Bets of Bitcoin - Bitcoin betting on real world events

[coinjedi]

Over as well: http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=388

Done.
For not making the thread cluttered you can shoot a quick email to us at [admin at betsofbitco.in] for your notifications.

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[coinjedi]

Over as well: http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=388

Please add an "over" button to the bets so people stop spamming this thread with something that should be handled on the site. Seriously, you might want to have a consolidated view of all claims of a bet being over where people have to provide a link and a comment. Maybe you even want to give an incentive for the first to discover a bet being stale.

I've added this to our wish list. But in the mean time I'll ask people to email us directly instead of posting here.

[coinjedi]

272 is proven true.

I've closed betting but waiting for the publication before making the payments. For such notifications please email us at [admin at betsofbitco.in].

[giszmo]

Over as well: http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=388

Done.
For not making the thread cluttered you can shoot a quick email to us at [admin at betsofbitco.in] for your notifications.

Why not put a "it's over"-mail to link in the form until you have the real thing implemented? Should be much faster to implement than to educate all your users not to post in this thread

[Stephen Gornick]

I've noticed that gmail is particularly insistent that all messages from bets@betsofbitco.in get placed in my spam folder.  I "train" the filter by marking them "not spam", but the .in force is too strong or something else is causing it to remain flagged as spam.

Setting up SPF on your DNS might help the spam algorithm to more correctly identify the legitimacy of the message.

[JTurner]

I've noticed that gmail is particularly insistent that [...]

How about dropping Big Brother Google anyway? 

[rjk]

I've noticed that gmail is particularly insistent that all messages from bets@betsofbitco.in get placed in my spam folder.  I "train" the filter by marking them "not spam", but the .in force is too strong or something else is causing it to remain flagged as spam.

Setting up SPF on your DNS might help the spam algorithm to more correctly identify the legitimacy of the message.

That's weird, because all mine get through just fine on gmail. SPF is always a good idea, if it hasn't been done already.

[Stephen Gornick]

I've noticed that gmail is particularly insistent that [...]

How about dropping Big Brother Google anyway? 

With the SMTP protocol, e-mail is sent clear text.   Big Brother doesn't need Google's help to know which bet statements I've wagered on nor how much I suck at predicting future events. :-)

What I'ld like to see is Bitcoin merchants lead by offering an encrypted e-mail option.  I upload my GPG/PGP public key and the service uses that to encypt all messages sent to me.

[OgNasty]

I submitted what was the 2nd largest bet on the site and once it was over I got less than half a BTC in commission.  Sort of disappointing.  Perhaps I misunderstood the commission rates?

[giszmo]

Big Brother doesn't need Google's help to know which bet statements I've wagered on nor how much I suck at predicting future events. :-)

Hey, come on I would bet you do pretty fine on betsofbitcoin. Your posts often look like encyclopedia entries with 12 references for facts that I never heard of before.

Actually I would love to see an option to make my record public — with or without betting amounts. Wouldn't it be nice to brag about betting right 80% of the time? (Betting right = in this bet I made a profit)

[coinjedi]

I've noticed that gmail is particularly insistent that all messages from bets@betsofbitco.in get placed in my spam folder.  I "train" the filter by marking them "not spam", but the .in force is too strong or something else is causing it to remain flagged as spam.

Setting up SPF on your DNS might help the spam algorithm to more correctly identify the legitimacy of the message.

I'll look into SPF.

[coinjedi]

I submitted what was the 2nd largest bet on the site and once it was over I got less than half a BTC in commission.  Sort of disappointing.  Perhaps I misunderstood the commission rates?

Submitter gets 5% of the lost bets, which what we get as well. You can PM me if you think that our calculation is wrong. I'll fix it asap.

[Sukrim]

I submitted what was the 2nd largest bet on the site and once it was over I got less than half a BTC in commission.  Sort of disappointing.  Perhaps I misunderstood the commission rates?

If there are 1 million BTC bet on "true" and 10 BTC on "wrong" and "true" turns out to be the winner, only 10 BTC would get divided between bettors on "true", the site owner and the submitter.

