The words "your" and "deposit" overlap, as seen in this screenshot:  It's probably got to be a browser bug, since the HTML looks fine. I'm using Chromium 18.0.1025.151 (Developer Build 130497 Linux) Ubuntu 12.04. Ah, I see it in Chromium 18 myself as well. Interestingly, it's not in Chrome 19. Also interestingly - the layout glitch goes away if you refresh the page. I do have an idea of what causes this bug - I think it's due to the way webkit handles re-layouts of the page - I'm going to have to dive a little deeper though to figure out a fix. Thanks for the report! |
|
|
|
Just in case the Mersenne Twister algorithm has any unknown vulnerabilities, it's better to stay on the safe side, and not let the client directly provide the seed
I don't think this is necessary at all. The Mersenne Twister bit is for the user's safety, not yours. You've already securely shuffled the deck, and are just letting the user "cut" it. Any vulnerability would be equivalent to the player being able to always cut to exactly the 29th card in the deck. It allows him to cut predictably, but doesn't help him win in any way at all since he has no way of knowing the order of the uncut deck. So there's no need for you to provide your own 'server_seed' - just use the client_seed for the 2nd shuffle. Yeah, it is somewhat overkill, I agree. I was paranoid that there may be some vulnerability in Mersenne Twister that would cause the algorithm to somehow allow the input to affect the output. Now that I've gotten to know MT a little bit better, I see this is practically not possible given the way the algorithm is written. The additional benefit that the server_seed provides though, is that it's effectively a random salt for the secret. Without the salt, a dedicated adversary could presumably start making a massive rainbow table of all known deck configurations. Again though, this is rally just paranoia - there's way too many deck configurations for this to be conceivable (especially with 8 deck blackjack). But I preferred to be a little paranoid than to have bitZino be exposed to a vulnerability. |
|
|
|
How about a setting in my profile so that I can have the client record (log) my play. e..g, to later get a list of all hashes and secrets.
Just from knowing the speed of hands that the player is going at it becomes pretty easy to tell if the player is looking at the verification. Of course, the odds are that 99.998% of us won't be verifying. But if the client might be logging each play, for verification after the fact, then there's no way to tell which players might be scrutinizing the results. Which keeps everyone honest.
I was thinking this would be the perfect use-case for a greasemonkey script. Because honestly, even if we allow you to log the hands client-side, you still have to trust that the javascript we're serving you isn't corrupted. If anyone wants to build such a script, I'd be happy to help support it! As far as the rules, what if both the dealer and the player get blackjack? Perhaps a page with a more complete set of rules would be useful?
What is the hold percentage (house advantage) for this game?
Dooglus already gave some good answers here (Wizard of Odds is one of my favorite sites!). But just to confirm: both the dealer and the player getting a blackjack is indeed a push. And all the rules dooglus listed are correct (indeed, you can't resplit aces), so it's a 0.66% house edge if you play optimally. |
|
|
|
Now you're cooking with gas!
Thanks  Using my Android, there is some "space" character displayed next to the amounts, so 0.0 BTC looks like 0.0▯BTC
Good catch! I have fixed this issue now. Android is kinda like the new IE6 in a lot of ways :/ (I still love it, but it's annoying how the browser isn't quite standards compliant) When showing the deposit address, a QR code would be useful.
When showing the field for entering the address for withdrawal, a link to scan a QR code would be useful.
Agreed! I've seen this suggestion many places on this forum, and I've already started looking into how to do it. Keep your eyes peeled! There's really no reason for me to have to register. If you had an "instant" (or "anonymous") mode, I could create the account simply by sending BTCs to a deposit address. And simply, when I'm done playing, I can withdraw back to the funding address, or to another address that I enter or scan. But if I abandon the account, then my balance is automatically returned to the funding address, say after 48 hours of inactivity or something like that.
