bustadice – Next Generation Dice

[RHavar]

Can anyone explain to me how the leverage works? Where does the extra coin come from, is it borrowed from somewhere? If it is borrowed do you have to pay interest on the loan?

There's a lot of ways of thinking of it, some people like the borrowed analogy -- but I don't. I prefer a slightly more mathematical approach:

Normally you risk a max of 0.75% of what you physically deposit into the bankroll (the "onsite"). So if you deposit 1 bitcoin in the "onsite" the max-profit increases by 0.0075, and you get a portion of the profits and loses based on that.  But you can tell the site "I have a bunch more money offsite, and I want to risk based on that". So say you have 10 BTC in your cold storage, but don't feel like depositing it due to counter-party risk -- you simply enter it as an "offsite".

Now you are risking a max of 0.75% * (onsite + offsite). If that number ever exceeds your "onsite" it means you could potentially become negative balance onsite if someone won max profit -- so the site will "margin call" you. Which simply means setting your offsite to 0, and giving you dilution fee credits to reestablish your position

[TheQuin]

Now you are risking a max of 0.75% * (onsite + offsite). If that number ever exceeds your "onsite" it means you could potentially become negative balance onsite if someone won max profit -- so the site will "margin call" you. Which simply means setting your offsite to 0, and giving you dilution fee credits to reestablish your position

Thank you very much for your explanation. I'm a futures trader so I'm very familiar with the concept of margin calls, although brokers have automated risk management systems in place to prevent that ever becoming a reality I will experience.
So that just leaves the question of how you would enforce that margin call. Is the offsite held in an escrow or something?

[RHavar]

So that just leaves the question of how you would enforce that margin call. Is the offsite held in an escrow or something?

No, you just keep it in your own wallet (or cold storage, or what ever you want). Your "onsite" is the amount kept as as "collateral". And the second that it's possible for a max-profit win that would cause your onsite to be negative (and thus you have a debt to the site)  the site will instead margin call you  (simply set your "offsite" to 0, and give you some free credits to reestablish your position)

[TheQuin]

No, you just keep it in your own wallet (or cold storage, or what ever you want). Your "onsite" is the amount kept as as "collateral". And the second that it's possible for a max-profit win that would cause your onsite to be negative (and thus you have a debt to the site)  the site will instead margin call you  (simply set your "offsite" to 0, and give you some free credits to reestablish your position)

Ahhh, that's how you're doing the risk management. It makes sense now, thanks for taking time to explain. I've been puzzled how it works for a few days.

[devans]

bustadice will briefly be offline for server maintenance. The whole process shouldn't take longer than 30 minutes and I'll update this post when we're back online.

bustadice is back online.

[bad_ip]

Wow, must have had some big players in the past 24 hours, back to ~100% RTP from 112% and a 5BTC profit.

[devans]

Wow, must have had some big players in the past 24 hours, back to ~100% RTP from 112% and a 5BTC profit.

We did indeed! Overall, players have been lucky and are still slightly up even now.

[Josepht]

I have addressed this in the bustadice chat earlier, but it bugged me yesterday, so I decided to make a post about it here.

Yesterday I had something like 0.08 BTC in my account. It showed up as 0.08 BTC at the top of the page, which is fine, if it wouldn't be the case that the gambling is done in bits. It would be so much better if both amounts are in either BTC or bits, and not balance in BTC and gambling in bits.

Now I have to calculate every time I make a bet how much I'm wagering, which shouldn't be necessary. I would like to see this solved.

[devans]

I have addressed this in the bustadice chat earlier, but it bugged me yesterday, so I decided to make a post about it here.

Yesterday I had something like 0.08 BTC in my account. It showed up as 0.08 BTC at the top of the page, which is fine, if it wouldn't be the case that the gambling is done in bits. It would be so much better if both amounts are in either BTC or bits, and not balance in BTC and gambling in bits.

Now I have to calculate every time I make a bet how much I'm wagering, which shouldn't be necessary. I would like to see this solved.

You're right, I can see that being annoying. In the future you'll be able to choose the unit you prefer, but for now I've changed the balance display to always use bits, just like the game controls.

[devans]

Congratulations to ripfortheboyz for recovering so nicely after losing nearly Ƀ 13!

[VieleSind]

The faucet is 1 bit, not 10

[devans]

The faucet is 1 bit, not 10

As you've noticed, the faucet amount starts at 10 bits and decreases the more you've claimed from it in recent history.

