Review of S.DICE

[kjj]

S. Dice is grossly over-valued.  The cost of creating a competitor is very low.  They don't offer anything special that another competitor cannot easily replicate.    Someone could return 99.5% of bets and still make a killing.

I'd value the company at 1x-2x annual earnings and label it as very high risk.

You know, probably a hundred different people have all said this on the forums since S.Dice opened.  Surely if one of you were right, this thread would have gone dormant long ago, crushed by the flood of S.Dice users rushing to the better site.  And yet, here we are, still talking about them, still no real competition in view.  Perhaps you are missing something in your analysis.  Or maybe a couple million dollars a year isn't enough motivation to replicate their simple site.

[nrd525]

These guys seem to be doing pretty well:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=120497.100

[fcmatt]

quite honestly i think sd's biggest problem is that it gets boring quick.
some have stated that sd's whale has already started trying other gambling games.
sd needs more games or players will goto something else that is entertaining.
sitting in front of a bitcoin client sending money to an address and either waiting
or refreshing sd's website got old for me after just a few bets to see what all the
fuss was about. i never went back. I think others will go down the same path.

[adamstgBit]

quite honestly i think sd's biggest problem is that it gets boring quick.
some have stated that sd's whale has already started trying other gambling games.
sd needs more games or players will goto something else that is entertaining.
sitting in front of a bitcoin client sending money to an address and either waiting
or refreshing sd's website got old for me after just a few bets to see what all the
fuss was about. i never went back. I think others will go down the same path.

maybe the evoorhees is seeing this excat trend and this is why hes dumping like a mad fool...

[bitcoinBull]

quite honestly i think sd's biggest problem is that it gets boring quick.
some have stated that sd's whale has already started trying other gambling games.
sd needs more games or players will goto something else that is entertaining.
sitting in front of a bitcoin client sending money to an address and either waiting
or refreshing sd's website got old for me after just a few bets to see what all the
fuss was about. i never went back. I think others will go down the same path.

maybe the evoorhees is seeing this excat trend and this is why hes dumping like a mad fool...

I don't trust their reported revenues. It would be too easy and very cheap to fake users with a bot playing the game (the only cost would be transaction fees, not proportional to bet sizes).

The fact that they're raising money with "stock issues" is another red flag. The whole thing doesn't smell quite right..

[kingcrimson]

How does btc price effect share value? Lets say coins double from $20 to $40..meaning shares go from .006 to .003, which retains its value but cuts your total bitcoin total in half. Well you would've been better off holding the coins, no? Isn't simple speculation better than investing right now?

[Bowjob]

How does btc price effect share value? Lets say coins double from $20 to $40..meaning shares go from .006 to .003, which retains its value but cuts your total bitcoin total in half. Well you would've been better off holding the coins, no? Isn't simple speculation better than investing right now?

Except betting volume has gone up, not the other way around.

[thoughtfan]

How does btc price effect share value? Lets say coins double from $20 to $40..meaning shares go from .006 to .003, which retains its value but cuts your total bitcoin total in half. Well you would've been better off holding the coins, no? Isn't simple speculation better than investing right now?

It is an interesting one to think about.  Elaborating on Bowjob's reply the shares are only likely over time to reduce in value in the event that projected earnings per share were expected to drop.  I guess if USD/BTC keeps rising and the money for gambling comes mainly from fiat (or for businesses where price/profit is liked to fiat rate) there comes a time when it is impossible for the vast majority to be playing with the same size stakes as before.  But the indications for now are that increasing numbers of people are playing and some are playing with what at today's exchange rates are huge amounts of money in fiat terms.  I also tend to think, because generally the money people put into Bitcoin is money they can afford to lose anyway and because it isn't USD people treat it more like play money than they might if they were thinking of it in terms of USD all the time.  Just some comments and guesses

[Bowjob]

How does btc price effect share value? Lets say coins double from $20 to $40..meaning shares go from .006 to .003, which retains its value but cuts your total bitcoin total in half. Well you would've been better off holding the coins, no? Isn't simple speculation better than investing right now?

It is an interesting one to think about.  Elaborating on Bowjob's reply the shares are only likely over time to reduce in value in the event that projected earnings per share were expected to drop.  I guess if USD/BTC keeps rising and the money for gambling comes mainly from fiat (or for businesses where price/profit is liked to fiat rate) there comes a time when it is impossible for the vast majority to be playing with the same size stakes as before.  But the indications for now are that increasing numbers of people are playing and some are playing with what at today's exchange rates are huge amounts of money in fiat terms.  I also tend to think, because generally the money people put into Bitcoin is money they can afford to lose anyway and because it isn't USD people treat it more like play money than they might if they were thinking of it in terms of USD all the time.  Just some comments and guesses

I've actually had this concern: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=135760.0

For now S.Dice looks like its still growing.

[Chalkbot]

Any word on whether additional shares will be sold tonight, and at what price?

