gambling for a good cause

[WEB slicer]

a few months ago i was playing with the idea of giving away stuff for free and relying on advertising revenue to cover the cost of the merchandise. after realizing how devastating adblock would be to this business model i had to give up on this idea. i still wanted to do something fun but didn't have any other ideas. the other day i was thinking about what i want to do with myself. do i want to make more money? do i want to find something new that i'm passionate about? do i want to make a difference? i've spent alot of time chasing money and to be honest it's no fun. i thought about how it would be nice to come up with something that combines all of the above. i had an idea and wanted to share it with the people in the gambling forum to see where it goes. basically, the idea is a combination of a raffle and donating to charity. i would start off raffling little things like this.......


http://gaming.logitech.com/en-us/product/g900-chaos-spectrum-mouse

and this......

http://gaming.logitech.com/en-us/product/g933-7-1-surround-sound-gaming-headset

eventually, the goal is to start giving away stuff like this......

http://www.samsung.com/us/explore/galaxy-s7-features-and-specs/

and this........

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/explore/ps4/


the way this would play out depends on the scale of the player base. since this will only be a small time bitcointalk game as of right now i'm thinking about structuring the game something like this. $2 to participate. the number of allowed participants will be capped at the value of the prize to keep the odds of winning reasonable. example, that G900 mouse is worth $150 so 150 people will be allowed to play that round. at $2 an entry the amount collected would be $300. the house gets 5% = $15. $150 covers the cost of the item. the rest goes to charity = $135. the way i'm looking at it is like this. everybody can afford $2. the odds of winning are very reasonable when compared to other forms of gambling. and you aren't just throwing your money away cause a good chunk of money goes to a good cause like this.......

http://www.wfp.org/

this.......

http://www.worldwildlife.org/

and this.......

http://wish.org/#sm.00000vvefymhdf3av791hjm8m0e8g


we would all be doing a good deed, gaining a little bit of good karma, making at least a little bit of difference in the world, having a bit of fun, and have a reasonable chance to win something nice. personally, i think it's a cool idea. just not sure how people will respond to it. obviously there is other details to work out, but you get the idea. just thinking about it to myself isn't gonna make anything happen so i figured i would throw the idea out there and see what kind of response i get. let me know what you guys think.

[neochiny]

IMHO, it would be worth a try. I like the idea of the odds of winning being reasonable, as in 1/150, especially with it being at only 2$ a pop. How would you go about delivering the stuff though? If the prizes are actual gadgets and so, wouldn't you find it difficult sending it to the winners, especially since the players are worldwide? A large % of the money for charity would be taken up by the delivery, and if you do figure that out, would you be willing to handle the other matters like setting up the site, advertising, the trust issues, etc? It would be a rather big undertaking in your part, but it's a pretty good idea though. Goodluck.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Go for it.  It's good you're questioning your goals in the bitcoin world, and I would suggest that many of us lose sight of a world beyond money.  It's good to do some good, even if it doesn't earn you anything.   That's true IRL as well of course. 

I'd be careful of the gambling aspect of this, as many of the gamblers here seem so problematic that it could end up being a hassle for you.   But good luck, sir.

[NorrisK]

The idea is quite good. There are many type of lottery based games around here that work in the same way e.g. half of the ticket price goes to a sportsclub, the other half is used to buy prizes that are put up for the lottery.

I think there are a few things that you need to think about:

1. Is the prize interesting enough to want to put up half of the ticket price for charity?
2. How will you prove that the money you gathered for charity is actually giving to a charity?
3. How will you choose charities? I guess by announcing the one beforehand is good enough, but people may be interested more if it suits their type of charities.

Good luck!

[WEB slicer]

How would you go about delivering the stuff though?

i was looking at amazon giveaway. once i pay for the item i provide a link and they handle the shipping. another upside to this is they have another program called amazon smile and they will also donate 0.5% of every purchase. the down side of this is i would sacrifice alot of flexibility limiting myself to the amazon market place. i would like to be able to buy from newegg or ebay. mainly ebay cause i can almost always find goods for less which would mean fewer participants per item, a quicker turn around before the next giveaway, and better odds of winning for you guys.

wouldn't you find it difficult sending it to the winners, especially since the players are worldwide? A large % of the money for charity would be taken up by the delivery.

international winners would only make things more difficult if i use amazon giveaway cause they only ship to the US. if i don't use that service i would have the item in hand and can ship outside the US myself. obviously it would cost a bit more to ship but using the mouse as example there would still be around $100 left over that goes to charity.

would you be willing to handle the other matters like setting up the site, advertising, the trust issues, etc?

ya, throwing together a website is both easy and cheap. that's no problem. trust issues will be a bit more challenging, but since i am starting here i can just tell you guys to look at my rep. i've done over 30K in exchanges without escrow. that should be sufficient to trust me with your $2.

1. Is the prize interesting enough to want to put up half of the ticket price for charity?
2. How will you prove that the money you gathered for charity is actually giving to a charity?
3. How will you choose charities? I guess by announcing the one beforehand is good enough, but people may be interested more if it suits their type of charities.

i have good taste and i know whats hot so i'm sure my prizes will interest alot of people. giving away goods will be a big part of it but i would also like to provide experiences such as tickets for events cruises or vacations.

i have donated to the above mentioned charities before. every time you donate you get a thank you email. i can screenshot the confirmation email or do whatever it takes to confirm the money was donated.

at first i will decide where the money goes just to keep things as simple as possible. once i have a few rounds under my belt and enough interest from others i would like to get people involved in the process and possibly throw up a poll and put it to vote.

