bustabit – The original crash game

[StackGambler]

Hey guys,

How is the 1% edge taken in the game ? Is it on the payout or another mechanism ?

Thanks!

When people talk about house edges, what they mean is the average amount a player would lose if they made the bet a lot of times. So let's say we flip a coin, and if you get it right you double your money -- otherwise you lose it. We'd say that has a 0 house edge, because if you played a lot of times the amount of wins would be pretty much the same as the amount loses.

But all bets in bustabit are slightly worse than that. So if you want to x2 your money, you'll only win 49.5% of the time. So if you played a lot of games, the amount you'd lose is 1% of the amount you bet.

So to answer your question, the 1% edge is taken because the distribution of busts was predetermined from a distribution such that that property holds. i.e. It only goes to >= 10x an average of 9.9% of the time. But if there was no edge at all, it'd be 10% of the time.

Great, thanks.

One more question!

I use to follow justdice a while ago and one of the issues was that the operator of the site knows the results of the seeding event thus could potentially cheat the the Bankroll holders. Did Bustabit find a solution to this problem ?

For what it's worth, checking the hashes is always a major security risk, and Daniel says he never cares to look at future games. I trust him. Mainly because looking at the hashes is way more risky than the potential reward of a few extra coins. Attack vectors are everywhere.

[JollyGood]

Great, thanks.

One more question!

I use to follow justdice a while ago and one of the issues was that the operator of the site knows the results of the seeding event thus could potentially cheat the the Bankroll holders. Did Bustabit find a solution to this problem ?

No. Daniel knows all future game results, so it could be undetectable abused to cheat investors.  It's probably not happening though, considering investors are ~400 BTC ahead of expected value. But no real way to be sure, you have to 100% trust Daniel, basically.

Bustadice however, has actually a pretty neat system you can look at. There the game results are created by a combination of: (server seed, auditor seed, client seed) so it would not be possible to undetectably cheat investors without the auditor noticing (or participating).

The set up seems fairly good but any gaming platform where results are known to the owner operator in advance are in essence unacceptable.

It remains a different issue altogether that Daniel retains a high degree of respect by the community in general and more specifically by his investors and game players especially when 400BTC is the figure you used above.

What would have been the complexity involved had a code change been implemented to remove the advance knowledge factor?

[JackpotRacer]

What would have been the complexity involved had a code change been implemented to remove the advance knowledge factor?

very good question. I am very interested to see the answer and if there is a solution for this problem, no matter the costs or work load

[RHavar]

The set up seems fairly good but any gaming platform where results are known to the owner operator in advance are in essence unacceptable.

It remains a different issue altogether that Daniel retains a high degree of respect by the community in general and more specifically by his investors and game players especially when 400BTC is the figure you used above.

What would have been the complexity involved had a code change been implemented to remove the advance knowledge factor?

It's not really possible.


In bustadice, it works like this: The person sends their bet to the game server. The game server sends the bet information to the audit server. The audit server logs that information, and releases the audit seed for that bet.

So the audit server knows the full bet details, before the game server even knows the outcome. This what prevents any possibility of undetectable cheating.

--

Now going back to bustabit, the game server can't really run the game without knowing when the bust is. So it'd need the audit seed from the audit server. But it also can't provide the audit server with the full bet information, because people can adjust their cashouts in real time.

So it'd be pretty straight forward to do if you removed "manual cash outs", but that's a pretty big part of the bustabit experience.

[barbara44]

^I think it is a coding related issue more than moral reason, like "big part of bustabit experience" is not that important if you ask me because what is a bustabit experience can change drastically if you improve another side of the deal.

However, coding wise we all know that even at this stage where everything is settled and we have been using it for years, there was hacking attempts (I am calling attempts because there was one successful one I can remember but I am sure millions tried to hack it and failed) so if you do a new code change and it is that big then there could be a chance of getting hacked during the beta stage of the new code and at this height of peak investors there is really no way to put up that much money into risk to test a new code.

[JollyGood]

It's not really possible.


In bustadice, it works like this: The person sends their bet to the game server. The game server sends the bet information to the audit server. The audit server logs that information, and releases the audit seed for that bet.

So the audit server knows the full bet details, before the game server even knows the outcome. This what prevents any possibility of undetectable cheating.

--

Now going back to bustabit, the game server can't really run the game without knowing when the bust is. So it'd need the audit seed from the audit server. But it also can't provide the audit server with the full bet information, because people can adjust their cashouts in real time.

So it'd be pretty straight forward to do if you removed "manual cash outs", but that's a pretty big part of the bustabit experience.

In that case it seems to be a clear issue of whether the website owner can be trusted. Of course Daniel has an excellent reputation from this community and Bustabit/Bustadice users so for those trusting him is an easy thing to do but there are many websites using the Crash software (with and without appropriate licence fee) and maybe users do not know the background of the owners/operators so they stand more chances of being scammed.

It is a difficult situation to comment on further really.

