ApopheniaBTC - Bet and solve the challenges to win BTC.

[Stunna]

Won the graveyard one! my first win so far =p

[Tritonio]

Interesting and original concept, finally something different from all other gambling sites.
i just have one question, what guarantees you're not passing the solution to someone you know, or yourself knowing the solution, put the correct answer and grab the current amount in the pot?

Thank you csw.

Nothing, really, and I don't see any way to make this "provably fair". I'll have to build up trust in the community over time. You can talk to other players, or check that winnings are being to actual people. For example Boelens above won a pot of 0.14BTC you can talk to him about how many times he played etc if that means something for you. (edit: I just saw that Boelens had already answered to you about this)

The initial idea was to allow players to upload their own challenges but trust issues would be even worse there. The I though about the players suggesting new challenges but again there are trust issues. In the end I decided that the best that can be done is to have only one entity that needs to be trusted (me). People already do that in many cases. TV trivia games for example. You can never know if the channel has agreed with your opponent to tell him the answers and then split the winnings. Yet people do spend time and in most cases money to go on such games.

If anyone has any idea how to make it easier to trust that I ain't cheating, tell me. I mean other than closing me into a room with no mean of communication. :-) Another idea would be to force people to come out and claim their prize so that other players know that they are real people but that would be very aggressive in my opinion and most people wouldn't accept that (I, for one, would not). But I really appreciate people voluntarily coming out and publicly saying they won. (Like Stunna did while I was typing this message  )

[nocube]

As long as Tritonio knows the solution, there's always the possibility of cheating. Using an escrow to pick the picture would only shift the problem. The picture could be picked, provably fair?, out of a pool by a progam, but then you have to prove, that noone has access to the solution but the program. Can you trust the programmer?

I trust Tritonio and will continue to play.

[Tritonio]

As long as Tritonio knows the solution, there's always the possibility of cheating. Using an escrow to pick the picture would only shift the problem. The picture could be picked, provably fair?, out of a pool by a progam, but then you have to prove, that noone has access to the solution but the program. Can you trust the programmer?

I trust Tritonio and will continue to play.

Exactly. As long as I have access to the server, which I don't think can ever be avoided, there will always be trust "issues". Actually even if we were picking pictures from a pool randomly and even if I didn't have access to the server, someone would have to fill the pool manually (photos are not automatically grabbed from the internet to avoid cheating by TinEye or Google image search) and that someone will have a huge advantage guessing the pictures. Escrows again won't help, you'll just have to trust them instead of me and it makes the whole system more complex to administer.

[Mabsark]

"What does the text say?"

It clearly says "apopheniabtc.com". 

[nocube]

"What does the text say?"

It clearly says "apopheniabtc.com". 

nope 

[Tritonio]

Sorry for this. The text on the bottom right corner is just the name of the site that I put on every picture so that when they are linked outside the site, people will know where they come from.

I sent you back your bet to the payback address you had entered, removed the bet from the system (since no one else had bet after that) and placed a check so that no one bets again on this answer in the future.

Nocube was it you that bet on it?

[nocube]

Yes. I knew that it was wrong But thanks for the payback.

[bit777]

Very interesting game. That guy in the picture looks like al pacino in godfather.

[Mooshire]

I was the one to guess that after you said it and got it wrong XD

[Tritonio]

Today is Hintless day, the most difficult of days! Starting pot is 0.015. :-)

[Stunna]

Website is indeed trusted thus far, I've won 2 prizes. One for the scale and other for the graveyard.

I do suggest implementing a different system that will ensure that you cannot bet or know what the answers are to the images if the website picks up some more steam.

I'd suggest starting some of them less scrambled nobody really has a shot of getting a correct guess when it is 100% distorted so it just wastes time, more people are willing to place bets when it is slightly more visible. Also I suggest having more images running at once.

Keep up the solid work!  

[nocube]

An archive would be also nice.

[Tritonio]

An archive is something that I already think about implementing. I'll give it a try right now.

Oh and here is a new pic:

Today is movie/painting/game day. :-)

Congrats Stunna for the scale. I didn't expect this picture to last that long to be honest. I don't think though that I will ever be able to technologically solve the problem of possible cheating. I mean even if there was a conceivable system that prohibits me from betting on my site you would have to trust that I am actually implementing it. But if you trust me with that, you could start me for not cheating in the first place. In theory I could give access to another person to verify that I have indeed implemented that system and allow him to do random checks on the server. But in that case you'll have to trust that the person doing the checks will not cheat himself since he will have to have root access on the server to verify that I haven't hidden any code that disables the system that prohibits me from betting. Let alone that I can't even think of a system to block me since I can always bet from an internet cafe for example.

Huge distortion isn't bad. It just wastes time before someone makes the first guess. Nevertheless try reducing the max distortion a bit, I will do it over the next days because I don't currently have a way to change the maximum distortion just for the newly uploaded pictures. (I just reduced it by 6.6%)

In the future, as more players join I'll place more pictures. Maybe as a first step I should aim to have only one "solved" picture on display, currently I've noticed on average 2 to 3 pictures. This will mean that'll I'll post more than one pic per day. I'll consider starting this tomorrow.

Thank you both for the suggestions. ;-)

[Boelens]

Wooh, got another one! Got the GTA IV one =).

[Tritonio]

Wooh, got another one! Got the GTA IV one =).

You're on fire lately. :-)

It's a pity that someone had already bet GTA and someone else bet Clucking Bell none of the two bet the full title of the game.

[nocube]

i've tried "gta". tough luck. congrats boelens. 

[Boelens]

i've tried "gta". tough luck. congrats boelens.  

Aw, that sucks! You should've gotten it correct, what is your BTC adress?

[nocube]

this game can be brutal
pm

[Boelens]

this game can be brutal
pm

There you go, I sent you the pot , enjoy it! =).