bustabit – The original crash game

[Timetwister]

The commission is only taken from net profits, so in that sense it's capped at 100%. However I agree with DarkStar_: Outside a black swan event of a high roller losing thousands of Bitcoin at once, economics dictate that the bankroll will never reach 10,000 BTC as investing (or staying invested) in a risky asset that offers no return isn't rational. By the way: Investors already need to trust me not to play against the casino.

I don't consider "bankroll/10,000 BTC" to be confusing at all, but even if we assume that it is, adding more complexity like an arbitrary cap on top of that wouldn't make it less confusing. In any case, asking for a cap on the commission rate is missing the point of the dynamic commission rate. The purpose is to make being invested in the bankroll less attractive the larger the bankroll grows. Capping the commission rate is counterproductive as it eliminates the disincentive in case the cap is hit.

It would be good to clarify that explicitly. Otherwise, if the bankroll is over 10,000 (I know it's not realistic any time soon, but better to have every scenario covered, as there's a lot of money in play here), you could be "taxing" over 100% of profits.

Also, where in the website does it explain the current fee? I couldn't find that.

[BTCappu]

Devans is the owner of this place and I believe he has a right to do whatever he wants and nobody can say anything to him. If he thinks he has enough money, he could literally tell everyone to take out their money and not even have any investment option if he wants to, he could bankroll the whole website himself and he would make even more profit as well.

In order to make it bigger he gets help from investors and that is cool for us because we can invest but that is not something we "earned" or "deserved" because it was just given, and as easily it was given as easily it could be taken away. Do not try to make arguments about how it would be better to do this or that, Devans knows all the options available and he picked one and as the owner he can pick whichever wants to.

[xxjumperxx]

Devans is the owner of this place and I believe he has a right to do whatever he wants and nobody can say anything to him. If he thinks he has enough money, he could literally tell everyone to take out their money and not even have any investment option if he wants to, he could bankroll the whole website himself and he would make even more profit as well.

In order to make it bigger he gets help from investors and that is cool for us because we can invest but that is not something we "earned" or "deserved" because it was just given, and as easily it was given as easily it could be taken away. Do not try to make arguments about how it would be better to do this or that, Devans knows all the options available and he picked one and as the owner he can pick whichever wants to.

Its called risk...
He could probably manage all the Bankroll but then his risk would be bigger!
Now that the Bankroll is managed by users, he just takes a commision so he has almost no risk at all!
He makes money when people play, so it makes him more money if people win, lose it and play again!
Win/Win Situation for him!
And nice of him to offer us the Bankroll and offer us a small commision.
Win/Risk for us.

[JollyGood]

You know how the old saying goes… “if something is not broken there is no need to fix it”.

If the structure for the website is working, the users are happy with it and the investors are happy with it then there is no need to try to change it. I think evolution eventually has to happen because other websites might catch up and offer similar gameplay along with some form of innovations that might tempt Bustabit users (or investors) away but that seems way off right now.

Promotions around public holidays or public anniversary events might be useful but not sure how they would impact new sign-ups or increase in betting from existing users.

Is there something like a competition on bustabit? I was wondering if you are planning to add some competitions maybe? But I was thinking this is only for promotions and you might not needed that anymore.

i don't think he will add something like that the bustabit is already good enough and have already enough players i don't think any promotions will be needed anymore.

[GamblingSiteFinder]

You know how the old saying goes… “if something is not broken there is no need to fix it”.

If the structure for the website is working, the users are happy with it and the investors are happy with it then there is no need to try to change it.

I understand your reasoning, but something is broken. The users are happy, the investors are happy, but the site owner is not.

Having a large offsite bankroll can make the bankroll volatile. When an investor's onsite investment becomes too small to support their offsite investment they are margin-called, causing their offsite investment to be set to zero. As a result a lucky high roller might see the maximum profit collapse at the worst possible time, after they've just won a large amount.