[dooglus]

any gaming platform where results are known to the owner operator in advance are in essence unacceptable

Can you think of some way to prevent the operator knowing the results in advance?

The game could generate each roll randomly as it happens, like what happens in "real" casinos. That would prevent the operator from knowing the result in advance.

The problem with that approach is that there is no way for the customer to tell whether the casino is really generating the rolls randomly. They could be choosing them deliberately some percentage of the time to make the players lose more than they should.

This is why bitcoin casinos almost always use some kind of provably fair system. That allows the customer to verify that their roll was fairly determined, but also allows the operator to know the result before it happens. It's possible to make this better, by making the operator have to conspire with a group of third parties such as the "auditor" in bustadice's case, but that doesn't really fix the problem, it just means you have to trust the operator not to conspire with the auditor (who as far as you know is also the operator anyway).

Even if there was some way to prevent the operator cheating the investors he could still decide one day to run off with the bankroll. So the bottom line is you have to trust him if you want to invest in his game's bankroll.

[crwth]

The problem with that approach is that there is no way for the customer to tell whether the casino is really generating the rolls randomly. They could be choosing them deliberately some percentage of the time to make the players lose more than they should.

Isn't this the one you call house edge?

This is why bitcoin casinos almost always use some kind of provably fair system. That allows the customer to verify that their roll was fairly determined, but also allows the operator to know the result before it happens. It's possible to make this better, by making the operator have to conspire with a group of third parties such as the "auditor" in bustadice's case, but that doesn't really fix the problem, it just means you have to trust the operator not to conspire with the auditor (who as far as you know is also the operator anyway).

With the knowledge of the operator to know the result, wouldn't they be able to give you a seed where it could be checked and be proven the right outcome but they gave the "losing" part to the player? I guess you would just really trust the site when you gamble.

[RHavar]

Even if there was some way to prevent the operator cheating the investors he could still decide one day to run off with the bankroll. So the bottom line is you have to trust him if you want to invest in his game's bankroll.

You can mitigate that a lot by using a multisig cold storage wallet. That's actually how bustadice works, with the auditor[1] holding (one of 3 keys), he would only authorize withdrawals if the audit checked out. (Which is actually the reason that bustadice only lets you withdraw after you request a new server seed, so the auditor can verify any wins).

--

However, if I'm brainstorming and trying to think of attack vectors -- one thing a malicious operator could do is purposely generate a lot of controversy or do something extremely concerning to cause (or make plausible) that investors start divesting en masse. As a key holder, I'd have no choice but to release the funds to process the withdrawals/divestments, and then the malicious operator absconds with the funds.

---

That said, I think it still provides significant guarantees to investors -- as there's a huge difference between being able to undetectably steal from investors, and making it blindingly obvious


[1] I am currently the bustadice auditor. Although I think I'm probably no longer the best person for it. When I originally became auditor, I was running an established casino and daniel was a competitor to me (*cough*flinch.io*cough*) so it made a lot of sense me being an independent auditor. But on account of after that Daniel buying me out, I would assume most people would question my independence... (which is hard for me to demonstrate)  

[JollyGood]

any gaming platform where results are known to the owner operator in advance are in essence unacceptable

Can you think of some way to prevent the operator knowing the results in advance?

The game could generate each roll randomly as it happens, like what happens in "real" casinos. That would prevent the operator from knowing the result in advance.

The problem with that approach is that there is no way for the customer to tell whether the casino is really generating the rolls randomly. They could be choosing them deliberately some percentage of the time to make the players lose more than they should.

This is why bitcoin casinos almost always use some kind of provably fair system. That allows the customer to verify that their roll was fairly determined, but also allows the operator to know the result before it happens. It's possible to make this better, by making the operator have to conspire with a group of third parties such as the "auditor" in bustadice's case, but that doesn't really fix the problem, it just means you have to trust the operator not to conspire with the auditor (who as far as you know is also the operator anyway).

Even if there was some way to prevent the operator cheating the investors he could still decide one day to run off with the bankroll. So the bottom line is you have to trust him if you want to invest in his game's bankroll.

In general (and not specific to Bustabit/Bustadice) the provably fair system is (as you excellently articulated) only fair if there is trust. I have no doubt that scammer website owners have used the provably fair system to scam but at the same time just because a system can be misused does not mean it will be.

Everybody knows the risks before they start investing in bankrolls and before they start playing the games on casinos. It is only from the reviews those participants leave that others can have an idea of how of what to expect.

[adaseb]

How is this any different than a provably fair dice game? Basically the server knows the server seed, nonce and most likely 99% of the time the client seed since many gamblers never change the client seed manually.

So lets say someone is betting on 50/50 and they never change any parameters then the server can know whether they will make money or lose money in the next hundred rolls or so.

The server knows what the outcome will be ahead of time but the server doesn't know if the client will actually take a particular bet. The client can also change the odds which would also change whether the house makes money or not.