I even lost quite some moey just by opening a bet and betting 1 BTC on each side to make it more interesting to bet in the first place - if the end result is more skewed than you initially think due to some external factors along the way, even with the "early comer" bonus it doesn't really pay off. It might work out with a exponential instead of linear function, but even this could turn out to be too punishing for early bets.

I still plan to analyze closed bets and see if it would be worthwile to "snipe" bets (e.g. bet 10 BTC always on the high end right before the time runs out) but I fear the simpler bet "pirateat40 won't default before I made back my initial deposit" is more lucrative and less risky to my funds than that.

[Stephen Gornick]

I submitted what was the 2nd largest bet on the site and once it was over I got less than half a BTC in commission.  Sort of disappointing.  Perhaps I misunderstood the commission rates?

Submitter gets 5% of the lost bets, which what we get as well. You can PM me if you think that our calculation is wrong. I'll fix it asap.

And this is why for most bet statements that I create I set the bet deadline as early as I can (i.e., a full 30-days before the event date).

For most events, when the event date approaches there is less and less risk to the better as the most-likely outcome becomes more and more certain.   So there are more bets occurring as the event date approaches but they do nothing for me, income-wise, as the creator of the statement as they are mostly likely to be on the winning side, which I get no commission for.  

[OgNasty]

I submitted what was the 2nd largest bet on the site and once it was over I got less than half a BTC in commission.  Sort of disappointing.  Perhaps I misunderstood the commission rates?

Submitter gets 5% of the lost bets, which what we get as well. You can PM me if you think that our calculation is wrong. I'll fix it asap.

Nothing is wrong.  Thanks for the explanation. 

[Frankie]

This is a cool site. The bet system seems obnoxious at first, but it's really clever. The effective odds of a bet decay over time, so there are diminishing returns as you wait--as it should be. Much simpler than a prediction market, and almost as fair.

I notice that you have unwound "post hoc" bets. Does this mean that if Mitt Romney announced a running mate tomorrow all of the bets after the announcement would be cancelled--or all of the bets after the previous day?

[Stephen Gornick]

I notice that you have unwound "post hoc" bets. Does this mean that if Mitt Romney announced a running mate tomorrow all of the bets after the announcement would be cancelled--or all of the bets after the previous day?

I believe any bets on the calendar day (a U.S. timezone) that the event occurred and any made after that day are all canceled.

[Stephen Gornick]

I have about a dozen bet statements currently, and have another dozen from the past that have expired.

A few get a pretty decent amount of participation, but even more have been very sparse -- not earning enough commission to even cover the entry fee (0.1 BTC).

Since all commission earned comes from the losing bets, it would make sense that a bet statement that is profitable is one that is interesting enough to attract bettors but also bets that are uncertain enough that there will be bettors on the losing side.

The most profitable one that I had so far was the one about gas prices.  At the time I placed the bet, gas prices were zooming.  It got over 10 BTC in bets saying the price would hit $4.25, and before the prices started dropping it got about 10 BTC on the Agree side.  When the price started dropping, there was almost no more betting on that side.    In the end, I got 0.55 BTC commission (5% of the 11 BTC wagered) for a couple minutes of work, and my bets placed were all on the winning side so I did OK, on a percent return basis.

So the financial success of a bet statement entirely comes from the ability to attract bets that ultimately are on the losing side.

Whomever wrote that one about BS&T defaulting by the end of the year will make out nicely ... up to 15 BTC commission no matter which way it ends is a nice reward for a few minutes of effort.

There are some regular financial bet statements ... like "the price of bitcoin will be X on a certain date" and those work as a low cost "binary option" that speculators like.  But there aren't many other topics that get a fair amount of bets.  There are a categories that get a lot of bet statements (e.g., sports, olympic results, etc.) but there's not a whole lot of wagering occurring with them.

Does anyone have any suggestions of categories of bets they would like to see?

[giszmo]

Or, maybe just clone some popular statements from Intrade ?

… and do arbitrage between these platforms if people bet differently here than there. Save way to win

[Bananington]

I just won 4.42BTC in a bet I made months ago! Haha.