Provably fair for investors?

[ethan_nx]

I keep thinking about "provably fair" method that protects the investors too. This all narrows to the fact that site owner should not be able to predict bet results. The only ways to achieve this would be:

- dependence on an external service that participates in generating results - but then you need to trust this service instead, plus the performance issues
- decentralized rolling - again, performance, reliability, plus someone would need to design the thing.

Right now dice sites are capable of running ~ 300 bets per second. It's hard to imagine a truly decentralized system that would achieve similar performance without significant delays.

I hope a system like this emerges at some point, it's just not there yet.

Cheers,
Ethan

[1714980142]

1714980142

[1714980142]

1714980142

[MillionsBTCdev]

hi

I know it is an old thread.

are there any new developments regarding this great idea?

thx

Basically: no.

Mainly because it doesn't really matter... When you're an investor you're at the mercy of the website, whatever you do.

If you don't trust the site, don't invest. Because they can just leave with your money whenever they want...

are you saying that I didnt understand the main posting by NLNico? or maybe you didnt understand

Nope you understood perfectly.
I'm saying that the whole idea is a bit useless, that's different.
And also saying that because it's a bit useless, the project will not really move.

If i understand correctly, this idea of this thread is to make it 'provably fair' for both players and investors. Investors don't have to worry about the site owner making fake accounts and winning.
On the other hand, you are also correct, If the owner of the site just decides to steal and run away with investors money, then there is nothing you can do about it. So in the end, investing would still mean you need to trust the owner of the site to not run with your money because no amount of provably fairness strategy can stop that.

[NLNico]

The other day we had a topic about "provably fair for investors" again: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1787647.0 I also posted about this 2014 idea. Overall I still don't think it's worth making because of performance loss and not really provably fair (just audit.) It indeed also doesn't remove the risk of site owner running with all money. But it's nice to think about such concepts sometimes

Yeh, my idea was only "fair by audit" and not "provably fair" (so it only works if investors trust that the auditor is not colluding with the site owner.) I actually made a diagram of that too some time ago:



The obvious disadvantage is performance. It is a bit like MP apps (they also make a "Make bet HTTP request" for each bet to MP) - they do work reasonable fast AFAIK, but it is still a disadvantage.



Most ETH dapps will probably still have low limits if truly provably fair for investors too. Some might use ETH blockhashes but that limits the bets to 0.05 BTC (due to block withholding.) Some use BTC bridge to use BTC blockhashes but that limits bets to 12.5 BTC (unless long calculation like PevPot) and I am not sure how those ETH sites handle BTC block orphans. Something like vDice is not really provably fair (even for players) as it uses third-parties for the RNG (random.org with some audit), probably "good enough" for 100 ETH bets, but for 100 BTC bets that seems too risky.

A P2P game like Contingency does solve the problem, but it is relevant to say that every bet is only connected to 1 investor/individual. So this still limits the max profit of each bet (way) more than "traditional crowd-funded sites" (since only 1 investor will need to cover the whole bet profit) and will result into some investors having a profit and some others a loss (more randomly than normal = more variance not very attractive for investors.)



Overall, definitely no real good way IMO

[MillionsBTCdev]

IMO, as long as there is a chance for the site owner to run away with the investors money, then this idea is useless. No matter how much provably fairness strategy there is on a site, you will still have to trust the owner not to run with your investment. It the same with players as well, a 'provably fair' site does not literally mean its a trust-worthy site.

Overall, its still a good idea and adds a layer of protection from hackers, and investors will have the peace of mind that the owners are not cheating them by making fake whales. Of course, that statement is only true if you are 100% sure that the audit server and the owner are not colluding to cheat you. Maybe someday there will something like a 'trust less' investment.

-uni

[TheBitcoinStrip.com]

Have you heard of Contingency? It does just that.

https://thebitcoinstrip.com/blog/the-next-chapter-of-crypto-gambling.html

[bajing]

hi

I know it is an old thread.

are there any new developments regarding this great idea?

thx

Basically: no.

Mainly because it doesn't really matter... When you're an investor you're at the mercy of the website, whatever you do.

If you don't trust the site, don't invest. Because they can just leave with your money whenever they want...

Totally agree if we are not trust with the site easy just never invest our money on them so i have think same like, this is useless idea.

[JackpotRacer]

please let me ask a question. an hypothetically one

lets say a new or untrusted casino like Jackpotracer will ask a trusted user like dooglus, RHavar, Nico etc to do the audit for his site to secure investors and players coins. yes I know it was already mentioned that we could could work together with Audit and run with the coins. but what if the trusted audit also gets the investors coins as escrow and audit same time? I am sure dooglus RHavar and Nico would never partner up with Jackpotracer to steal investors coins as imo they would never run with investors coins and have anyway their trust.

there will always be investors who will not trust anyone but there are many who will trust those users I mentioned

those 3 actually could open an Audit and escrow company for many old and new casinos and it should work imo

what is your opinion?

