Bets of Bitcoin - Bitcoin betting on real world events

[coinjedi]

Today we are announcing a bitcoin betting site:
http://betsofbitco.in/
You can bet on anything from presidential candidates to product releases, obviously with bitcoins. You will be able to earn bitcoins in two ways:
1) Taking a site on a bet and win.
2) Submit a statement for betting and earn commission.
Here is how we are going to breakdown the losing bets:
1) 45% percent will go to winners proportional to their bets
2) 45% percent will go to winners proportional to their time weighted bets, to promote early betting
3) 5% percent will go to the submitter of the statement
4) 5% will go to the site
We don't collect any transaction fees but there is a small statement submission fee. Currently minimum bet and submission fee is both only 0.1 BTC.
Please, let us know what you think.

[BitcoinStars.com]

We wish you the best of luck with your project

[coinjedi]

Thanks Bitcoinstars! We appreciate your clean design here at Bets of Bitcoin.

[coinjedi]

We are offering a free coin for the largest single bet of the week. Check it out.

[infested999]

We already have moonco.in and their doing a very good job!

[coinjedi]

We are glad that moonco.in is working for you. Cheers.

[indicasteve]

We already have moonco.in and their doing a very good job!

This is different. 

And I like that you can see the statements even before you wish to join.

I hope it kicks off well!  I don't have any BTC to put in limbo at the moment, but I will be back around to check it out again.

I think you will do well if you can get enough traffic and make more short term statements.

GL!

[coinjedi]

Thanks indicasteve! If you have a good idea for a short term statement, I can waive the fee once for you.

[memvola]

Feature request: Comments. I actually did need some clarification about one of the bets, it would be nice to be able to contact the submitter and share opinions with fellow betters.

Feature request: Independent arbiter.

Request: Clarification of security/safety features of how the coins are kept. Plus some words of insurance.

EDIT: Ah, I almost forgot this; bug report: You can't bet for an amount of 0.7 BTC. It says "Bad request." and "Your bet must be a multiple of 0.010.".

[indicasteve]

Thanks indicasteve! If you have a good idea for a short term statement, I can waive the fee once for you.

IDK... it would have to deal with current events and the speculation of a measurable immediate effect.

Like, just today google bought motorola mobile.  Should be big..was in all the news.

My question would be: Do you think google stock price will be higher or lower than the current price by 12 noon tomorrow.  But..thats lame.  Who really gives a crap about google stock prices if you don't own any.

Although this makes me puke in my own mouth, I think that most of the popular short term statements would probably have to be based on popular 'reality TV' events.  Example: "Will Snookie get drunk this weekend and hump a plant again on Jersey Shores?" ... I might even bet on that one!

You can't count on something like a 'court decision' because we all know that's just a farce and no decision is ever made...it's more of a 'plea' and 'deal' than a decision.

You could make statements on sports...but that's not unique enough to draw interest.

IDK...but if I come up with something, I'll post it!

[coinjedi]

Feature request: Comments. I actually did need some clarification about one of the bets, it would be nice to be able to contact the submitter and share opinions with fellow betters.

Feature request: Independent arbiter.

Feature request 2: Check. Our site moderators are the independent arbiters. We decide on they results, not the submitters.

Feature request 1: Comments would need extra moderation so we will not add them for a while. Since we decide on the bets, you probably want to contact us. If you have a question you can email us using the feedback link on your account page.

All of our bets are working fine so far. Did you write "0.7 BTC" or just "0.7" into the box, use the latter.

[memvola]

All of our bets are working fine so far. Did you write "0.7 BTC" or just "0.7" into the box, use the latter.

Of course I wrote 0.7. Does it work on your end? Tried on Firefox 4 & Chromium. Would be a very odd bug if it only happened to me.

Feature request 2: Check. Our site moderators are the independent arbiters. We decide on they results, not the submitters.

Well, what I had in mind was a user (submitter) appointed arbiter. You can probably do it indirectly now, by specifying the arbiter's info in the bet itself, but then the moderators would need to verify the identity of the arbiter. I've been waiting for a betting system that automates this for some time now (since before Bitcoin), so thought I should just point it out.

