Bets of Bitcoin - Bitcoin betting on real world events

[HostFat]

VALVe will release Half-Life 2 Episode 3 by the end of 2013
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=369

I think that it can be a good idea to open many new statements about pc gaming. ( and spam them around )
This because it's easy to open flames/discussions about these topics, so it will give a lot of advertising about Bitcoin.
More over, every pc-player has for sure a good GPU

[Sukrim]

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=348 was already fulfilled yesterday or so (you'll need to check the timestamp).

Announcement of dividends:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63257.msg880893#msg880893

Could we have a "report" button somewhere maybe?

I anyways have some (imho quite cool) ideas that would make the page even better, but you seem to ignore the requests on http://betsofbitcoin.uservoice.com so far anyways. Are you still working on the page or is development currently at a halt?

[coinjedi]

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=348 was already fulfilled yesterday or so (you'll need to check the timestamp).

Announcement of dividends:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63257.msg880893#msg880893

Could we have a "report" button somewhere maybe?

Thanks. Late bets are cancelled and winners are paid.

I anyways have some (imho quite cool) ideas that would make the page even better, but you seem to ignore the requests on http://betsofbitcoin.uservoice.com so far anyways. Are you still working on the page or is development currently at a halt?

Unfortunately all the time I can spend on this project is now consumed by judging and user interactions. I hope I'll get back to coding some time soon, but no promises. In the mean time you can leave your suggestions here.

[Sukrim]

I withdrew some "bitdust" (sub-bitcents) and now have a balance of "Available balance: -0.00050000 [Withdraw]". Kinda weird... It looks like it needed to pay some transaction fees but didn't deduct them from the amount sent or something.
I still have quite an amount of coins in bets, so no worries, the balance will soon be positive again. I'd kindly suggest though to deduct the fees from the amount sent, not the remaining balance (as this was 0.0 in my case).

By the way, since from that error with reversing bids and still having a wrong ending date I got these 3 bitcoins too much, I decided to place some bets that are probably loosing me these coins anyways but might make betting more interesting for others (e.g. the gas price bet: betsofbitco.in/item?id=329) instead of withdrawing and never looking back. I hope this helps making it more interesting to bet and you'll earn it back as commission anyways gradually.

[Sukrim]

Another bet won!

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=346 = True

Proof:
Official preliminary results:
http://landtagswahl-sh.de/extern_pdf/LTW_2012_Stichprobenergebnis_Zweitstimmen_19_38_Uhr.pdf (the statement in the end says that there's an error margin of 0.5% up or down)

Taken from http://www.landtagswahl-sh.de/ - the official page for the vote announcements.

[coinjedi]

I withdrew some "bitdust" (sub-bitcents) and now have a balance of "Available balance: -0.00050000 [Withdraw]". Kinda weird... It looks like it needed to pay some transaction fees but didn't deduct them from the amount sent or something.
I still have quite an amount of coins in bets, so no worries, the balance will soon be positive again. I'd kindly suggest though to deduct the fees from the amount sent, not the remaining balance (as this was 0.0 in my case).

By the way, since from that error with reversing bids and still having a wrong ending date I got these 3 bitcoins too much, I decided to place some bets that are probably loosing me these coins anyways but might make betting more interesting for others (e.g. the gas price bet: betsofbitco.in/item?id=329) instead of withdrawing and never looking back. I hope this helps making it more interesting to bet and you'll earn it back as commission anyways gradually.

Your balance is negative by design. We decided that users should get what they asked for and any transaction fee official client suggests would be applied to the account. If they want to withdraw everything they'll pay it next time or it will be on us as a last courtesy.

Thanks for investing back.

[coinjedi]

Another bet won!

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=346 = True

Proof:
Official preliminary results:
http://landtagswahl-sh.de/extern_pdf/LTW_2012_Stichprobenergebnis_Zweitstimmen_19_38_Uhr.pdf (the statement in the end says that there's an error margin of 0.5% up or down)

Taken from http://www.landtagswahl-sh.de/ - the official page for the vote announcements.

Thanks winners are paid.

[jtimon]

Would you rather bet on "Another large scale experimental collaboration will report faster-than-light particle speeds"? That might be a more reasonable bet.

Yes, seems more reasonable and I can still bet "against c".
Thank you for the tips.
More help to improve the bet is welcomed.

