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

[Rampion]

dooglus, if you think you would like single one player to stop playing in the casino, you should change the rules that allows him (or others playing just like him) to bother you.

You're right.  I need to work out how to change the rules.

I'd like to increase the house edge for large bets.  But how exactly?  The people betting 500 BTC at 98% are getting a pretty bad deal already, and don't need the house edge increased.  So it shouldn't be based solely on stake.

Perhaps on potential profit?  But then I'm stuck.  Profit depends on payout, which depends on house edge, which now depends on profit.  That's a confusing circular dependency.  How do I communicate that to the player via the interface in a clear way?

If they're martingale betting, 49.5% for 2x, bet 32 BTC and lose, then hit 'x2', the potential profit of the next bet is 64 BTC, so the edge needs to go up.  Do I just quietly adjust the 2x to 1.9x or whatever?  Then if they win, their win doesn't cover the previous losses.  Or do I adjust the chance of winning?  Or prompt for which to change?  Or have two separate tables, one with a 50 BTC max profit and 1% house edge, and another with the full 1% max profit but higher house edge?  Or should the house edge increase linearly with potential profit?

I'd like to get it right, so as not to overwhelm the players with too many changes.  I would appreciate any feedback.

Seems the only reasonable way is to either a) have a higher house edge for ALL players; b) adjusting max bet; c) leaving it as it is, and let the big numbers law to its thing.

I for one am willing to lose 100% of my investment to Nakowa's strategy (if he's not cheating). Right now he lost 156BTC betting low (10BTC-20BTC-40BTC-80BTC). He just transfered an additional 820BTC to the site. Let's see how this plays out.

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[dooglus]

One question: you have done thorough analysis of dice sites like SatoshiDice, you know math, does this looks like cheating to you? I didn't do such a thorough analysis, but what Nakowa is doing doesn't look like cheating to me, just variance.

At times I was sure SatoshiDice was being cheated.  It turns out I just don't know how to tell.  I've accused nakowa of cheating before and offended him by doing so.  Not directly, but something along the lines of "The strategies you've outlined to me don't work, yet you continue to win every day.  You must be cheating, right?"

I currently believe his success is the result of having a big enough bankroll to be able to keep playing until his random walk gets him where he wants to be, coupled with quite unusual luck.

As an aside, what do we think about chat censorship?  In particular the incessant begging:

03:21:38 *** percent (153338) [#138925114] bet 10 BTC at 49.5% and won 10 BTC ***
03:21:50 *** percent (153338) [#138925167] bet 20 BTC at 49.5% and lost ***
03:21:51 *** percent (153338) [#138925182] bet 40 BTC at 49.5% and won 40 BTC ***
03:22:02 *** percent (153338) [#138925296] bet 20 BTC at 49.5% and lost ***
03:22:03 *** percent (153338) [#138925319] bet 40 BTC at 49.5% and lost ***
03:22:11 (90159) <pamela anderson> NAKOWA DON'T BE A PUSSY: GO BIG!!!
03:22:11 (149943) <christina> percent stopp
03:22:19 *** percent (153338) [#138925412] bet 30 BTC at 49.5% and lost ***
03:22:19 (124162) <JohnHarmer> shit have to leave, l love his show!
03:22:21 *** percent (153338) [#138925431] bet 60 BTC at 49.5% and lost ***
03:22:22 *** percent (153338) [#138925451] bet 60 BTC at 49.5% and lost ***
03:22:30 (146888) <LuckyPot> A little donate will bring you luck trust me ! [1Bb9Lx6j]

That last line "donate for luck" is increasingly common.  People selling 'karma' or just asking for 'rain'.

I've tried to allow everything in the chat except for blatant spamming or advertising of competitors.

Should I be stricter and disallow begging for donations?  Racism?  Drug talk?  Where do you draw the line?  I don't know!

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

20:29:20 (153338) <percent> -976. OK I surrender.

[Rampion]

One question: you have done thorough analysis of dice sites like SatoshiDice, you know math, does this looks like cheating to you? I didn't do such a thorough analysis, but what Nakowa is doing doesn't look like cheating to me, just variance.

At times I was sure SatoshiDice was being cheated.  It turns out I just don't know how to tell.  I've accused nakowa of cheating before and offended him by doing so.  Not directly, but something along the lines of "The strategies you've outlined to me don't work, yet you continue to win every day.  You must be cheating, right?"

