Alright guys, I think the time time has come for me to retire Blockbet. Obviously with the NBA and NHL heading into the playoffs and soccer leagues with their summer breaks, there will be less games to cover over the summer, and I've made nothing but losses on baseball up to this point.

It's been a great experience and a lot of fun, but it's also been a full-time job with no days off, so a small break from everything will be welcome. Also the sportsbook game is a lot more crowded than it used to be, and let's face it, some of these new guys can offer more features than we do. I knew from the start that it won't take too long for guys with more technical knowledge and more time to invest to come along, and I wish nothing but good luck for them. The sportsbooks offerings are now a lot stronger that what they used to be, and I'm glad to have been a part of that process.

I'm gonna stay involved with Bitcoin, I have a lot of faith in the currency. I also have a couple of other ideas that I want to work on, and I can't do that with Blockbet taking so much of my time at the moment. Hopefully one of those ideas will some day become bigger than what Blockbet could ever dream of being!

I'll get to work on payouts from yesterday in a moment. Outstanding NBA bets (playoff series starting later today) will be returned. After that I'll probably shut down the site (server rent is almost finished anyway) and lock the thread.

It's been a crazy ride with a lot of ups and downs, peaks and valleys, and a valuable learning process. So with that, I want to thank everybody for their support. Thanks for playing!

-Paul

Update: Site is now closed. Thank you for your support.

Site seems to be working again. I've already got UFC and NBA up and gonna start working on the rest of the games next. It's a shame that we missed some of the early games though, sorry about that.

What's the deal with all these Jr members who have registered a few weeks ago coming here to tell us why Bitcoin doesn't work or what Bitcoin needs to do?

No prob. The site has been up and down all day, it was accessible for a moment, but now it's down again. Like I said, I'm definitely looking for a better host, but obviously it's not that simple. In any case, there's no sense for me to post any games until the site is accessible all the time. Hopefully you'll find something on the NBA series bets.

Site is having some issues again, it's very frustrating but nothing I can do but wait to the host to get it fixed. It's been on and off for a while now. Hope they won't take too long.

I'm not gonna post all the games here, but here are the lines for the NBA playoffs which will start tonight:

Team to advance:

New York Knicks	1.26  / -381	1MNT3225mfHpsuNd2TumrvAhohQNJpXs8Y
Boston Celtics	3.84  / +284	16bgtwJ8G3xwUvZV3ukR5BFsgRVZxQQ9Gh
Denver Nuggets	1.18  / -550	16oh2tksdvF4ZoNcyRPqfepNQxPEj7WeTK
GoldenStateWarriors	4.85  / +385	1LQZ9iMqz3BNLwichmPMBzs8izWtrrEPMU
Brooklyn Nets	1.70  / -144	14QgwjqmujraTy3JezyJgB6ZYULsXzC4UN
Chicago Bulls	2.17  / +117	1H7LnGmzDsUNtoeLSCekgWjUdCD5jaJMEg
Los Angeles Clippers	1.50  / -198	1DjD4rLWZenxqV38J9Q4Pv7sdmkQ1UzTkH
Memphis Grizzlies	2.58  / +158	139S6svT2VfJEcqPqRobKy4yscxtetYis1
Indiana Pacers	1.28  / -354	1E5bXH7vSoVBVDfcpH4AyvLxaHbwr5LsSE
Atlanta Hawks	3.69  / +269	199SptXiZ7VGAcmGMRw9RTMa6Y3Kp8yXTn
San Antonio Spurs	1.09  / -1101	1NpHHGt2aNeKXMt6Tdm5uBjLfVUF2Uv62h
Los Angeles Lakers	7.32  / +632	17djy9h6Dztnq6UZoK5TxpA1Ur8nbXzHm8
Miami Heat	1.02  / -4975	1GFcEC34ht9FvMojA3Z1mAsP43Bd4nH4ax
Milwaukee Bucks	25.00 / +2400	1Hg2ZX52bLmBVMjWM7G7LMNUNceAG7rfGo
OklahomaCityThunder	1.04  / -2481	1AWNhPY11wuXQgL8cQfLtoerWNMW1EZ96x
Houston Rockets	11.00 / +1000	1PS3f8oKZ9tZqtNdUTgx1zoDm7Nn37Gpup

Betting will close for each series after the first match has started. As always, bets between 0.1 - 10.0 BTC accepted, just send your bet to the corresponding address after you've made sure that you can receive payments to your sending address. Good luck

[edit] Okay so that table is not very attractive but I hope you'll find the relevant information there.

[edit2] And to clarify, these bets are for the playoff series, not individual games. The lines should not see any movement unless something unexpected happens with the lineups etc.