[Chalkbot]

Thanks Ian.

Debating whether or not I'm interested in picking up anymore at that price...

[sunnankar]

Low valuation of $20mil usd still puts the stock at BTC.01 - I see S.DICE being worth that today.

Buyout of 100mil+ possible? - I would agree with sunnankar on that being a possibility in a year / 18months if Bitcoin keeps going the way it is.
S.DICE is so well branded, mentioned in nearly every article written about bitcoin
.... sure the USA might go at it for gambling, but then they legitimize bitcoin
- so I am willing to gamble a bit on that. Either S.DICE dies and the rest of my coin skyrockets as BTC is legitimized as a commodity/currency
- or S.DICE grows to be huge / holds its spots as one of bitcoinlands coca-cola's / is bought by a big macau casino

With Blockchain.info growing at about 1.5% per day? The rate of Bitcoin adoption is getting faster because of network effects. It is on an exponential adoption curve. Looks at Facebook, Evernote, Paypalor Dropbox usage for similarities. Imagine SD revenue with 3m Blockchain.info users which is realistic by slightly increasing current growth rates in 12-18 months.

Doubt US can go after it for gambling. If they do they will likely fail on constitutional grounds of void for vagueness and over breadth doctrines, assuming they can even drag anyone into court and not get booted out on summary judgment and gone after for the tort of abuse of legal process. This would be a great test case for some precedent though.

Game theory wise US should just ignore Bitcoin and try to regulate exchangers to insert their data gathering hooks.

All potentials are likely SD positive though.

[Transisto]

What could S.DICE realistically sell out for?

I think $100-200m in the next 12-18 months is realistic.

S.DICE is *only* about the domain though. It has no precious user data like other sites do.

I'm curious how much a similar domain would be valued at.

SatoshiBets.com  lol 10$ http://hostye.com/d/satoshibets.com/

[wtfvanity]

What could S.DICE realistically sell out for?

I think $100-200m in the next 12-18 months is realistic.

S.DICE is *only* about the domain though. It has no precious user data like other sites do.

I'm curious how much a similar domain would be valued at.

SatoshiBets.com  lol 10$ http://hostye.com/d/satoshibets.com/

I'm sure that's very accurate. Try it with SD itself, $2000 value.

http://hostye.com/d/satoshidice.com/

[Transisto]

S.DICE is *only* about the domain though. It has no precious user data like other sites do.

I'm curious how much a similar domain would be valued at.

SatoshiBets.com  lol 10$ http://hostye.com/d/satoshibets.com/

I'm sure that's very accurate. Try it with SD itself, $2000 value.

http://hostye.com/d/satoshidice.com/

In the long term I think the "dice" part in satoshidice will eventually limits what it could become by adding new games,
vs say more generic gambling name like :
http://satoshinn.com/ (actual casino (beta))
or satoshicasino.com

[k]

With Blockchain.info growing at about 1.5% per day? The rate of Bitcoin adoption is getting faster because of network effects. It is on an exponential adoption curve. Looks at Facebook, Evernote, Paypalor Dropbox usage for similarities. Imagine SD revenue with 3m Blockchain.info users which is realistic by slightly increasing current growth rates in 12-18 months.

SDice revenue is not guaranteed to rise with more Bitcoin users. With 3m Blockchain.info users bitcoin price in USD would surely be higher but because of the fixed number of bitcoins  (I know total bitcoin supply still increasing but my general point still holds) then Bitcoin revenue might not increase.  revenue (ignoring the luck element) can only increase if the amount of bitcoins gambled on SDice increases. So there may be 30x the number of Bitcoin users but on average they'd have 30x less Bitcoins so the average gambled on SDice per player may also reduce by 30x. If Bitcoin revenue/profit doesn't  increase then the Bitcoin denominated share price should also not increase. Of course that share price will be worth a lot more in terms of USD.

Another thing to maybe think about is that part of SDice's popularity is the relative lack of alternatives for things to spend Bitcoins on. With a 3m userbase, Bitcoin will be far more attractive to other developers and entrepreneurs and I can imagine there will be many more alternative ways to spend your bitcoin thus more competition for SDice.

[adamstgBit]

is this the tranche for today?

No one touched it yet? cuz someone appears to be selling ahead of it?

[bitcoinBull]

Why does SatoshiDice need to raise capital? Are there any reports of players winning huge payouts that they aren't able to meet with current funds? If not, then there's no need for capital.

[thoughtfan]

Why does SatoshiDice need to raise capital? Are there any reports of players winning huge payouts that they aren't able to meet with current funds? If not, then there's no need for capital.

SD isn't raising capital.  It is not an issuance of new stock being sold by SD.  It is stock already existing that prior to this week was part of the 90% private holding now being been sold into the open market.  In other words it is the private holder of the shares being sold that is receiving the money raised, not the business.

[adamstgBit]

should i buy?

or should i play?