 It appears that Daniel is trying to resolve the problem above by eliminating all offsite investments. I might be wrong though.

[RHavar]

I'll +1 Timetwister's suggestion of capping at 100% just as it avoids the question of "what would happen if the bankroll exceeded 10k btc. So:

Code:

commission = MIN(bankroll / 10000btc, 1)

Just for the sake of terminology, lets call the 10k bitcoins, the "bankroll cap". I kind of wonder if having a static value like that is ideal, considering how stupidly volatile btc price is (and that people tend to bet more pegged to fiat value than bitcoin value).

I imagine a "bankroll cap" of something like:

Code:

bankrollCap = (15000000000 / $US_DOLLAR_INDEX) / $BITCOIN_PRICE_IN_USD

and refreshing $US_DOLLAR_INDEX  and $BITCOIN_PRICE_IN_USD every day or so might make a bit more sense?

[xxjumperxx]

Im kind of ready to see what happens on that day.
Will we see people put their offsite investments on site? Will people leave the Bankroll all together?
I see it as a big change that will surely affect peoples decision on the Bankroll

[throwaway42492]

so I have a > 1% share of the bankroll and have been invested in the bustabit bankroll for ages, here are my 2 cents:

I didn't care last year when the fee model was changed from 25% of the EV to 50% of the actual profits, EV wise for the investors that was close to the same anyway.
I don't care that the fee model is being changed again, and yes it is getting more and more complicated, but that's fine for me. It is some sort of reversed auction now, investors have to decide if they are willing to invest for X% of the profit. If the answer is yes, you have to decide if it stays the same for X-1, X-2 and so on. Not sure where my cutoff is exactly.

What I don't like is that the offsite investment is being discontinued and that is because I have a large offsite investment, and yes I "exploited" the system by maximizing my offsite investment back in the day. Not sure if exploiting is the correct word, I paid dilution fee for it after all. I understand that RHavar wants to minimize the amount of funds he is responsible for, personally I was never worried about the game being rigged or whales winning long-term, but third party risk. Obviously I trust RHavar, but there is always a non-zero risk, as we recently saw with the ethercrash "hack" aka exitscam.

Anyways, I'm grateful for the opportunity bustabit gave me to make a shitton of money, it is truly life-changing, I don't like the recent changes at all, but I understand where RHavar is coming from. I have another 4 weeks to decide what I wanna do with my investment and if I'm willing to give up a lot of EV.

[RHavar]

so I have a > 1% share of the bankroll and have been invested in the bustabit bankroll for ages, here are my 2 cents:

I didn't care last year when the fee model was changed from 25% of the EV to 50% of the actual profits, EV wise for the investors that was close to the same anyway.
I don't care that the fee model is being changed again, and yes it is getting more and more complicated, but that's fine for me. It is some sort of reversed auction now, investors have to decide if they are willing to invest for X% of the profit. If the answer is yes, you have to decide if it stays the same for X-1, X-2 and so on. Not sure where my cutoff is exactly.

What I don't like is that the offsite investment is being discontinued and that is because I have a large offsite investment, and yes I "exploited" the system by maximizing my offsite investment back in the day. Not sure if exploiting is the correct word, I paid dilution fee for it after all. I understand that RHavar wants to minimize the amount of funds he is responsible for, personally I was never worried about the game being rigged or whales winning long-term, but third party risk. Obviously I trust RHavar, but there is always a non-zero risk, as we recently saw with the ethercrash "hack" aka exitscam.

Anyways, I'm grateful for the opportunity bustabit gave me to make a shitton of money, it is truly life-changing, I don't like the recent changes at all, but I understand where RHavar is coming from. I have another 4 weeks to decide what I wanna do with my investment and if I'm willing to give up a lot of EV.

FWIW, I haven't been involved in the site in an official capacity for like 2.5 years now =) I just stick around as I'm a bankroll investor, but invest on the same terms as everyone else. Actually back when I ran the site, I 100% privately bankrolled it. The public bankroll thingy is Daniel's game.