I currently believe his success is the result of having a big enough bankroll to be able to keep playing until his random walk gets him where he wants to be, coupled with quite unusual luck.

As an aside, what do we think about chat censorship?  In particular the incessant begging:

03:21:38 *** percent (153338) [#138925114] bet 10 BTC at 49.5% and won 10 BTC ***
03:21:50 *** percent (153338) [#138925167] bet 20 BTC at 49.5% and lost ***
03:21:51 *** percent (153338) [#138925182] bet 40 BTC at 49.5% and won 40 BTC ***
03:22:02 *** percent (153338) [#138925296] bet 20 BTC at 49.5% and lost ***
03:22:03 *** percent (153338) [#138925319] bet 40 BTC at 49.5% and lost ***
03:22:11 (90159) <pamela anderson> NAKOWA DON'T BE A PUSSY: GO BIG!!!
03:22:11 (149943) <christina> percent stopp
03:22:19 *** percent (153338) [#138925412] bet 30 BTC at 49.5% and lost ***
03:22:19 (124162) <JohnHarmer> shit have to leave, l love his show!
03:22:21 *** percent (153338) [#138925431] bet 60 BTC at 49.5% and lost ***
03:22:22 *** percent (153338) [#138925451] bet 60 BTC at 49.5% and lost ***
03:22:30 (146888) <LuckyPot> A little donate will bring you luck trust me ! [1Bb9Lx6j]

That last line "donate for luck" is increasingly common.  People selling 'karma' or just asking for 'rain'.

I've tried to allow everything in the chat except for blatant spamming or advertising of competitors.

Should I be stricter and disallow begging for donations?  Racism?  Drug talk?  Where do you draw the line?  I don't know!

I'd just ban those spamming.

And BTW, it seems that Nakowa is down 900BTC today, by betting "small" for his standards. It was an interesting show.

[Rannasha]

The begging in the chat is really rampant at times. It also doesn't help that people create new accounts with the same name as the most recent name Nakowa picked and offer free BTC, which prompts a ton of people to spam their BTC address.

Blocking messages that contain a BTC address would be effective, but there are also legit discussions that contain BTC addresses, so that might be a bit too extreme.

[Rampion]

20:29:20 (153338) <percent> -976. OK I surrender.

He just sent 1,000 BTC more to JD. This is goint to be interesting.

Shall we create a "NAKOWA degenerate gambling observer thread"?

Anyhow, this doesn't look like cheating at all to me.

EDIT: wow, max-bet dramatically lowered after nakowa lost 1,000BTC and sent another 1,000BTC to the site. That's going to piss him off for sure, and I personally do not believe its a wise decision. Just give him the chance to do its thing doog...

[cowbay]

That last line "donate for luck" is increasingly common.  People selling 'karma' or just asking for 'rain'.

I've tried to allow everything in the chat except for blatant spamming or advertising of competitors.

Should I be stricter and disallow begging for donations?  Racism?  Drug talk?  Where do you draw the line?  I don't know!

I personally think that begging in the form of (rain/karma/donation/budda/african children/...) should be banned after one warning.  Between the nakowa 300 spam bets and incessant begging, it's increasingly harder to follow the intricacies of nuanced, rational discourse, investor moaning, and the merits of sparklecoin.

[ThePok]

Max profit is to low now!!!! Cant turn max profit down while profit is negativ!

[drawingthesun]

Dooglus, the last time he played big he was down 4000 then made it back and then some. So that means he goes down a lot. Eventually he will go down so far he will have no coins left.

How about just leaving everything as it is.

See what happens.

[dooglus]

I have reduced the max profit to 0.25% of bankroll for now, to prevent, or at least slow, the ongoing bleeding of funds.

When I've found the best way of implementing higher house edge for higher risk bets I'll put it back to 1%.

This shouldn't affect nakowa's play, since he's playing within his self-imposed 50 BTC limit today anyway.

[dooglus]

20:29:20 (153338) <percent> -976. OK I surrender.

One minute later there's a pending deposit of 1000 BTC to the account.

He never surrenders.

[Rampion]

I have reduced the max profit to 0.25% of bankroll for now, to prevent, or at least slow, the ongoing bleeding of funds.

When I've found the best way of implementing higher house edge for higher risk bets I'll put it back to 1%.

This shouldn't affect nakowa's play, since he's playing within his self-imposed 50 BTC limit today anyway.