[RHavar]

How is this any different than a provably fair dice game? Basically the server knows the server seed, nonce and most likely 99% of the time the client seed since many gamblers never change the client seed manually.

So lets say someone is betting on 50/50 and they never change any parameters then the server can know whether they will make money or lose money in the next hundred rolls or so.

The server knows what the outcome will be ahead of time but the server doesn't know if the client will actually take a particular bet. The client can also change the odds which would also change whether the house makes money or not.

I don't quite get what you mean. Provably fair systems just aim to prove the server has committed to a fair distribution of game results. Generally the server will know exactly how well a player will do, assuming it can predict how the player bets (as game results are pre-determined from the fair distribution). But in general, it doesn't really matter much because the provably fair system shows the server has already committed to those results.

I guess you could come up with some extreme scenarios, where a whale is playing very predictably and the casino calculates it will probably lose a lot of money so it fakes some maintenance style issues, or requires a mandatory seed rotation to prevent that. I guess it's possible, but I very much doubt that even happens in practice.

[fullhdpixel]

How is this any different than a provably fair dice game? Basically the server knows the server seed, nonce and most likely 99% of the time the client seed since many gamblers never change the client seed manually.

So lets say someone is betting on 50/50 and they never change any parameters then the server can know whether they will make money or lose money in the next hundred rolls or so.

The server knows what the outcome will be ahead of time but the server doesn't know if the client will actually take a particular bet. The client can also change the odds which would also change whether the house makes money or not.

The difference is the style of game basically. Is it same for people who get out at x2 for example? Sure, it does look eerily similar however this game doesn't have that offline single player dice method, here you play with a lot of other people and bet on the same game together which creates a different set of community.

Basically, with the idea that house edge similar you can play any other game like plinko and say the game is similar to dice, or you can play on poker/sportsbooks and say it is different however when it comes to gambling almost everything looks similar with the exact same house edge which is why games are different in play style.

Bustabit might have the same house edge but the game is insanely different and provides much more as a community instead of playing as an individual.

[dooglus]

The problem with that approach is that there is no way for the customer to tell whether the casino is really generating the rolls randomly. They could be choosing them deliberately some percentage of the time to make the players lose more than they should.

Isn't this the one you call house edge?

No. The house edge is something quite different. Your chance of winning any particular bet is slightly lower than the payout would imply. For instance if you're betting to double your money you might expect to win 50% of the time, but the house adjusts the payout to make its edge. The payout for a 50% chance is typically around 1.98x, and your chance to win a 2x bet is typically 49.5%. That's how the edge is built in. There's no "choosing them deliberately some percentage of the time to make the players lose more than they should" involved.

With the knowledge of the operator to know the result, wouldn't they be able to give you a seed where it could be checked and be proven the right outcome but they gave the "losing" part to the player? I guess you would just really trust the site when you gamble.

No again. Provably fair sites allow the players to check for themselves that they aren't being cheated. We were talking about the people bankrolling the site. It's possible for the site (in collusion with its auditors if necessary) to cheat those people without it being detected, but not for it to cheat its players.

[Spaffin]

As far as I understand the gameplay, the goal is to win against the bank before it collapses.  But I can’t understand how my winnings depend on the volume of bets I have made?  It seems to me that everyone can win this game if he is not greedy.

[ralle14]

But I can’t understand how my winnings depend on the volume of bets I have made?  It seems to me that everyone can win this game if he is not greedy.

That's what net profit means you basically combine the profits you've made from all of your bets.

It seems to me that everyone can win this game if he is not greedy.

Not everyone can win even if they're not greedy there's always a bunch of people losing on certain rounds..

[Spaffin]

But I can’t understand how my winnings depend on the volume of bets I have made?  It seems to me that everyone can win this game if he is not greedy.

That's what net profit means you basically combine the profits you've made from all of your bets.

It seems to me that everyone can win this game if he is not greedy.

Not everyone can win even if they're not greedy there's always a bunch of people losing on certain rounds..

As I understand it, if there is a condition for raising rates after each win, can I use the previous win without making a new deposit?  Regarding winning and losing, everything is clear here, because gambling is precisely who is luckier. By the way, I am currently following this project a lot and I was pleasantly surprised by the information that a provably fair game scheme is in place to eliminate any further doubts about legitimacy.  Respect.

[vbond]

I found another site without a license. (onehash.com/moon)

[devans]

well it's good site for high rollers but not the best for odds there is many other sites provide better odds last night i saw 9 then 9 then 13 reds a row which is was insane almost other sites max reds 8 / 11 not that much bustabit good for high rollers only

bustabit's house edge is only 1%. That's fairly standard in the industry, certainly not higher than ordinary.

[devans]

I found another site without a license. (onehash.com/moon)

At a quick glance it doesn't look like they are using bustabit's old source code. If that's the case they don't need a license. Only bustabit's source code is protected, not the concept of a crash game itself.