Pardon my stupidity, but which is it, German or Polish government? Apparently the site was Polish, so what does Germany have to do with it? They don't even have the same currency...

There was a mistake in today's La Liga goal totals, it's now been fixed, but all bets prior to that will be refunded. Match won't start until an hour from now so we don't know the score yet, and you're welcome to make another bet with the updated lines.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

[edit] And just to clarify that match winner bets are unaffected.

I know Java is considered unsafe, but damn, it can steal files from your hard drive?

Another question, isn't virus/malware protection supposed to prevent keyloggers and malicious Java apps from running? I guess there are always exceptions that can work around those, but as a general rule?

This is good stuff. A lot of people probably thought that they had heard the last of Bitcoin after the "crash", yet here we are - Bitcoin still going strong. The media can only do so many "Bitcoin bubble" stories, at some point people capable of thinking for themselves are going to make the conclusion that maybe it's not a bubble when it just refuses to pop and go away.

By the way, CNN Money also did an article "I lost $50,000 in Bitcoin crash, but I'm still a believer" which is linked there. And that's just dreadful writing once again, the guy couldn't possibly have lost 50k when he's only invested 4k in total. Another way to look at it is that he turned 4k into 20k, but that's not the TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS LOST headline CNN was looking for.

There's plenty of point in creating altcoins even if they don't have any advantages over Bitcoin - the creator has a chance of becoming a billionaire if it works! Other than that, I don't see the advantages for the community.

I think it's a terrific idea and I'm disappointed not to see more replies, maybe people just missed this thread... Bitcoin is also considered tax-evader currency, so it would be very good to send a message that the Bitcoin community actually is willing to give money to good causes.

I've been thinking about setting up a Wikipedia fund. The idea is to collect bitcoins for Wikipedia in a public manner, the idea being that Wikipedia will get that money as soon as they start accepting bitcoins. What I want to say is "Hey Jimmy Wales, here's how much money you're missing out on for not accepting Bitcoin".

I probably don't have time (or rep) to follow through with this idea so please feel free to use it, should be good for other good causes as well.

I suppose you're talking about this one, for the Lakers game:

Send from: *Gnh1
Received Time:    2013-04-18 02:31:31
Included In Blocks:    232019 (2013-04-18 19:14:12 +1,003 minutes)


That's very unusual indeed, I use the same fee and I've never seen delays longer than an hour or so. But the thing is, we can see that the bet was placed before tipoff, and there is a fee, so there's no reason not to accept it. That's just tough luck with the game total going "under" despite the overtime.

Of course the answer is "next week".

As I think I already mentioned, I was once tricked to a pyramid conference. This is actually a term that they used a lot of times, and it's obviously no accident - if you don't believe in 10k monthly income with minimal effort, then you're "narrow minded", and nobody wants to be that, right?

Well, I suppose they might lose all their money, but at least they're not narrow minded, and that's something.

Surprised to see this guy still around.

I'm probably gonna get a new (actually, my first) tablet computer, likely the rumored Asus Nexus which should be coming out soon? (edit: I mean the new model). Porsches will have to wait...

I have 100% trust towards blockchain.info, but still, I would only store as little as necessary, for as short a time as necessary.

It's all subjective though, what one person might consider his life savings might be small money to somebody else. But frankly I can't see any reason why you'd put your bitcoins there unless you plan on spending it soon. If you have thousands of dollars worth of bitcoins, then in my opinion, it's a good idea to spend some time to study how local wallets work and how they can be kept safe.


Can you tell us what happened? Did you have a easy password, a trojan on your computer, or how did that happen?

Alright, you got me I honestly hadn't looked at the moneyline odds prior to my message, but what you're saying is absolutely correct. Still I'd have to say that the Lakers game without Kobe is pretty even, and I haven't looked at the Utah game yet, it's obviously a tough matchup but still very winnable for a team that is in a must-win situation.

Did you get any action on your Lakers bet? I'd be willing to take that with your proposed -300 line. I say that the Lakers will make the playoffs. All teams play their last match of the regular season today.

This thing looked like a scam from the beginning, I was gonna say something but then I figured people would just accuse me of bashing the competition. Now I feel like an idiot and feel sorry for the community. We're lucky that this guy was content to leave with nothing more than a few bitcoins in his pocket.

Anyway "whatsgoingon" was pretty obviously the same person by the way he was promoting somebody else's business. And a gambling site that wants to take 5 btc bets need to have quite a lot of capital, and that site didn't look like one that did.

Frankly the whole conversation about Bitcoin being "dead" is stupid. Absolutely nothing has changed from last week, or the week before.

Other than that, there are some good point on your post.