The Art of Exploiting vs the Bad Habit of Scamming

[tyKiwanuka]

I guess everyone is aware of the Bitcasino incident, which was also discussed afterwards in this thread. This is a topic that I thought about a lot in the past and which is super interesting, with even philosophical tendencies. And I guess it's a hot topic, with lots of different opinions and emotions.

I will stick with exploiting vs scamming here to make it easier. There is probably a fine line between these two phrases, but there is also exploiting and exploiting, scamming and scamming.


1) Lets start with a simple example, a football match, which is offered by every bookmaker you can imagine. There is breaking news, that team A will miss a lot of their players due to a flu. Odds are dropping like crazy in all bookmakers, but there is one bookmaker that is slow and has bad software. While all bookmakers only offer 1.40-ish for team B anymore, that bookmaker still has the initial 2.00 for them. Is it ok to bet on this 2.00 ? What if a bookmaker is constantly slow with adjusting odds and you could regularly do it ? Not for 2.00 -> 1.40, but maybe 2.00 -> 1.80.

2) By accident you discover that a bookmaker allows to parlay 1X2 and Asian Handicap market, which is of course a software issue. So you could parlay home win with AHC -0.5 for all kind of matches, which will give you good value odds. Is it ok to parlay these two dependant bets ?

3) This is the quote from user LAngel from that thread above (can't quote properly, because thread is locked)

there was a cheat where if you activate bonus bet, and spin until you get the 5-hit fish bonus, and immediately restart the game before stopping the symbol selector whee, your session will continue as if you had the bonus bet on (extra bonus chance) but not have to pay double for spins anymore that entire session.

Is it ok to take advantage of this software issue in general ? For $20 ? For $500k ? (Leave aside the fact, that LAngel played with "cheated" money).

4) Lets say I have a trading bot (in betting or crypto exchange) and this bot goes wild due to misprogramming and I lose loads of money. Are all these users filling my orders scammers, when it's obvious that these prices are wrong ?

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What of the above is an exploit and what is a scam ? Where does an exploit start and a scam begin ? Are you clever or a cheater when doing this ? Is it more ok to do it for $10 than for $10,000 or $1.5mln like LAngel did ? Is it more ok to do it with a supposedly rich casino/bookmaker ?

-

And what about fixed matches ? These matches do exist, every day there is match fixing, but most of the time we gladly don't know or aren't aware. If you (get to) know about a fixed match and bet on it, does that make you a scammer/cheater ?


Gambling is a (most of the time unfair) competition in the end. Should the "software factor" be completely called immoral and unethical behaviour, when you take advantage of it ? If there is a line for you, where is it ?

There is way more to this discussion imo, but I will leave this as a start and we can work out more as this thread evolves (hopefully).

I made this thread self-moderated, because these kind of threads unfortunately get spammy very fast, with a lot of users just repeating things over and over.

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[20kevin20]

It's a very subjective thing.

1) Lets start with a simple example, a football match, which is offered by every bookmaker you can imagine. There is breaking news, that team A will miss a lot of their players due to a flu. Odds are dropping like crazy in all bookmakers, but there is one bookmaker that is slow and has bad software. While all bookmakers only offer 1.40-ish for team B anymore, that bookmaker still has the initial 2.00 for them. Is it ok to bet on this 2.00 ? What if a bookmaker is constantly slow with adjusting odds and you could regularly do it ? Not for 2.00 -> 1.40, but maybe 2.00 -> 1.80.

In my opinion, this is not a scam nor can it necessarily be called exploiting unless you know it's a software issue and are intentionally using it to your own advantage instead of contacting the casino about it. I don't think it'd be right for me to call you a criminal for doing something you had no idea of.

If Amazon lists a $1k item for $10 by mistake, it's not my fault for ordering it. In fact, Amazon has had such glitches before and admitted it was their mistake, proceeding with the delivery of the very cheap items. So in this case, it is the casino's fault.