Its primary purpose is to let you try out the game so you can see if you enjoy it without having to make any commitments. Of course, you are also very welcome to play for free indefinitely if you like.

[TheQuin]

Congratulations to ripfortheboyz for recovering so nicely after losing nearly Ƀ 13!

That was a big hole to climb out of!

I wasn't aware that these charts were available until I saw this. It took me quite a while to work out how to find my own one. Could I suggest adding a link to the main menu?

[RGBKey]

RHavar, question on your provably fair system, it's technically possible for the seed server to collaborate with the game server and pretend to be a player and act against the investors, right? I've spent a lot of time thinking up possible provably fair systems and something very similar to what you have here came into my head but I was trying to create a system that was totally independent of all doubt.

EDIT: I'd be down for helping you guys with a provable fairness verifier in my style (Ex 1, Ex 2).

[JackpotRacer]

RHavar, question on your provably fair system, it's technically possible for the seed server to collaborate with the game server and pretend to be a player and act against the investors, right? I've spent a lot of time thinking up possible provably fair systems and something very similar to what you have here came into my head but I was trying to create a system that was totally independent of all doubt.

Provably Fair...............totally independent of all doubt.

that is exactly what is needed in BTC and Fiat casino industry

[devans]

I wasn't aware that these charts were available until I saw this. It took me quite a while to work out how to find my own one. Could I suggest adding a link to the main menu?

Absolutely. I've added a link to your profile in the navigation menu, so it'll be there the next time I deploy an update.

[RHavar]

RHavar, question on your provably fair system, it's technically possible for the seed server to collaborate with the game server and pretend to be a player and act against the investors, right?

Yeah, it's an unfortunate limitation that I've documented:

Guarantees that can not be offered:

Investors need to trust that the game server and seed server are not conspiring. Should they conspire, they could undetectibly drain the bankroll (same as any other casino, except this requires two different parties).

But fortunately the guarantees are better for players, which it is totally provably fair even should the game server and seed server conspire.

I've spent a lot of time thinking up possible provably fair systems and something very similar to what you have here came into my head but I was trying to create a system that was totally independent of all doubt.

We've spent a lot of time on this too. So far we've come up with two other ways. One is completely provably fair for both investors and gamblers, but relies on blockhashes which makes it not real time

And we also have another really cool idea of doing *totally trustless* dice for users (basically through a payment channel), but offers no additional guarantees to investors (But fantastic guarantees to players themselves). Instead of being able to detect when they're cheated (provably fair) it makes it impossible for them to be cheated in the first place.

EDIT: I'd be down for helping you guys with a provable fairness verifier in my style (Ex 1, Ex 2).

Awesome, thanks very much!

[RGBKey]

Glad to know you've been hitting the same roadblocks as I have. I'd love to figure out how to create a system that's provably fair, for players and investors, real time, and trustless. Not sure if it's possible though...

[devans]

EDIT: I'd be down for helping you guys with a provable fairness verifier in my style (Ex 1, Ex 2).

Cool! There's some code at https://github.com/bustadice/verifier that you might be able to use, if you like.

[RHavar]

Glad to know you've been hitting the same roadblocks as I have. I'd love to figure out how to create a system that's provably fair, for players and investors, real time, and trustless. Not sure if it's possible though...

My intuition is that it's possible, just not really practical. I think the way could be to have clients bet with the game server via a trustless payment channel (this whole thing is a big giant ball of complexity, and greatly limited by bitcoins script system, but 50% bets are pretty conceptually easy to support). Then the game server also has 1 payment channels open with each investor. So effectively each investor is running their own seed server, and gets each bet.

The main issue is that there is a crazy amount of edge cases, some of them that really affect the user experience (e.g. if 1 of N investors don't reveal their seed, the bet will have to stall until some timeout period which is probably measured in hours or days).

But frankly, I'm not really sure it's worthwhile focusing too much on investors. I think the bustadice scheme is probably "good enough", and doesn't open a giant pandora's box of complexity.

What I think is an area that could benefit a lot more, is improving player guarantees. Provably fair is obviously good, but I don't think it's nearly good enough. =] If you weren't cheated, it's easy to check. But it still requires checking. And let's say you *were* cheated, you have absolutely no proof (non-repudiation). And furthermore there's no protections against an operator simply stealing your money.

When I get some more free time (i.e. after bustabit v2) I'd like to experiment with the idea of generating all user deposit address in a bidirectional payment channel. And you only release your funds 1 bet at a time (i.e. it would be impossible for the site to exit scam).