[NLNico]

Well that would be some kind of MoneyPot with a slightly different setup and focus. Personally not interested at all in running such service though :X

[TheBitcoinStrip.com]

please let me ask a question. an hypothetically one

lets say a new or untrusted casino like Jackpotracer will ask a trusted user like dooglus, RHavar, Nico etc to do the audit for his site to secure investors and players coins. yes I know it was already mentioned that we could could work together with Audit and run with the coins. but what if the trusted audit also gets the investors coins as escrow and audit same time? I am sure dooglus RHavar and Nico would never partner up with Jackpotracer to steal investors coins as imo they would never run with investors coins and have anyway their trust.

there will always be investors who will not trust anyone but there are many who will trust those users I mentioned

those 3 actually could open an Audit and escrow company for many old and new casinos and it should work imo

what is your opinion?

I think you're going in the wrong direction. That would be concentrating trust; the ideal solution wouldn't require any trust.

[JackpotRacer]

please let me ask a question. an hypothetically one

lets say a new or untrusted casino like Jackpotracer will ask a trusted user like dooglus, RHavar, Nico etc to do the audit for his site to secure investors and players coins. yes I know it was already mentioned that we could could work together with Audit and run with the coins. but what if the trusted audit also gets the investors coins as escrow and audit same time? I am sure dooglus RHavar and Nico would never partner up with Jackpotracer to steal investors coins as imo they would never run with investors coins and have anyway their trust.

there will always be investors who will not trust anyone but there are many who will trust those users I mentioned

those 3 actually could open an Audit and escrow company for many old and new casinos and it should work imo

what is your opinion?

I think you're going in the wrong direction. That would be concentrating trust; the ideal solution wouldn't require any trust.

I agree that the best solution is when no trust needed but maybe I missed this solution in case it exists already.maybe it is there but not workable for games that need many bets in a second. RHavar had the perfect solution but not for games with autobet or many bets a second

[Mike Mayor]

Isn't most of this public knowledge anyway ? The dice rolls and all its history should be on the site. The total waged btc and total profits and losses are shown on many casino sites. These can be wrong if the casino is dishonest but I think that it would be foolish to do that as it will be picked up too easily. How would someone hide the true profits of a casino anyway ? I dont understand why ypu would need a method to verify investments when there are methods to prove dice rolls therefore its just a matter of working out the profits and if the share is equal to the share the casino offers like 50% or whatever.

[Dabs]

The problem with a site not having a "provably fair for investors" system is the fake whale, or fake shrimp (salami slicing their own profits). There is currently no known or decent system for fast or speedy dice games that will work. The casino can have their own "in-house" players that look like normal players to everyone else, but have the advantage of knowing the secrets needed to win. There is no way to reliably detect that since they can always just play as close to the house edge as possible and have just a tiny little bit more profit than they should have, no one will notice.

[JackpotRacer]

The problem with a site not having a "provably fair for investors" system is the fake whale, or fake shrimp (salami slicing their own profits). There is currently no known or decent system for fast or speedy dice games that will work. The casino can have their own "in-house" players that look like normal players to everyone else, but have the advantage of knowing the secrets needed to win. There is no way to reliably detect that since they can always just play as close to the house edge as possible and have just a tiny little bit more profit than they should have, no one will notice.

sorry if my question sounds stupid but I will not be shy to ask cause I am very interested to see a solution for this problem

owner knows the secret and could cheat.......is there no way that no one will know the secret or will have access to the secret but only after the come out?

something like a multi password like multisig

[Dabs]

Yes, there is a way. For slow games, like lotteries or raffles. Not dice games where you need or want the result instantly.

If the game can wait about 10 minutes or even an hour after, you have one of several methods: just use external data (block hash after time is up, real life lotto results, news published the next day = no one knows those until after they come out); you still must trust the site owner to pay out your wins. If the game is a dice game where I roll, and I want to know if I won or not within 1 second after, there isn't a good solution for that. You simply trust the site owner.

[dooglus]

It seems that bustadice has a system that is provably fair for investors.

Just thought it was worth mentioning here.

[NLNico]

Yes, it's actually exactly the same, so it's nice to see it on a real site (and performance seems fine.)

Only difference I guess is that I said "weekly audit" but instead they "force seed-reset" from user on tipping/withdrawing/etc. but that's same idea (and probably more user-friendly.)

[ethereumhunter]

The problem with a site not having a "provably fair for investors" system is the fake whale, or fake shrimp (salami slicing their own profits). There is currently no known or decent system for fast or speedy dice games that will work. The casino can have their own "in-house" players that look like normal players to everyone else, but have the advantage of knowing the secrets needed to win. There is no way to reliably detect that since they can always just play as close to the house edge as possible and have just a tiny little bit more profit than they should have, no one will notice.

sorry if my question sounds stupid but I will not be shy to ask cause I am very interested to see a solution for this problem

owner knows the secret and could cheat.......is there no way that no one will know the secret or will have access to the secret but only after the come out?

something like a multi password like multisig

I guess there is one or more person that will found this way because if they know something that is not right, they will search with every ways they can. we know that everything in the internet is not 100% secure and there will be a gap for the security hole and this will be use by the person which want to find that "secret".

[Dabs]

Oh, seed server... well, only if the seed server and gambling site do not collude. But that's already stated in the system description, so the performance may be affected, but so far it seems fine. We'll have to see how well it does over time I guess. (Maybe it's been running for awhile now, I've been out of the gambling scene for a bit.)