He did a few 80BTC bets just a few minutes ago...

20:29:20 (153338) <percent> -976. OK I surrender.

One minute later there's a pending deposit of 1000 BTC to the account.

He never surrenders.

I'm not a gambler as you might think

LOL

[drawingthesun]

Dooglus, choose either 1% max profit or 0.5% max profit and let the math work. He will not stop playing so that means he will eventually lose everything.

Max profit at 75 btc is far too low in my opinion. The investors can divest if they want. No need to protect us, we know what we are getting ourselves into.

[nicolaennio]

dooglus is right, nakowa himself said he wants to play with low bets in order to show that it is not necessary to bet high to win. So even though it is a bit an "ad-hoc" move, it is agreed with the player.

[Rampion]

Dooglus, choose either 1% max profit or 0.5% max profit and let the math work. He will not stop playing so that means he will eventually lose everything.

Max profit at 75 btc is far too low in my opinion. The investors can divest if they want. No need to protect us, we know what we are getting ourselves into.

I agree 100%

Just let math do its thing, nakowa won't stop.

[Lohoris]

I had been talking in the chat about increasing the house edge for bets with profit over 50 BTC (since none of the competition with a 1% edge allows bets that big anyway).  This was obviously his way of 'showing me' that it won't help...

If he isn't cheating, it makes sense to increase the edge for big bets.
If he is cheating, it still makes sense to do it, since other people might be playing here too.
I.e. regardless of nakowa, you should do it anyway.
It won't solve nakowa's problem, but it will be good for the site despite of him.

[01BTC10]

Hmm, going crazy here:

In[1285]:=

profits =
  Table[betAmount[[j]]* RotateRight[winOrLose, 0][[j]], {j, 1,
    Length[betAmount]}];

Select[profits, (# >= 5 10^8) &] // Length
Select[profits, (# <= -5 10^8) &] // Length
Select[profits, (# < 5 10^8 && # > 0) &] // Length
Select[profits, (# >= -5 10^8 && # <= 0) &] // Length

Out[1286]= 7185
Out[1287]= 7209
Out[1288]= 13893
Out[1289]= 14688

So, he won 7185 and lost 7209 of his 5 BTC and greater bets.

In[1290]:=

profits =
  Table[betAmount[[j]]* RotateRight[winOrLose, 2][[j]], {j, 1,
    Length[betAmount]}];

Select[profits, (# >= 5 10^8) &] // Length
Select[profits, (# <= -5 10^8) &] // Length
Select[profits, (# < 5 10^8 && # > 0) &] // Length
Select[profits, (# >= -5 10^8 && # <= 0) &] // Length

Out[1291]= 10347
Out[1292]= 4047
Out[1293]= 10731
Out[1294]= 17653

Now, after shifting by 2, it says he would have won 10347 and only lost 4047 of his 5 BTC and greater bets.  

What am I missing?  Excel is telling me the same thing.  Maybe there is a problem with the file...

Cheers,
Peter

I don't know the probability of this happening but I know that your sample size is ridiculously small. You really only have 14354 bets? You can't conclude anything worthwhile from such a small sample.

[BayAreaCoins]

I have reduced the max profit to 0.25% of bankroll for now, to prevent, or at least slow, the ongoing bleeding of funds.

When I've found the best way of implementing higher house edge for higher risk bets I'll put it back to 1%.

This shouldn't affect nakowa's play, since he's playing within his self-imposed 50 BTC limit today anyway.

[01BTC10]

Maybe this could help:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-value#Coin_flipping

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution#Example

I'm taking math course right now but I don't feel confident to do the calculation myself.

[HowGudAmI]

I am just staying invested throughout this whole 'saga'. I dont believe its necessary to lower the max bet to 0.25% of bankroll though - I personally want him to bet big.

On another note, to prevent this from happening to unsuspecting investors in the future (though all should have known this could have happened) could it not be a possibility to offer two investment 'tiers' like this:

Tier 1: Investment covers the bank roll for bets up to 0.25% of bankroll, but will not be used to pay out bets over 0.25% of bankroll. This would offer a higher security and steady rate of growth for investors.

Tier 2: Investment covers bets up to 1% of the sites bankroll (still including smaller bets), obviously it would be 1% of whatever is invested in tier 2. This offers lower security - but higher chance of a quick upswing.

Maybe this is too complex though. Either way - I would bring 1% back.