Just-Dice.com : Invest in 1% House Edge Dice Game

[Rampion]

What if Nakowa will robb all the profit from JD? Can we withdraw all of our money?

So far it doesn't look like nakowa is "robbing" anything, he is just gambling and winning big time, it doesn't look like he is cheating at all. I've seen much crazier variance playing poker, what nakowa is doing is unlikely but certainly possible.

Plus, all the profit is already gone, the site and its investors are actually losing money. Nothing too strange, nakowa has a huge bankroll compared to the average player, and with just a 1% house edge variance can really make the house to lose a lot of money to a nakowa-like whale.

Nevertheless, he just needs to keep playing.

[1714002011]

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[Dabs]

There are only 3 potential security vulnerabilities I can see.  They should be addressed as best as is practical to improve investor and player confidence in the site.

1. The OP is running a scam to fleece investors.  Since there is no way to blind the OP to the server seed, investors have no choice but to assume the OP is honest or to not invest.

2. The implentation of the RNG is flawed.  It would be useful to review the RNG implementation and see if there are any possible ways to further ensure the results are truly random with no predictable pattern.
Some ideas:
A. Perhaps re-randomizing the server seed every roll would help since nonce would always be 1. If this was too taxing on the server, then only re-randomize the server seed every roll for bets over a certain size (eg. 10 BTC).
B. Pull random numbers from a hardware RNG.  Could use a site such as random.org (my concern though would be trading the risk of the OP for risk of a new entity).  This random # would be used as the server seed (cannot be used as the seed # for hashing since would not be provably fair).

3. Security of the server.  This is the biggest concern since hosted on a cloud VPS.  A VPS employee could be compromising the server directly.  Solution would be to move to a dedicated server for increased secured which would seem prudent (even if this is not the issue with nakowa's improbable wins).  Millions of USD worth of bitcoins are at stake afterall.

1. OP / Operator / Owner = honest. No further questions, your honor.
2. RNG flawed? Not really, but I still say, as I have been saying since the site went up, the numbers are not random, and the numbers are predictable. The numbers are also uniformly distributed. I can't back it up. So no one is listening to me. But I bet, my next roll is going to win. Dung beetles, golden dragons, and lucky seeds.

A. You can't do that, or some people won't play under those rules. It will not be seen as provably fair.
B. Intel has a hardware RNG.

3. I can't really comment on this as I have no experience with the difference between clouds and dedicated servers. Either way, the servers can still be compromised.

What I can tell you all, if I had the same bankroll as Nakowa, I would probably be doing the same thing, however I will be playing on 87.7779% and not 50% or 49.5%.

[allover]

I'm quite tempted to just give up on this whole thing.  It looks like the site is simply at nakowa's mercy.  He's promised me in the past that he won't play any more, but never sticks to his word.  So what do I do?  Continue to let the investors take these horrific losses?

Several people who have run gambling sites chimed in on reddit, bitcointalk.org and IRC with a similar comment:  "1% is too low"

And on CYA front:  make sure the website text frequently notes the "high risk" nature of gambling and investing, because it is a startup business model and a startup website running on a startup currency

The insta-investing feature is nice in general, even if investors lost a shirt or two.  Innovative.

YES, it is wise to raise house edge to 1.98%. That's my advice, which will hardly be accepted.

[IdealDarkness]

"I'm quite tempted to just give up on this whole thing.  It looks like the site is simply at nakowa's mercy.  He's promised me in the past that he won't play any more, but never sticks to his word.  So what do I do?  Continue to let the investors take these horrific losses?"



Well, that's a two edged thing... When U+Investors are in profit, I'm sure U+Investors doesn't care all of the people who had losses. Now U+Investors are in loss, don't think nakowa won't play anymore. Let's be honest, If u find the winning strategy, or simply U have luck, won't U do the same?

[elm]

There are only 3 potential security vulnerabilities I can see.  They should be addressed as best as is practical to improve investor and player confidence in the site.

1. The OP is running a scam to fleece investors.  Since there is no way to blind the OP to the server seed, investors have no choice but to assume the OP is honest or to not invest.