I like this idea. We had briefly considered having no registration at all when first building the site, but there were a lot of complications around it - it's frankly way easier to build a site when you have a true User with which to reference. But, now that the site is up and running, I think it's worth reconsidering, because I definitely see the utility of doing this. And one other suggestion. In addition to taking an address when depositing, consider also serving the user wishing to deposit by redeeming a private key and (or possibly a redeemable code from an exchange). The reason this would be useful is so that a paper bitcoin type product could be used to fund the bitZino wallet and then used to withdraw the winnings as well. For instance, at a club the ticket printer kicks out a funded paper bitcoin no different than what BitAddress.org produces. That's all a player would need to then load funds into bitZino, ... play a few hands, and then withdraw back to the paper bitcoin which can be used again at a later date, or by someone else, or redeemed at an exchange for cashing out. i.e., all someone needs to play is access to a smartphone mobile (or, preferably, a tablet) and a slip of paper with the two QR codes on it (or, prepaid bitcoin card like: - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=87441.msg961085#msg961085 ) Love the idea! I hadn't even considered alternative cash-in methods as of a few weeks ago, but after extensively talking with many bitcoin users recently, I see this would be a valuable feature. I'm actually surprised how many bitcoiners haven't downloaded the official client, and don't even have a wallet. We definitely have to build alternative cash-in options if we want to attract those users. Thanks so much for the extensive feedback! |
|
|
|
Great that you're using a provably fair shuffle. I found a typo: dive into all the in-depth technical details on our newly launched bitZino TechBlog"Let's reshuffle the deck using the the Fisher-yates shuffle algorithm" Thanks for catching this! It's now fixed |
|
|
|
bitzino moved out of pending (catching up a site at a time when I have the time  ) Woot! Some additional details for bitZino: Min bet is 0.000001 BTC (1e-6 BTC) Max bet is 10 BTC Min and max cash out are 1 satoshi. Also, we are now Provably FairAlso, I hate to be anal, but could you please change the spelling to bitZino (with a capital 'Z')? I'm trying to make the Z a core part of our branding. Thanks for putting all the work into such a great list! |
|
|
|
bumping your site out of pending Let me know if there are any notes etc I need to add to its listing. Thanks mem! I feel like we've made it into the big leagues now I've got some additional details, which I'll post in your thread. |
|
|
|
Big news from bitZino today! Through the power of cryptography, we are now Provably Fair! We utilize a novel cryptographic approach which ensure that neither the house, nor the player can possibly know the shuffle of a deck until the moment the deck is dealt. Read about how we do it on our website, or dive into all the in-depth technical details on our newly launched bitZino TechBlog. As part of this launch, we've also increased the maximum bet on our site to 10 BTC. So, come enjoy the game, and as always, leave any feedback for me here! I'm incredibly receptive to any suggestions or input the community has. |
|
|
|
Thanks to everyone that has played and offered me feedback in the last 2 weeks!
We've officially hit a milestone hand: 50,000 real bitcoin blackjack hands have been played since launch! In celebration, we gave away some btc to all the players that were playing when the milestone occurred.
If you were playing anytime yesterday, you probably got a boost to your balance!
That's pretty impressive. 50k hands in how many days? If it's since you posted about your site in this thread, that's about 1 hand every 20 seconds, 24/7. I announced it on reddit's /r/bitcoin a few days before announcing it here. So the official launch was on June 5th - 18 days ago. That's still an average of one hand every 31 seconds, which is a pretty good start |
|
|
|
|
Thanks to everyone that has played and offered me feedback in the last 2 weeks!
We've officially hit a milestone hand: 50,000 real bitcoin blackjack hands have been played since launch! In celebration, we gave away some btc to all the players that were playing when the milestone occurred.
If you were playing anytime yesterday, you probably got a boost to your balance!
|
|
|
|
One thing that was not obvious for me was how to withdraw: after I've won I wanted to stop playing and withdraw my bitcoins. I clicked on the withdraw link at the bottom of the page and there my bitcoins were shown under "Total balance" and "In-game balance", but not under "Available for withdrawal."
It took me a little bit to figure out I had to go back to the table and click there on leave.
Yeah, this flow has always bugged be somewhat too. I am thinking of allowing users to leave tables from the withdrawal page which would hopefully alleviate this. Thanks for the heads-up - I'll prioritize this change! Leave is disabled during a hand though so maybe you should just put the amount on the table and a link back to the table. Or I suppose check to see if a hand is in progress and make it a "back to table" button if so and a "leave table" button otherwise. Good call! It's never possible to cash-out a table mid-hand, so having the "Go to game" link is necessary. Thanks for the feedback guys - this feature is now live! It should be even easier to withdraw your whole balance now. |
|
|
|
One thing that was not obvious for me was how to withdraw: after I've won I wanted to stop playing and withdraw my bitcoins. I clicked on the withdraw link at the bottom of the page and there my bitcoins were shown under "Total balance" and "In-game balance", but not under "Available for withdrawal."
It took me a little bit to figure out I had to go back to the table and click there on leave.
Yeah, this flow has always bugged be somewhat too. I am thinking of allowing users to leave tables from the withdrawal page which would hopefully alleviate this. Thanks for the heads-up - I'll prioritize this change! Also, (just something small): if you're on the withdraw screen and click again on the link to withdraw at the bottom of the page, the "Back"- link just goes back to the withdraw screen. I would think that from the withdraw screen if you click on back you always go back to the table.
Ah, yeah, that is kinda wonky. I just changed it so that back button always goes back to the blackjack game. Thanks! |
|
|
|
I found an internal server error.
Open the game in two windows, buyin in both of them, leave in one, make a bet in the remaining one.
