Decentralized poker

[R2D221]

I was checking my old books, and found one called Game, Set and Math by Ian Stewart. I liked this as a kid because it had interesting math problems (although at the time I couldn't fully understand them).

I decided to check it, and found something interesting. In one chapter, two characters called Tweedledim and Tweedledumb discuss about playing poker by phone. They are worried that the other one can cheat, so they develop a trustless system with an asymmetric encryption, in such a way that one of them can shuffle and deal the cards without knowing which are which.

Obviously I didn't know Bitcoin when I was a kid (simply because it didn't exist), but now I do, and I find some similarities in the concepts. And seeing that Bitcoin is real and has worked for years (even if it's still economically unstable) I'm curious about this “poker by phone” idea.

Has anybody developed an actual implementation of a decentralized poker game (or any other kind of game, for that matter)? Or is there something wrong with the theory that would make this impossible?

[tkbx]

I doubt it would be possible. Using a hash function, you could keep track of whether someone has the cards they claimed to have before revealing them (similar in design to provably fair Bitcoin gambling sites), but I doubt there's a fair, trustless way to deal a deck of cards electronically.

[am]

I doubt it would be possible. Using a hash function, you could keep track of whether someone has the cards they claimed to have before revealing them (similar in design to provably fair Bitcoin gambling sites), but I doubt there's a fair, trustless way to deal a deck of cards electronically.

Sheldon Adelson would agree with you - he's trying to get everyone to forget online gaming for the real thing. I'd imagine it's technically possible, given the amount of money/brans in the online gaming space now. Legally, that's another issue...

[b!z]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_poker

[tkbx]

I doubt it would be possible. Using a hash function, you could keep track of whether someone has the cards they claimed to have before revealing them (similar in design to provably fair Bitcoin gambling sites), but I doubt there's a fair, trustless way to deal a deck of cards electronically.

Sheldon Adelson would agree with you - he's trying to get everyone to forget online gaming for the real thing. I'd imagine it's technically possible, given the amount of money/brans in the online gaming space now. Legally, that's another issue...

Fair online gambling is absolutely possible, I'm just not sure about poker between multiple people.

[am]

I doubt it would be possible. Using a hash function, you could keep track of whether someone has the cards they claimed to have before revealing them (similar in design to provably fair Bitcoin gambling sites), but I doubt there's a fair, trustless way to deal a deck of cards electronically.

Sheldon Adelson would agree with you - he's trying to get everyone to forget online gaming for the real thing. I'd imagine it's technically possible, given the amount of money/brans in the online gaming space now. Legally, that's another issue...

Fair online gambling is absolutely possible, I'm just not sure about poker between multiple people.

I guess the question regarding fairness involves minors and how one prevents them from playing online poker. (that's the debate right?)

[R2D221]

Well, my original post is more about the technical issues of playing online multiplayer games without a central server. Poker is the example given in the book, but I think any kind of game would be equally hard to implement in this way, wouldn't it?

I'm currently not interested in the legal implications of this (whether gambling is legal, minors are involved, etc.). That would be discussion for another post.

[b!z]

I think gweedo was actually trying to develop something like that a few months ago.