P.S. Excellent site by the way, I put bets on 7 statements already.

[coinjedi]

Would be a very odd bug if it only happened to me.

We couldn't reproduce your bug, but we think we know what is going on. It is due to some bad programming choices we made. We are working on it, estimated fix: sometime next week. Can you PM me your username. We would like to credit your account for your inconvenience.

[memvola]

Can you PM me your username. We would like to credit your account for your inconvenience.

Username sent, in case you need me to test again. Don't credit me though, would donate it back anyway. I think it's a great project and I wish you luck with it!

[dacoinminster]

I can't believe I missed the announcement for this. Beautiful site!

The idea of paying 5% to the person who came up with the bet is fantastic. I also like that you aren't running your own different internal currency. For instance, I'm not sure what 100 mc = 1 BTC/NMC means on the moonco.in site, since bitcoins don't have the same value as namecoins, and the ratio of them isn't a meaningful store of value . . .

I really want to use your site, but as I understand the rules, there is a big problem (please correct me if I'm not understanding right): As I understand things, a 100 BTC bet is the same as a 0.01 BTC bet made at exactly the same time for the weighted bet payout, and a 1 BTC bet made on the day the bet is created is the same as a 1 BTC bet made 1 minute before the bet is finished for the non-weighted payout.

Therefore, people can game the system by placing a whole bunch of tiny bets on each side when the bet is created, then a giant bet on the obvious winner right before the bet closes. In this way, they get most of the weighted bet payout, and most of the unweighted payout, without providing predictive value.

If I am wrong, please correct my misunderstanding. If I am right, I suggest that you pay out the whole 90% weighted by "bet size multiplied by the number of minutes in advance the bet was submitted". Therefore a 1 BTC bet submitted 1000 minutes in advance would be equivalent to a 10 BTC bet submitted 100 minutes in advance.

Second suggestion: bets should not be accepted once the outcome is clear. For instance, if the U.S. government announces that they have been having coffee with E.T., any bets placed on that topic after the announcement is made should be voided.

Third, I too would like to hear some comforting words about how you are storing the bitcoins. For instance, are most of the coins stored offline?

Address those three major issues (or fix my brain), and I am all over this.

Other minor suggestions:

• It would be sweet to be able to comment on the bets. One way to do this might be to have topics on THIS forum like "[BOB] Will the U.S. govt admit ET visit before 2013?" - post them in off-topic, and each thread will serve as an advertisement for your site, and your site could link to the threads from each bet.
• Collect 2% of ALL bets for yourself rather than 5% of losing bets. This will discourage obscenely huge bets if someone thinks they have a way to game the system, and you will probably make more money since winning bets will typically be larger. Also it makes your fees appear smaller and it helps prevent you from being accused of bias since the current system gives you more money in fees if a particular side wins.
• Rather than a submission fee, require that the submitter place a minimum bet on at least one side of their their new topic.
• You need standings! I want to be able to see the top predictors by accuracy, earnings, and (most importantly) % increase in portfolio value, broken down by "last 7 days", "last 30 days", "all time", etc. I used to play PPX (the popular science predictions exchange), and the competition for top spots was very addicting!

Anybody looking for possible topics to submit should check out:

http://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/
http://tippie.uiowa.edu/iem/markets/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Predictions_Exchange

Thanks!

[coinjedi]

Thanks dacoinminster for your kind words and suggestions.

Here are my replies:
This is wrong:
"a 100 BTC bet is the same as a 0.01 BTC bet made at exactly the same time for the weighted bet payout"
Weighted amount = (minutes to deadline) * (bet mount)
So this portion is already like you suggested, you can study the example distribution in our help page.

This is correct:
"1 BTC bet made on the day the bet is created is the same as a 1 BTC bet made 1 minute before the bet is finished for the non-weighted payout."
This is why it is generally not a good idea for the submitter to set a deadline very close to the event.