2) By accident you discover that a bookmaker allows to parlay 1X2 and Asian Handicap market, which is of course a software issue. So you could parlay home win with AHC -0.5 for all kind of matches, which will give you good value odds. Is it ok to parlay these two dependant bets ?

I believe this is exploiting, although I am not 100% sure what this scenario is about.

Is it ok to take advantage of this software issue in general ? For $20 ? For $500k ? (Leave aside the fact, that LAngel played with "cheated" money).

No. Consciously taking advantage of a software issue is exploiting and scamming at the same time.

4) Lets say I have a trading bot (in betting or crypto exchange) and this bot goes wild due to misprogramming and I lose loads of money. Are all these users filling my orders scammers, when it's obvious that these prices are wrong ?

It's your fault. The buyers have no idea whether you wanted to sell your funds cheap or not and it's not their fault that you have misprogrammed that thing. Take it from another perspective: You go to an exchange and accidentally sell your ETH at $25 instead of $250. You clicked that Sell button yourself - is it your fault or is it those who bought your ETH so cheap to blame?

Where does an exploit start and a scam begin ?

An exploit begins when you consciously take advantage of something at one point and the scam begins when that "something" starts turning into a loss from your actions. Example: say Facebook has a limit of liking 100 posts per hour. You somehow manage to get unlimited likes and like 10k for 10 hours straight.

Facebook's servers are very strong and could handle your actions, but what if you find a glitch in a casino and can withdraw as much money as you want from it without having to deposit, so you take advantage of it and start withdrawing thousands of USD that isn't yours? The casino will start losing money because of you. That's scamming.

[tyKiwanuka]

Good post @20kevin20.

It's a very subjective thing.

It definitely is, thats why it's interesting to hear different opinions while I am myself are still struggling with this topic. I didn't completely make my mind up yet regarding this matter.

No. Consciously taking advantage of a software issue is exploiting and scamming at the same time.

It's your fault. The buyers have no idea whether you wanted to sell your funds cheap or not and it's not their fault that you have misprogrammed that thing. Take it from another perspective: You go to an exchange and accidentally sell your ETH at $25 instead of $250. You clicked that Sell button yourself - is it your fault or is it those who bought your ETH so cheap to blame?

I don't think I agree with this. ETH is probably a bad example, since even when you click the sell button for $25, you will get matched higher, unless you have gazillions of ETH and can bring the price down to $25 with it.
But lets assume there is a "naked" market in an exchange for ETH. The price everywhere else is $250 and my bot puts up ETH to sell for $25 in this naked market, because I missed a zero there maybe. Would you buy them ? According to first quote, you are exploiting/scamming (me), since you "consciously take advantage" of an obvious mistake - whether it's software based or manual misclick doesn't matter here imo. According to second quote, it's my fault and ok to buy them.

In both cases there is a software issue, but different entities.

2) By accident you discover that a bookmaker allows to parlay 1X2 and Asian Handicap market, which is of course a software issue. So you could parlay home win with AHC -0.5 for all kind of matches, which will give you good value odds. Is it ok to parlay these two dependant bets ?

I believe this is exploiting, although I am not 100% sure what this scenario is about.

You can for example bet on a home win in football in different manners. You can play the "1" for home win or AHC -0.5 - both are the same. If odds are 2.00 for both and you are able to parlay them, you will get 2.00 x 2.00 = 4.00 odds.

[20kevin20]

But lets assume there is a "naked" market in an exchange for ETH. The price everywhere else is $250 and my bot puts up ETH to sell for $25 in this naked market, because I missed a zero there maybe. Would you buy them ?

There have been instances where people have missed/misplaced a zero (or multiple zeros) and got wrecked because of it, so it's not necessarily something to happen only in naked markets.

I don't think you can blame someone for exploiting/scamming you because you have missed a zero though. That's like buying a lambo or a house from someone for 10x cheaper and being blamed for exploiting/scamming that person. You listed the coin, I wanted it. What should I be blamed for?

According to first quote, you are exploiting/scamming (me), since you "consciously take advantage" of an obvious mistake - whether it's software based or manual misclick doesn't matter here imo. According to second quote, it's my fault and ok to buy them.