I think Daniel obviously now has an oversupply of capital, so it makes sense for him to squeeze investors by paying them less. As an investor, I don't really mind at all as I'd do the same (e.g. if volumes slowed down, I'd divest...).

I also think you're right about the offsite thing, but also think Daniel is right to not want two classes of investors as it's rather unfair. You also obviously didn't exploit the offsite system, but also didn't use it for its intended purpose.  

I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but one idea for Daniel: Instead of giving people "dilution fee credits", give them actual bitcoin. Then if they want to invest more, they can use that to cover the expense. Or if they no longer want to, they can withdraw that money. And then say you gave way X bitcoin, configure the site to direct the next X bitcoin of dilution fees to yourself instead of the bankroll.

[BTCappu]

I would say capping just bitcoin should be enough, because this is a crypto gambling place and we gamble with crypto and as long as we gamble with crypto we should cap it with crypto as well. I do not think that having some sort of cap that is based on the dollar amount would be ideal, that would mean that if 1 bitcoin becomes 1 million dollars one day (I know not now, but let's say in 10 years? 20 years?) that would be enough to have like few bitcoins and we are done? I doubt that should be the case for many people.

However if we have a cap on bitcoin itself, like 10k, that would mean it will always be the same, no matter what the price of bitcoin is. Obviously devans is the one that can decide on this and I am just putting out my suggestion and he can ignore it, I just wanted to say my peace.

[xxjumperxx]

I dont know if this has been asked before but is there a site that tracks the size of the Bankroll of Bustabit?
Like in a nice graph, it would just be interesting to see to me how the size changes or will change when the new Bankroll Terms become effective!

[GamblingSiteFinder]

I dont know if this has been asked before but is there a site that tracks the size of the Bankroll of Bustabit?
Like in a nice graph, it would just be interesting to see to me how the size changes or will change when the new Bankroll Terms become effective!

https://dicesites.com/bustabit

https://dicesites.com/bustadice

[jpcfan]

I dont know if this has been asked before but is there a site that tracks the size of the Bankroll of Bustabit?
Like in a nice graph, it would just be interesting to see to me how the size changes or will change when the new Bankroll Terms become effective!

https://dicesites.com/bustabit

https://dicesites.com/bustadice

 feels like amazon squeezing out small biz





Devans is the Jeff Bezo of crypto crash games

[beerlover]

I would say giving people bitcoin could definitely a way to "apologize" for the disturbance but it wouldn't be financially smart decision to make by devans neither, it looks like it would cost a lot of money considering how many people there are and how much will be divested, he may be able to afford that but there is really no reason to do it when you can avoid spending so much money.

I also understand where he is coming from as well, there is way too much money for how much is wagered and with higher and higher fee for devans would mean dropping the invested amount because people wouldn't want to pay that much high fee and leave. It is like a free market version of "I want you to leave but I can't kick you out so I am going to charge you more hoping you will leave yourself" .

[M0w]

Can somebody explain to me what is going to happen to my offsite portion?

[DarkStar_]

Can somebody explain to me what is going to happen to my offsite portion?

It'll get removed, but you'll get dilution fee credits so that you could add all of your offsite portion onsite if you want (and have the BTC to deposit).

[M0w]

Can somebody explain to me what is going to happen to my offsite portion?

It'll get removed, but you'll get dilution fee credits so that you could add all of your offsite portion onsite if you want (and have the BTC to deposit).

And how many dilution fee credits do you get? Is that equal to the offsite portion?

[xxjumperxx]

Those credits are actually useless unless you deposit the same amount back into the onsite Bankroll...
Id agree with RHavar to actually pay out the BTC...
But oh well!

[chazley]

Zero chance he's paying out Bitcoin instead of dilution fee credits (lol).