[Doamader]

I hope this project gets live and gamblers support it, the odds are bigger then others casinos and in the end they can be helping childs around the world, sounds and its already a great project. About your integrity you have a reputable history soo 2 dollars wont make you any difference for real, with that said i just hope people are able to help others while they have fun and pleasure gambling.

[Erza]

Actually this is a good idea moreover you have a great prize with it and what I want to ask is what game do we actually play? And if it is lottery how are you going to choose who is the winner by then? How are you going to do if the participant is not full enough? Do we fet the refund or the game still on?

[WEB slicer]

Actually this is a good idea moreover you have a great prize with it and what I want to ask is what game do we actually play? And if it is lottery how are you going to choose who is the winner by then? How are you going to do if the participant is not full enough? Do we fet the refund or the game still on?

amazon giveaway has built in methods for choosing the winner. you can read how it works here......

https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=14066976011

i will probably play around with it to see how it works. but again, better deals on ebay, and amazon charges sales tax, so using amazon giveaway will probably only be a once in a while thing. i would like to change things up and experiment with different ways to pick the winner to keep things fresh. raffle copter is another method i will probably play with.

https://www.rafflecopter.com/

random.org looks like it can be fun too. they have several little games that can be played.

https://www.random.org/

if i don't get enough participants i will return the money if that is what the players want to do. instead of making all the rules myself i kinda want to present options and let you guys contribute on how these games play out. refund is obviously the easiest way, but it's not exactly any fun. i'm sure we could come up with other options such as bumping up the entry amount by a dollar for those who wish to stay in or changing the physical prize to something that can easily fill the amount of money collected, such as a gift card. before i collect any money i want to be sure i have enough interest. at some point i will probably throw up a poll and let you guys vote if you would participate or not. if i only get like 30 people who want to play there will be no point in collecting any money.

[justdimin]

Well the idea is there, the best road right now you can take is find a trustworthy person on bitcointalk, get some coins collected , build the website paying the developer with the coins you collected (or shorter version find a voluntary developer) and automate the charity.
That way you diminish the need for trust to a member and the money is going to charity.

I think the idea is very solid, I think every bad has some good in it and this will be the deal , if you lose coins , some rich casino owner is not getting richer , hell I think some people might be even happy to lose.

[WEB slicer]

i think creating a website is kinda premature at this point. as of right now, my focus is on this forum. if i can get the ball rolling here, at that point i will expand.

[NorrisK]

Regarding a too low number of participants: Maybe you can just raffle a cash prize in that case, it may be less fun, but atleast the game is still on and the charity is still supported.

I think you have a pretty good idea at how you want to run this and how you will tackle the challenges we presented so far.

I think it is probably the best to just start a thread and run the first round now. You could set the minimum number of participants pretty low or set multiple levels, say. at 10 participants prize is ... at 50 participants prize is ... at 100 participants prize is ... etc. Any left overs can be added as a cash prize.

[WEB slicer]

i was thinking the exact same thing last night. i thought i should just go grab a gift card from CVS and throw it up here and see how many people bite. after thinking about that i started thinking about how much easier it would be to do gift cards. no shipping, instant delivery, the saved shipping charges would mean a bigger donation for the charity, and it provides a greater range of flexibility and appeal cause people can get whatever they want with it instead of something i decide to raffle. the only down side i thought of is raffling gift cards is no where near as exciting as wondering what item i'm going to raffle next or receiving a package in the mail with a brand new PS4 neo or GTX 1080.

[olubams]

For me personally I dont think there is any bad cause as the definition of both good and bad rest with our individual perception of morality or attitude to morality and that influence our decision to whether good or bad cause. The most important thing is the individual ability to convince our inner mind that what I am doing is the right thing and nothing more. So its a good thing youre putting up so its going to be beneficial to more than one person for this I say kudos to you...

i was thinking the exact same thing last night. i thought i should just go grab a gift card from CVS and throw it up here and see how many people bite. after thinking about that i started thinking about how much easier it would be to do gift cards. no shipping, instant delivery, the saved shipping charges would mean a bigger donation for the charity, and it provides a greater range of flexibility and appeal cause people can get whatever they want with it instead of something i decide to raffle. the only down side i thought of is raffling gift cards is no where near as exciting as wondering what item i'm going to raffle next or receiving a package in the mail with a brand new PS4 neo or GTX 1080.

[WEB slicer]

so i went and got a $30 amazon gift card. was ready to do this and realized how to pick the winner might be tricky. there are lots of free services like this......

http://www.miniwebtool.com/random-name-picker/

i was gonna use it and post a screen shot but then i started thinking if people will think i'm cheating. so i started looking at a third party service that will pick the winner. so far what i'm seeing is most of these services charge a hefty amount for their service. i only saw one that provides a free service but the way it's structured is people have to do something such as follow like or share on social media to enter which is not something i want to do right now. i'm still looking around for the best way to do this but just wanted to let you guys know i got the gift card and one way or another we are gonna do this.

[ralle14]

I see most raffle do this in picking their winners so I suggest you could pick the winner based from a hash of a bitcoin block that sounds fair to everyone.

[Mauser]

I see most raffle do this in picking their winners so I suggest you could pick the winner based from a hash of a bitcoin block that sounds fair to everyone.

The problem with raffles is legitimacy. In cs go there were a lot of these raffle pages offering rigged games all day. It looked fair from the beginning but in the end they just picked friends as winners.

You need full transparency in my opinion for this to work.

[WEB slicer]

amazon giveaway is looking really sweet right now. they pick the winner and do the shipping. they don't allow giveaways for gift cards though.

the blockchain raffle should work. i know the concept, we use the blockchain to determine the winner. but not exactly sure how we do this.