Bitcoin Prophet

[rockinride]

I came across this new site www.bitcoinprophet.com, I'm curious does anyone have any experience with this type of prediction site or know of any others?

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[1714046050]

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[1714046050]

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[1714046050]

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[dooglus]

I came across this new site www.bitcoinprophet.com, I'm curious does anyone have any experience with this type of prediction site or know of any others?

The payout system looks weird:

All winners are paid from the pool of losers submissions in a "zero sum game".

Opposing submissions are paired in chronological order.

In the event there is no opposing submission to your winning prediction, you will receive a refund [...]

This means every bet pays even money, or a refund.

Suppose the Bitcoin price is rallying, and shows no signs of slowing down.  It's considered about a 75% chance that it will continue to rally.  30 people bet 1 coin each on "up" and 10 people bet 1 coin each on "down".

If the price does indeed go up, as expected, only the first 10 people to bet "up" get paid.  The other 20 just get their money back.

If the price goes down, the 10 people who bet "down" double their money, and the house takes the other 20 coins?

Is that how it works?  That's what "Opposing submissions are paired in chronological order" suggests to me.  If so, it seems unfair.  The 10 people betting on "down" took a big risk but only double their money.  And the house took no risk and takes 50% of the wagered funds?

[rockinride]

Hmmm I don't see where it says the house keeps the losing bets, I think it charges a transaction fee, and pays out winners from a pool of losses from what I read, but good point in regard to a rally or sell off. I suppose in a rally or sell off an even payout might be an issue since its considered a long shot, but no bet is ever guaranteed to win, that's somewhat of a fallacy, because even in bullish climbs over a week or so you see dips for a day and so forth. I guess you could use a betting strategy to combat that also. Anyone know of any other prediction sites that are based more around a daily model? The only ones I have seen thus far seem to be based on these ridiculous random user created predictions that take months to resolve for very little payout etc.  It would be cool to find something that was consistent, potentially profitable and not based on random chance. With markets at least you can analyze the potential outcome.

[dooglus]

Hmmm I don't see where it says the house keeps the losing bets

It doesn't, but it says winners are paired with losers.  If there are more winners than losers then the newest winning bets are refunded.

But what if there are more losers than winners?  It doesn't say what happens to the excess money.  I was just guessing.  It would be better if they told us.

I don't know of any other site like that.  There's http://bitbet.us/ which is of the kind you describe, with long-term user-created bets.  There was another site that was similar, but I they recently refused to pay out the winners of a bet.

http://www.btcoracle.com/ is new, and allows you to bet whether the price of BTC will be up or down over the next 3 hours.

Alternatively, you could just use http://mpex.co/ to go long or short bitcoins.  Or http://bitfinex.com/, http://icbit.se/, https://coinbr.com/, etc.