There's a quite big difference between purchasing something cheaper than it was supposed to be and finding a website bug/glitch & using it to take money that isn't yours out of a website.

[kire - cryptzino]

1) Lets start with a simple example, a football match, which is offered by every bookmaker you can imagine. There is breaking news, that team A will miss a lot of their players due to a flu. Odds are dropping like crazy in all bookmakers, but there is one bookmaker that is slow and has bad software. While all bookmakers only offer 1.40-ish for team B anymore, that bookmaker still has the initial 2.00 for them. Is it ok to bet on this 2.00 ? What if a bookmaker is constantly slow with adjusting odds and you could regularly do it ? Not for 2.00 -> 1.40, but maybe 2.00 -> 1.80.

No. I will skip.

It's borderline. Bookie being slow is not my fault. Yet, the bookie will then cancel the bet anyway.

2) By accident you discover that a bookmaker allows to parlay 1X2 and Asian Handicap market, which is of course a software issue. So you could parlay home win with AHC -0.5 for all kind of matches, which will give you good value odds. Is it ok to parlay these two dependant bets ?

I would take it.

I'm betting on an outcome on the odds given by the bookie.

3) This is the quote from user LAngel from that thread above (can't quote properly, because thread is locked)

there was a cheat where if you activate bonus bet, and spin until you get the 5-hit fish bonus, and immediately restart the game before stopping the symbol selector whee, your session will continue as if you had the bonus bet on (extra bonus chance) but not have to pay double for spins anymore that entire session.

Is it ok to take advantage of this software issue in general ? For $20 ? For $500k ? (Leave aside the fact, that LAngel played with "cheated" money).[/quote]

I love exploiting everything 'within the conditions'.
If the conditions are set in my favor due misknowledge or else, it's not my problem.

Here we are talking about crossing the line and doing a pure scam.

I will pass 100%.

4) Lets say I have a trading bot (in betting or crypto exchange) and this bot goes wild due to misprogramming and I lose loads of money. Are all these users filling my orders scammers, when it's obvious that these prices are wrong ?

(note: talking about self-regulated markets like EtherDelta, Betfair, etc.)

I'm using bots (self-coded) for 90%+ of my bets and trading.

I have been on both sides - losing 3x10ETH in a matter of minutes because of my coding errors and placing orders on obsolete contracts, through many other errors, to bot explicitly made to catch errors in the market.

Nope, they are not scammers.

The market is not there to guard you. The market is there for opportunities - on both sides.

If X doesn't fill it, Y will - the (self-regulated) market is never forgiving in these situations. Both X or Y could be just better-programmed bots, not people trying to 'steal' from you.
 

[tyKiwanuka]

2) By accident you discover that a bookmaker allows to parlay 1X2 and Asian Handicap market, which is of course a software issue. So you could parlay home win with AHC -0.5 for all kind of matches, which will give you good value odds. Is it ok to parlay these two dependant bets ?

I would take it.

I'm betting on an outcome on the odds given by the bookie.

I am surprised by this answer, since I find this at the very least immoral. The difference between 2) and 3) is not that big on paper imo, and for 3) you clearly say "scam". You said:

If the conditions are set in my favor due misknowledge or else, it's not my problem.

....but if you can parlay 1X2 and AHC, I don't think you can assume "misknowledge or else" and thus it must be software issue (by human error, i.e. this being allowed to be parley'd). If it's really misknowledge, then that bookie should look for new personnel maybe Probably this is a bit apples and oranges with slots/betting though (?). Or I am not familiar enough with slots.

1) Lets start with a simple example, a football match, which is offered by every bookmaker you can imagine. There is breaking news, that team A will miss a lot of their players due to a flu. Odds are dropping like crazy in all bookmakers, but there is one bookmaker that is slow and has bad software. While all bookmakers only offer 1.40-ish for team B anymore, that bookmaker still has the initial 2.00 for them. Is it ok to bet on this 2.00 ? What if a bookmaker is constantly slow with adjusting odds and you could regularly do it ? Not for 2.00 -> 1.40, but maybe 2.00 -> 1.80.