2. The implentation of the RNG is flawed.  It would be useful to review the RNG implementation and see if there are any possible ways to further ensure the results are truly random with no predictable pattern.
Some ideas:
A. Perhaps re-randomizing the server seed every roll would help since nonce would always be 1. If this was too taxing on the server, then only re-randomize the server seed every roll for bets over a certain size (eg. 10 BTC).
B. Pull random numbers from a hardware RNG.  Could use a site such as random.org (my concern though would be trading the risk of the OP for risk of a new entity).  This random # would be used as the server seed (cannot be used as the seed # for hashing since would not be provably fair).

3. Security of the server.  This is the biggest concern since hosted on a cloud VPS.  A VPS employee could be compromising the server directly.  Solution would be to move to a dedicated server for increased secured which would seem prudent (even if this is not the issue with nakowa's improbable wins).  Millions of USD worth of bitcoins are at stake afterall.

1. OP / Operator / Owner = honest. No further questions, your honor.
2. RNG flawed? Not really, but I still say, as I have been saying since the site went up, the numbers are not random, and the numbers are predictable. The numbers are also uniformly distributed. I can't back it up. So no one is listening to me. But I bet, my next roll is going to win. Dung beetles, golden dragons, and lucky seeds.

A. You can't do that, or some people won't play under those rules. It will not be seen as provably fair.
B. Intel has a hardware RNG.

3. I can't really comment on this as I have no experience with the difference between clouds and dedicated servers. Either way, the servers can still be compromised.

What I can tell you all, if I had the same bankroll as Nakowa, I would probably be doing the same thing, however I will be playing on 87.7779% and not 50% or 49.5%.

1. How can one be sure? I think if it is 100% provably fair and the OP and player and whoever else has no chance to get hold of the final outcome in advance than the OP is honest.
does something like 100% provably fair exist? if yes, then my next question would be, is JD 100% provably fair?

2. if the numbers of the RNG are not random this would explain everything. but why would JD chose a RNG that is not random? a RNG that is not random is not a RNG imho
could You explain Your view in more depth. this would be very interesting to understand (at least for me)

thanks

[allover]

"I'm quite tempted to just give up on this whole thing.  It looks like the site is simply at nakowa's mercy.  He's promised me in the past that he won't play any more, but never sticks to his word.  So what do I do?  Continue to let the investors take these horrific losses?"

Well, that's a two edged thing... When U+Investors are in profit, I'm sure U+Investors doesn't care all of the people who had losses. Now U+Investors are in loss, don't think nakowa won't play anymore. Let's be honest, If u find the winning strategy, or simply U have luck, won't U do the same?

^^^

FACT: Investors on JD are always gambling although they might have an EV of -1%. However, because of variance, they might well lose from time to time, just as other gamblers do.

[drawingthesun]

Why not use your towtoad account?

[Lohoris]

I think this is irresponsible at this point, max bet should be lowered to protect investors in my opinion.

Problem is that the whole point of j-d is to gather funds from many investors, to raise a high max bet.
If he was to lower the max bet, likely he would have been able to do it with his own funds.
(as Deprived has explained many times, assuming I got it right)

[Jls.]

Problem is that the whole point of j-d is to gather funds from many investors, to raise a high max bet.
If he was to lower the max bet, likely he would have been able to do it with his own funds.
(as Deprived has explained many times, assuming I got it right)

While this assertion is true, I believe that JD's public funding model has at least 2 advantages regardless of maxbet :
- creating a little army of advertisers (investors)
- turning a portion of investors into gamblers

I doubt that JD would be where it stands nowadays without this unique feature.

[tucenaber]

Some thoughts on the whale's win today (conclusion: he had a 67% chance of pulling it off).

The whale can STOP betting when he chooses, so the probability of what happened today is not as low as it seems.  I haven't dug up the exact numbers, but let's assume:

1. He wanted to win 2500 BTC (after which point he would stop gambling)
2. He was willing to go down as much as 10,000 BTC before giving up
3. He was betting 200 BTC each time and always attempting to 2X his bet (this just simplifies the simulation).  

