The problem now days with lack of vigilance!

[Nelka4]

People need peace of mind when gambling. Ensure you gamble responsibly and where you know you are not being ripped off.

A great article about the above by RGBKey for the Crypto Gaming Foundation.

https://cryptogambling.org/the-problem-with-a-lack-of-vigilance/

Provable fairness allows users to play on sites without the fear of their bets being altered into the house’s favor. But there’s an important caveat that is often missed or not explained to the players: full trustlessness is only there if the player does what they need to do also. Nearly all provably fair systems operate on the server seed client seed model. The server shows you a hash of their seed before you start betting and allows you to change your client seed before the first bet of the round. This way, since you are introducing new data into the hash function, the outcome of the hash is no longer controlled by the site as they do not have control over the data you give them.

But here’s the problem: many sites will pre-fill that box for users when they change their seed. This in itself does not have to be a problem. In fact, it’s possible for this to be even more secure than the user entering their own data. If the site allows you to enter up to 32 random characters and they pre-fill the client seed box with 32 actually random characters (preferrably generated on the client side with JavaScript instead of by the server) then it’s more secure than just entering “1234” as your seed, just like a password. (However it’s only “more secure” if the site is malicious and trying to change outcomes, and such a site would probably not generate good seeds for you so the point is moot).

The problem with pre-filling the client seed comes from a situation where the site is malicious, which we should assume until proven otherwise. A malicious site can easily generate a server seed and client seed ahead of time that when used result in more losing bets than winning ones. It’s just a matter of generating random client seeds and checking the results until they get one that’s sufficiently “bad”. If this site were to present this bad seed to the user as a sort of default option, many people would click past it and not think about it. The site would still use all the same provably fair algorithms, but could still be cheating you. Such a thing would only be possible if the site thinks you are likely to keep betting high or keep betting low, because estimates for you winning rely on consistently betting one or the other. (If the site generated a seed pair that would make you lose 55% of the time if you bet high, but you chose to bet low instead, you would be winning 55% of the time instead of losing). However, if the site does not allow you to pick high or low (or the game is some game other than dice where the numbers affect the outcome in a different way) then this opens up a good attack vector for them.

The concern with this kind of attack on players is small, because it would be difficult for a site to pull off consistently, especially without eventually drawing attention, but no hole however small should be discounted, especially with technology like machine learning becoming more prominent. If you take anything from reading this, always change your client seed to something that you created, copy down the hash of your server seed before you start betting and you’ll be fine.

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[Aengus]

Looking forward to more people opening their eyes to issues like this. Let's see if we can get something rolling along these sort of lines.

Nice article RGBKey

[Mike Mayor]

I am very interested in this. Have there been any cases if sites doing things like this and taking advantage of players? This looks like quite a far way to go to be undermining and cheat but I guess they don't care. It's just sad that someone plans a system for someone else to lose and then likes about it. The system is against you but only to a certain degree that's where the house edge comes into play to let players know just how much of an advantage the house has over them. Anything else would be cheating.

[Nelka4]

Looking forward to more people opening their eyes to issues like this. Let's see if we can get something rolling along these sort of lines.

Nice article RGBKey

How's CGF coming along? Waiting for some updates & new articles!

[Trofo]

Thanks to OP for showing us the article. It is something I didn't think about previously. It just shows you once again how careful you have to be in this Crypto world. Not to mention computer savvy and poses devious way of thinking in order to anticipate all possible scams.

[eternalgloom]

People need peace of mind when gambling. Ensure you gamble responsibly and where you know you are not being ripped off.

A great article about the above by RGBKey for the Crypto Gaming Foundation.

https://cryptogambling.org/the-problem-with-a-lack-of-vigilance/

You've got an error in that link, the website returns a 404 error (page not found). Seems like you forgot to add /articles/ to your link

https://cryptogambling.org/articles/the-problem-with-a-lack-of-vigilance/

Interesting article, it's something that I don't really look for when I'm playing dice or other games on a crypto casino.

[emberbekas]

Thanks to OP for showing us the article. It is something I didn't think about previously. It just shows you once again how careful you have to be in this Crypto world. Not to mention computer savvy and poses devious way of thinking in order to anticipate all possible scams.

Me too, previously I changed my seed and used the seed pairs that the site gave to me. This article indeed gives a new point of view.

But, tbh provably fair system is just one factor that we can use to determine the honesty of a gambling site. There is one more important thing for me, that is the site owner credibility. When I found a site with, at least in my own opinion, trustworthy admin, provably fair won't bother me too much.

[Lumen111]

Trust is almost all that is left for us.
In the modern crypto-currency world there is one more factor that helps to make a decision about trust.
These are positive reviews: friends, acquaintances, members of the forum.
Pay attention to the cryptoproject created to form a community of reviews.

www.revain.org

[michkima]

The problem is not the the lack of vigilance but more of lack of information in terms of how should gambling sites be really functioning. Even if the gambler is vigilant but does not know what to look out for then there is no point. Another is that even if he does know what to look for but does not know how it should really work, then again it is pointless. There should be experts in the field of gambling and number generation that should check the code of each casino, one who can be trusted to review those casinos.

[Hell-raiser]

I am very interested in this. Have there been any cases if sites doing things like this and taking advantage of players? This looks like quite a far way to go to be undermining and cheat but I guess they don't care. It's just sad that someone plans a system for someone else to lose and then likes about it. The system is against you but only to a certain degree that's where the house edge comes into play to let players know just how much of an advantage the house has over them. Anything else would be cheating.

There certainly were a few online dice casinos that had been rigging the odds in their favor despite claiming to be "provably-fair" ones. Eventually, they got caught while doing this thing. There were a few accusations raised here and there against them, and I guess you can find the examples if you thoroughly search the forum. Personally, I don't remember their names, but I remember these accusations very well cause they made an interesting reading anyway.

Someone may come up with the names.

[DARKANGEL6415]

All i can say is wow, i often wondered if it was possible to change the so called seed that the fair game system uses. After reading that rather informative post i am left wondering about things i have came across over the last few years.

[iluvbitcoins]

A very interesting article.
I never thought of this, I'm definitely going to set my own seed from now on 

[sicparvismagna]

Verify and conduct a thorough investigation first before you make your claims and accusations on any gambling sites in which upon your first open you would have think it is a scam but in reality it is not. A very nice article mate this would be great for those who are new to gambling and are taking huge risk here.

[RGBKey]

Thanks for linking my article! When I'm not working on classwork these days, I'm usually working on projects or coming up with ideas for new ways to improve our provably fair systems, like https://github.com/RGBKey/yolodice-sentinel

[AlexVoron]

Nice article.
I never discussed this with my friends and family