[devans]

It would be good to clarify that explicitly. Otherwise, if the bankroll is over 10,000 (I know it's not realistic any time soon, but better to have every scenario covered, as there's a lot of money in play here), you could be "taxing" over 100% of profits.

Also, where in the website does it explain the current fee? I couldn't find that.

I've rewritten https://www.bustabit.com/help/investing to explain the current fee structure in detail and also explicitly state that the dynamic commission rate cannot exceed 100%.

Just for the sake of terminology, lets call the 10k bitcoins, the "bankroll cap". I kind of wonder if having a static value like that is ideal, considering how stupidly volatile btc price is (and that people tend to bet more pegged to fiat value than bitcoin value).

I imagine a "bankroll cap" of something like:

Code:

bankrollCap = (15000000000 / $US_DOLLAR_INDEX) / $BITCOIN_PRICE_IN_USD

and refreshing $US_DOLLAR_INDEX  and $BITCOIN_PRICE_IN_USD every day or so might make a bit more sense?

I agree that correcting the commission rate for Bitcoin's price would make more sense given that our wager volume tends to be more consistent in purchasing power (e.g. USD, EUR, KRW etc.) than in Bitcoin:

Code:

  month  |   wagered_btc   |   wagered_usd
---------+-----------------+-----------------
 2018-01 |   3089.54440200 |  $34,121,136.38
 2018-02 | 107460.38875000 | $996,376,713.88
 2018-03 |   7040.27589300 |  $62,256,276.78
 2018-04 |   6957.38473000 |  $55,414,979.30
 2018-05 |   7680.04243400 |  $64,872,011.18
 2018-06 |   9541.23297200 |  $64,930,742.51
 2018-07 |  54385.33604000 | $398,807,398.10
 2018-08 |  17366.30321900 | $113,090,361.89
 2018-09 |  11283.51036500 |  $73,694,508.50
 2018-10 |  16285.33384700 | $105,458,904.53
 2018-11 |  22352.72750300 | $123,457,666.00
 2018-12 |  38466.21535800 | $146,456,440.27
 2019-01 |  19846.31262100 |  $73,070,953.44
 2019-02 |  23801.41378000 |  $87,914,651.62
 2019-03 |  21570.01948300 |  $84,647,544.76
 2019-04 |  18975.72954800 |  $98,037,393.94
 2019-05 |  20063.16374100 | $141,976,857.93
 2019-06 |  16467.29457300 | $153,353,497.09
 2019-07 |  12597.00450100 | $134,437,656.73
 2019-08 |  10668.02239900 | $112,786,472.91
 2019-09 |   9765.14652500 |  $95,310,164.98
 2019-10 |  18544.82314300 | $153,762,287.41
 2019-11 |  19085.73434500 | $158,654,075.34
 2019-12 |  19855.11447000 | $143,982,856.47
 2020-01 |  22261.18473100 | $186,435,924.80
 2020-02 |  15844.86530900 | $153,348,130.51
 2020-03 |  30335.10983900 | $196,404,169.07
 2020-04 |  34272.84791000 | $244,552,426.08
 2020-05 |  23329.71224900 | $214,882,955.51
 2020-06 |  26727.17919200 | $252,317,808.80
 2020-07 |  18768.89132900 | $179,021,875.33
 2020-08 |  20397.17373400 | $237,097,778.28
 2020-09 |  16726.37967800 | $178,179,131.32
 2020-10 |  30828.70636200 | $372,183,553.18

However, calculating the commission rate like you suggest is also more difficult for investors to comprehend–especially retroactively–so I'm not sure that's the way to go. The bankroll should find an equilibrium regardless of Bitcoin's price. The only concern is that the equilibrium point becomes too low to support the bets our players want to make or too high for my risk tolerance. While I don't like making changes like this often, the formula is not set in stone and can be changed if necessary.

It's worth considering nevertheless. Maybe other investors can chime in. I'm curious what they think about adjusting the commission rate for Bitcoin's price.