Ah, I saw those errors coming through - I wondered what was causing them I'll fix this shortly, in the meantime I'll add another BTC to your account for helping me out. Keep 'em coming! |
|
|
|
I guess it could come across as me giving you a hard time, but I just thought it would perhaps be useful if I just told you everything I thought could use some attention.
No, I definitely appreciate the feedback, and you weren't harsh at all Even if you were harsh, it would still be really valuable! I need to know what problems people are having so I can fix them, and having you tell me about them directly is the best way. Currently the only way to bring more to the table is to click "leave". Something like an "Add chips" button, maybe even just renaming it?
"Leave" doesn't seem right at all the more I think about it. When you click it it welcomes you, which is odd for a leave button. And it's normal function is for adding chips. You can actually add balance without leaving the table by clicking on your current balance in the lower-left of the table, just above the "Split" button. The leave buttons does behave differently in that it cashes out all your chips from the table and allows you to create a new table. I agree that this could be a bit more clear though, I'll see what I can do... Thanks! |
|
|
|
I get a blank pop up when I try to bet zero. My balance on the table is .5, I think this is the issue.
This is definitely a bug! The minimum bet for any table is 1, so if your balance gets down to below 1 (which can only really happen if you got a blackjack in a previous hand, thus allowing you to win a multiple of 0.5), we should be treating you as out of balance, instead of allowing you to try to bet 0.5. I have fixed this bug, and I also added a BTC to your account for helping me find it. This offer stands for anyone else too! If you find any bugs like this, let me know, and I'll add some funds to your account |
|
|
|
Thanks everyone for the feedback regarding the buy-in screen! Looking back, I definitely agree it was pretty confusing, which is not good since this is one of the first screens that a new user sees! I've made some changes to clarify it: It now doesn't show a form at all if you have 0 balance on your account. It also has the text of "How much would you like to bring to the table?", which should make it clear that you're buying in to the table, not adding or removing bitcoins from your account. Let me know what you think of the changes Maybe it is just me being that bad at back jack, but how do we know that you don't steer the game?
Currently you only have my word, and my reputation (which I admit isn't fully established yet). I can assure you that I am in this for the long-haul though. I wouldn't have gone to so much work creating really good custom blackjack software, only to scam a few bitcoins out of people. Additionally, I am currently working diligently to make the deal provably fair. I will provide a hash of the random seed before the deal, as well as take in a user provided string in order to seed the deal (a similar technique to what the bitjack21 guys do). This will be live within the next week - so if you're unsure, check back in a week for a provably fair game! When playing in a real casino, the play moves around the table clockwise, from right to left. If you've split and hand, it does the same, playing the right-hand hand first.
Your game plays the left-hand hand first, which gets confusing.
I'm not sure if it may end up being more confusing to go right-to-left... I'm trying to shy away from the table metaphor, because I think we can do better than that on the web. And since we read left-to-right, that seems more natural to me. However, I'll admit my opinion is probably skewed, and if this is ultimately more confusing for most players, then it should be changed. What do other people think? |
|
|
|
Thanks for the extensive feedback, dooglus! ..it's confusing to use "cash in" to mean both "deposit" and "withdraw".
The "Cash In" button is so that you can add some of your funds to the table you're playing at. It isn't meant to deposit or withdraw any bitcoins. This allows users to sit down at a table with less than their entire bankroll all at once. However, I can definitely see how this wording is confusing - especially with the bitcoin deposit address displayed in the same window. I'll work on improving the wording and the general flow! I think it would be nice if you kept a record of my play money balance.
That's a good idea, and it shouldn't be too hard to do. I agree that it would give you a much better feel for actually playing the game. Is there a minimum deposit? State this on the deposit page.
Nope, no minimum deposit  How about an option to disable animations?
That's a good request. I will likely be adding this soon. Is it possible to make keyboard shortcuts in HTML5? Maybe if I could type to play instead of constantly 'aiming' for buttons with the mouse it would feel less tiring.
I'm already working on keyboard shortcuts, so stay tuned! |
|
|
|
|
Good point, FreeMoney. There really isn't any reason to force the user to wait until all deposits are confirmed before requesting a withdrawal. I've went ahead and changed that behavior - so now you can request a withdrawal regardless of whether your deposits are confirmed -we just wont' process the withdrawal until all your deposits prior to the withdrawal request are confirmed.
I also added some "Back" links to the user edit pages.
Keep the feedback coming!
|
|
|
|
|
Thanks for the feedback!
Gweedo: I am planning currently working on optimizing the gameplay for mobile, so stay on the lookout!
FreeMoney: That's a great point. I have been working on making some of the other flows more streamlined (ie, having multiple ways to get the the withdrawal page), but I hadn't thought about making sure it was easy for players to get back in the game from the user page. I'll definitely be adding something.
|
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