I ran the following Mathematica code:

In[6]=
bankroll := 10000;
target := 2500;
n := 10000;

bet := If[Random[] > .505, 1, -1]

outcomes = Table[profit = 0;
   While[profit < target && bankroll > -profit, profit += 200 * bet ];
   If[profit > 0, 1., 0], {n}];

100 * (Plus @@ outcomes)/ n

Out[6]= 67.23

So, 67% of the times that he applies this strategy he would earn his 2500BTC target before going bust.  

There is a closed form theoretical solution to this problem.
With the above strategy, the chance of reaching your target before going bust is

(1-r^a)/(1-r^(a+b)), where r=p/(1-p)

p = chance of losing the bet, (=0.505)
a = bankroll / betsize
b = target / betsize

As in the example earlier: bankroll =10000, target=25002600, bet=200 gives a probability of 6968%

[Jonny Heggheim]

I'm quite tempted to just give up on this whole thing.  It looks like the site is simply at nakowa's mercy.

Think of all the "free" PR, wagering is probably increasing..

[Jonny Heggheim]

Think of all the "free" PR, wagering is probably increasing..

One example http://www.news.com.au/technology/the-biggest-bitcoin-win-in-gambling-history/story-e6frfro0-1226725824027

[Bugpowder]

Think of all the "free" PR, wagering is probably increasing..

One example http://www.news.com.au/technology/the-biggest-bitcoin-win-in-gambling-history/story-e6frfro0-1226725824027

The site is 'probably fair'.    LOL!

[zebedee]

So what do I do?  Continue to let the investors take these horrific losses?

yes, nobody is forced to invest or stay invested.

Agree with jabetizo.  But I've also not seen you, dooglus, take the possibility seriously that he has exploited your site.

As you aren't invested you don't have skin in that game (only skin in the 10% free option).  As a potential investor / sender of money to your site, I find that confidence worrying.

[Dabs]

I typed a long reply, then the forum crapped on me some error so I lost it. I will try to recreate my answer.

1. How can one be sure? I think if it is 100% provably fair and the OP and player and whoever else has no chance to get hold of the final outcome in advance than the OP is honest.
does something like 100% provably fair exist? if yes, then my next question would be, is JD 100% provably fair?

2. if the numbers of the RNG are not random this would explain everything. but why would JD chose a RNG that is not random? a RNG that is not random is not a RNG imho
could You explain Your view in more depth. this would be very interesting to understand (at least for me)

thanks

1. The site is provably fair for players. No site or dice game is provably fair for investors other than the owner. Slow games, like my lotto, are perfectly provably fair, but you have to wait 1 week for the results. No one is going to play dice with a 1 week delay.

2. The RNG is not even a RNG. It uses a deterministic but secure hash function in a message authentication code format. The results look random. They are not. They are uniformly distributed.

JD's rolls have 3 components: a server seed, a client seed, and an incrementing nonce. The server seed does not change until you Randomize. The client seed does not change. The nonce goes up by one for every roll.

I believed, and I still do, that you can predict a pattern.

For a short time, I ran a pseudo gambling investment (DIGS) where I collected other people's money and gambled them in a carefully planned martingale strategy. Mostly for fun. Until I made a mistake, which was something I actually predicted.

I lost 6 consecutive times. The bet now is, I'm going to win the next roll, or the 7th bet. Everyone calls this the Gambler's Fallacy. Doesn't matter. Nakowa is afflicted with the same disease.

For lack of a true scientific explanation, I resorted to just saying I had magic seeds. However, my understanding of statistics and probabilities, or the lack thereof, convinced me that I can exploit this predictable or deterministic pattern.

But. No one believes me, and I can't explain myself.

If I lose, they told me so. If I win, I just got lucky. Even though I said I knew it, I couldn't possible have predicted it.

So, no one is sending me coins, I'll just have to wait patiently until I have enough to go gamble it again. Wanna bet? Send me coins and I will gamble it for you using my so called magic seeds, and I'll send you back the profit, if you'll let me keep the change.

I told everyone, send me 100, I will send back 110, after making 112, and I'll keep the 2, if I win. If I lose, it was a gamble huh.... ... Hehehehe. Stupid magic seeds, stupid dragon babies, stupid dung beetle...

Anyway, you asked for my point of view.

