire publishes every single card shoe, craps roll and roulette spin the along with the real RTP for each game, at https://strikesapphire.com/reports/ ...you are welcome to run statistical analysis on them and prove the that the games are fair. You can also go back and see exactly what was in the shoe on each blackjack deal, since we use an actual six-deck shoe that is good for a number of hands, not a new shuffle between each new deal.

So do I, my friend. So do I.

Our tournament is final...

First place: Projects +$105.05 for the weekend, with a 100% bonus of equal value.
Second place: Bonjin +$53.30 for the weekend, with a 50% bonus of $26.65.

Congratulations to the winners... and stay tuned for more fun stuff from StrikeSapphire!

2-1/2 hours left to go, and player "projects" takes the lead at +$75... can anyone beat him?

Heyyyy! First qualifier is Bonjin, who's +$54 so far, and will double that win if he holds the lead...

One full day left in our tournament so get on in it! Follow the scores at https://strikesapphire.com/blog/

Let's get some excitement here folks! If you're a StrikeSapphire fan, make your voice heard! This is the only tournament or bonus of its kind in Bitcoin, and we're the only site giving away bonus coins and prizes like this. Get behind us!

StrikeSapphire's ALL-CASINO TOURNAMENT is back this weekend - with $300 in prizes!

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good for'em if they did, but haven't we had enough random "let's make a deal" bets around here for awhile?

ed/ btw I'd bet you pretty much anything that they aren't about to start taking visa/mc. But if I'm wrong, it will be the biggest coup in money laundering since ollie north put his sweaty hand on a bible.

Oh, one more thing. I forgot to mention this is in addition to our "bad week" bonus - which means if you lose your whole bankroll before you withdraw, we'll give you a second shot at it, by clearing your remaining wagering requirements and giving you another bonus for 50% of your last deposit -- or 10% immediate cash back with no strings attached!

Is that not the greatest deal in the Poker universe?

Check out this thread for the info. Surprisingly few players have actually taken advantage of it.

We're calling it a poker bonus, because your poker bets work fully to clear the wagering requirements. Plus we're giving away lots of freeroll cash and we want more players to take part in it! This is a 100% deposit bonus up to $50 in value. Come and help us build our poker tables! No other Bitcoin poker site is doing anything like this...only StrikeSapphire.com.

Your bonus code is: 88LCD8

This code expires at 00:00:00 14-September-2012!

And we're giving away up to $400 this month alone in NL Hold'em Freerolls - typically only a few players at each one, and they start every hour on the hour.

There's a 30x WR on deposit+bonus, with 100% value for all called poker bets in real-money games. Other games also qualify at 100% of bet value, except for Roulette, Craps, Blackjack and 5 Hand Video Poker (which each qualify at 20% of bet value). All wins are withdrawable immediately (if you choose to forfeit the withheld part). In other words, if you deposit $10 using the bonus code, you get a bankroll of $20. For every $0.30 you bet (that's called), $0.01 is released from your deposit+bonus. Everything you win over the initial $20 bankroll is yours to take, plus whatever part of the bankroll you've cleared, at any time.

The complete terms & conditions can be found at https://strikesapphire.com/tos.html#compsandbonuses.

See you at the tables!