Early bets on both sides may or may not result in net profit, it is not guaranteed. If this becomes an issues we can change the percentages. %90 weighted might be too much, as it may still be valid in many cases to bet at the last minute.

We are able to terminate a bet early (i.e. before the original deadline) and we will so if the outcome becomes clear or any major event happens (as stated in the help page).

We are indeed storing a small amount of bitcoins on the server.

A forum or in-page commenting is planned but we need more moderator power to do that. No promises right now.

I hope this addresses your concerns. Let me know if you any other questions.

[dacoinminster]

Thanks dacoinminster for your kind words and suggestions.

Here are my replies:
This is wrong:
"a 100 BTC bet is the same as a 0.01 BTC bet made at exactly the same time for the weighted bet payout"
Weighted amount = (minutes to deadline) * (bet mount)
So this portion is already like you suggested, you can study the example distribution in our help page.

This is correct:
"1 BTC bet made on the day the bet is created is the same as a 1 BTC bet made 1 minute before the bet is finished for the non-weighted payout."
This is why it is generally not a good idea for the submitter to set a deadline very close to the event.

Early bets on both sides may or may not result in net profit, it is not guaranteed. If this becomes an issues we can change the percentages. %90 weighted might be too much, as it may still be valid in many cases to bet at the last minute.

We are able to terminate a bet early (i.e. before the original deadline) and we will so if the outcome becomes clear or any major event happens (as stated in the help page).

We are indeed storing a small amount of bitcoins on the server.

A forum or in-page commenting is planned but we need more moderator power to do that. No promises right now.

I hope this addresses your concerns. Let me know if you any other questions.

Sweet . . .

Would you mind disclosing what % of coins are stored offline?

Also, I edited my earlier post a few times and added more minor suggestions

[dacoinminster]

I deposited some btc. Come on confirmations!

I think I will include a link to a post on the bitcoin forum for any bets I create, unless you object . . .

Another suggestion: I'd really like to see the bet history for any open bet (the size and time of any bets that were placed, and optionally who placed the bets if they don't request to be anonymous)

Another question: I don't see any list of prohibited bets. For instance, I am doubtful you would allow me to bet 10,000 BTC that a political figure will not be assassinated (might as well send an invitation to the secret service to raid your house). I wonder if I could bet that a particular stock will crash (potential you would get in trouble for insider trading).

It will be interesting to see if your site gets big enough to where people start doing arbitrage between similar bets on your site and intrade.

Another suggestion: For some easy marketing, do a quick search on this forum for "intrade" and "prediction market", and send PMs to a few people likely to be interested in your site (for instance, http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Abitcointalk.org+"intrade.com"). You would have found me this way, and I would have appreciated the notification!

[dacoinminster]

Suggestion: Let the statement creator determine what % of the payout is weighted by time. At least some (if not most) bets make sense to be 100% weighted. A few do make sense to be more unweighted, for instance if the outcome of the bet is completely random like a lottery drawing.

[coinjedi]

* We are not using a fixed percentage, current value of in-server-balance is well below 50%. What is in the server can easily be replaced by our own funds. What percentage would make you feel safe?
* We don't have enough moderators for commenting right now. Do you know a nice free forum service, we can build a community in? In the meantime you can post
* Interesting suggestion for commission structure. We thought that people would not be willing to pay commission from winning bets, but we might be wrong. Suggest it in the feedback box (right top corner of every page) and people can vote on it.
* Right now we require both a submission fee and a minimum bet. I think it is fair to ask for submission fee, because we spend time on every submission and it may not generate losing bets. Also we want to make sure that people will think of controversial statements that may attract 2BTC on both sides.
* Standings or bet history is also something I can not promise for soon. We want to make things as anonymous as possible. But feedback voting box is there for a reason.
* Use your best judgment for prohibited bets. Obviously we will not allow assassination statements, but we have no problem with betting on individual stock values. Our volume is not high enough to justify any insider trading yet.
* Arbitrage is something that would only make the market more efficient.
* As I said, for many things you can ask for community voting in our feedback box.

Bring on more suggestions. We love it.