[organofcorti]

<snip>

2. The RNG is not even a RNG. It uses a deterministic but secure hash function in a message authentication code format. The results look random. They are not. They are uniformly distributed.

<snip>

A uniformly distributed random number is still a random number, Dabs. You're saying here that the results aren't random because they're random?

[Rampion]

I typed a long reply, then the forum crapped on me some error so I lost it. I will try to recreate my answer.

1. How can one be sure? I think if it is 100% provably fair and the OP and player and whoever else has no chance to get hold of the final outcome in advance than the OP is honest.
does something like 100% provably fair exist? if yes, then my next question would be, is JD 100% provably fair?

2. if the numbers of the RNG are not random this would explain everything. but why would JD chose a RNG that is not random? a RNG that is not random is not a RNG imho
could You explain Your view in more depth. this would be very interesting to understand (at least for me)

thanks

1. The site is provably fair for players. No site or dice game is provably fair for investors other than the owner. Slow games, like my lotto, are perfectly provably fair, but you have to wait 1 week for the results. No one is going to play dice with a 1 week delay.

2. The RNG is not even a RNG. It uses a deterministic but secure hash function in a message authentication code format. The results look random. They are not. They are uniformly distributed.

JD's rolls have 3 components: a server seed, a client seed, and an incrementing nonce. The server seed does not change until you Randomize. The client seed does not change. The nonce goes up by one for every roll.

I believed, and I still do, that you can predict a pattern.

For a short time, I ran a pseudo gambling investment (DIGS) where I collected other people's money and gambled them in a carefully planned martingale strategy. Mostly for fun. Until I made a mistake, which was something I actually predicted.

I lost 6 consecutive times. The bet now is, I'm going to win the next roll, or the 7th bet. Everyone calls this the Gambler's Fallacy. Doesn't matter. Nakowa is afflicted with the same disease.

For lack of a true scientific explanation, I resorted to just saying I had magic seeds. However, my understanding of statistics and probabilities, or the lack thereof, convinced me that I can exploit this predictable or deterministic pattern.

But. No one believes me, and I can't explain myself.

If I lose, they told me so. If I win, I just got lucky. Even though I said I knew it, I couldn't possible have predicted it.

So, no one is sending me coins, I'll just have to wait patiently until I have enough to go gamble it again. Wanna bet? Send me coins and I will gamble it for you using my so called magic seeds, and I'll send you back the profit, if you'll let me keep the change.

I told everyone, send me 100, I will send back 110, after making 112, and I'll keep the 2, if I win. If I lose, it was a gamble huh.... ... Hehehehe. Stupid magic seeds, stupid dragon babies, stupid dung beetle...

Anyway, you asked for my point of view.

The fact is that both you and nakowa speak about "spotting a pattern" (gambler's phallacy in its purest form), but neither of you cannot clearly explain a) how do you find the pattern and b) why this pattern (and thus flaw) exists.

[xypos]

I invested in the wrong time it seems 
I lost a lot already

[qxzn]

As for the calls to "change something", if he's cheating then limiting the maximum bet won't stop him winning, and if he isn't cheating and is just lucky then limiting the maximum bet will only slow his inevitable losses.  I don't see how it helps in either case.

One thing that I can change that will protect investors is whether the site is up or not.  If I take it down they won't lose any more.  But I suspect that most investors wouldn't like that decision.  They want the site to stay up so they can win their coins back again.  The ones who want this to end have the option already of divesting.

I'm quite tempted to just give up on this whole thing.  It looks like the site is simply at nakowa's mercy.  He's promised me in the past that he won't play any more, but never sticks to his word.  So what do I do?  Continue to let the investors take these horrific losses?

Dooglus, if you can find ways to demonstrate / reassure yourself and investors that the RNG is good and the site has not been compromised, I think that's all you can do.

This event sucks in the short term, but in the long term, assuming the site/RNG are secure, all this publicity could work out in favor of the house.

[molecular]

Think of all the "free" PR, wagering is probably increasing..

One example http://www.news.com.au/technology/the-biggest-bitcoin-win-in-gambling-history/story-e6frfro0-1226725824027

The site is 'probably fair'.    LOL!

loool. way to miss the point, mr. journalist. hilarious.