I am closing the statement you submitted in that case. You can submit a new one or discuss it here first.

Ok. I'll wait to see if someone wants to discuss here how a good bet about this could be made.

Another closed bet: http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=241 Sarkozy lost.

[Stephen Gornick]

In reading the Tweets for new bets, I somehow notice the bet statement as if it were a news item or statement of fact, and not a bet statement with two options.

For Example:

Bet: Greece will leave the Euro in 2012 http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=370 #bitcoin

- http://twitter.com/#!/betsofbitcoin/status/199679638841196544

What might help to make it more clear would be if there were appended some text to help point out that it is a bet.

e.g., I add [Agree or Disagree?]

Bet: Greece will leave the Euro in 2012 [Agree or Disagree?] http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=370 #bitcoin

Then it becomes a call to action.

[Sukrim]

I'm still amazed of my prediction skills - http://www.betsofbitco.in/item?id=333 (Bitcoin difficulty will be above 1.75 million at block #182000) was opened a month(!) ago and it's still not 100% clear where to put your money to earn a sure win.

It's likely to be true, but sipa's graphs currently point down a little bit...

[BIGMERVE]

Did betsofbitco.in get hacked too or is it just shut down for now?

EDIT: It was just not loading right in my browser. I panicked after the Bitcoinica issue. It's working fine for me now.

[Stephen Gornick]

Did betsofbitco.in get hacked too or is it just shut down for now?

There's a huge difference between a site not functioning due to technical problems and a site that has been compromised.

There's also a huge difference between a popular site with tons of paying customers versus a fledgling niche site like this whose revenues don't likely even cover the monthly hosting costs.

Was there something from this site that would give you any indication that it was compromised and thus make it justifiable to ask your question the way you did?

Or was it just like the 99.7% other small websites out there that are taken offline for scheduled or unscheduled maintenance, or where it wasn't able to respond as the result of some technical problem?

When just checking now, the site appears as normal.

[coinjedi]

Did betsofbitco.in get hacked too or is it just shut down for now?

Our server was up and running for quite a while. Though sometimes some domain name servers do not resolve the ip properly. Unfortunately the problem is sporadic, unreproducible and only effects certain parts of the world but usually solves itself after a few hours. Do you still have issues?

[BIGMERVE]

Sorry about that, It wasn't loading on my end this morning and with the whole bitcoincia issue I freaked. It's working fine for me now.

[coinjedi]

Sorry about that, It wasn't loading on my end this morning and with the whole bitcoincia issue I freaked. It's working fine for me now.

No worries. We are holding your bitcoins and you should know what is going on.

[Sukrim]

Another "get some free money" bet should be decided now:
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=247
http://www.buddytv.com/articles/survivor/survivor-one-world-finale-reca-45626.aspx

(there were only women in the finale anyways )

[coinjedi]

Another "get some free money" bet should be decided now:
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=247
http://www.buddytv.com/articles/survivor/survivor-one-world-finale-reca-45626.aspx

(there were only women in the finale anyways )

Bets after the last male eliminated are cancelled and the winners are paid.

[Sukrim]

Another "get some free money" bet should be decided now:
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=247
http://www.buddytv.com/articles/survivor/survivor-one-world-finale-reca-45626.aspx

(there were only women in the finale anyways )

Bets after the last male eliminated are cancelled and the winners are paid.

I'd like to challenge that, since there is a higher than 0% chance that there could be:

* No winner at all
* More than 1 winner
* A change in rules in the last show and declaring a male winner
*

Also, due to the fact that early bets are anyways rated higher (much higher in some cases) it actually IS expected, that in the end of a bet people get more and more information that helps them decide, but they get fewer and fewer returns.

From the FAQ (emphasis mine):

What is the best betting strategy?
Betting involves balancing two incentives. Waiting for the deadline may give you extra information about the upcoming event, but early bets earn a higher weight. So bet as soon as you are confident about the result, bet more for higher profits. Also you can always add more bets later on.

[coinjedi]

We think that we need to draw a line where the "fair" betting ends. This is unavoidably subjective, but we think that it is a better choice for an extra piece of mind of the earlier bettors. If we start to take into account of all the minuscule possibilities we can not exercise any early closure of bets. I hope you'll appreciate the decision.

[BIGMERVE]

This statement was supposed to be decided yesterday.  http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=361