No. I will skip.

It's borderline. Bookie being slow is not my fault. Yet, the bookie will then cancel the bet anyway.

If a bookie cancels a 2.00, when it's 1.80-ish everywhere else after a drop, then it's the bookie scamming imo. As you say, it's their fault and they should just take it on the chin and try to improve. I had information advantage and they can't punish me for that.
Even the 2.00 (that goes down to 1.40 in other places), I wouldn't expect to get cancelled, unless you put huge amounts on it. Did you experience these bets getting cancelled regularly ?

[serjent05]

It's a very subjective thing.

Is it ok to take advantage of this software issue in general ? For $20 ? For $500k ? (Leave aside the fact, that LAngel played with "cheated" money).

No. Consciously taking advantage of a software issue is exploiting and scamming at the same time.

Indeed it is a very subjective thing since this scenario cannot be called a scam.  It is under the boundary of exploitation. Since one of the definitions of scam is taking advantage of trust or ignorance of a person and steal from them for personal gain^[1].  I do not see any trust issue in this scenario.   


[1] https://support.gamigo.com/hc/en-us/articles/204183367-ArcheAge-Scamming-And-Exploiting

[Wexnident]

I would consider every situation as an exploit instead of scamming, that is, if the faulty software was found and was intentionally taken advantage of, just like how LAngel did from your quote did. I consider Exploiting and scamming as two sides of a coin tbh. Let's say A is the creator and B is the user, Exploit is when B takes advantage of whatever mistakes A made, intentionally. Scamming, on the other hand, could be said to be A taking advantage of B. Some examples could include making fake sites and taking advantage of the ignorance of B, they scam their money.

They both are basically the same in the essence of taking advantage of others, but the medium behind that advantage is different. Exploits take advantage of "mistakes" while scamming takes advantage of "ignorance". You can argue that mistakes and ignorance are the same, but ignorance only becomes a mistake once you know about it. If you were ignorant beforehand, it isn't a mistake, but rather ignorance.

Still, Scenarios may vary based on the situation by situation, just like what @20kevin20, it isn't wrong to call it subjective. Most often than not, those that lost something are the ones considered as "victims" and those that got something out of it are considered as the "bad guys", but there are cases that are not as such. What if both ignorance and mistake were filled in both of their cases? A made a "mistake" and B was "ignorant" of the mistake of A, who's at fault? The matter of ignorance is purely subjective though, so it may come off as B probably lying, but who the hell can tell us that right?

[Lakai01]

In my opinion, the boundaries between exploit and scam are clearly drawn. One must first look at what the two words actually mean:

An exploit (from the English verb to exploit, meaning "to use something to one’s own advantage") is a piece of software, a chunk of data, or a sequence of commands that takes advantage of a bug or vulnerability to cause unintended or unanticipated behavior to occur on computer software, hardware, or something electronic (usually computerized)

Source

"Scam" is defined as follows:

A confidence trick [also called scam] is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, irresponsibility, and greed.

Source

So with exploits I am dependent on someone else having made a mistake which I can now exploit. However, you had absolutely no influence on the fact that the error is also built in. This is different with a scam attack, where I try to get my victim to make a mistake, so I deliberately deceive him.

What the two have in common, however, is deliberately fraudulent behaviour. As an exploit user or a scamer, I am 100% aware that I am doing something wrong and that I am gaining an advantage in the wrong way. Someone who buys a watch set at $10 on Amazon that actually costs $1000 knows this just as well as someone who searches for victims of a scam attack in Telegram.

[Janation]

I will answer this honestly.

1) Lets start with a simple example, a football match, which is offered by every bookmaker you can imagine. There is breaking news, that team A will miss a lot of their players due to a flu. Odds are dropping like crazy in all bookmakers, but there is one bookmaker that is slow and has bad software. While all bookmakers only offer 1.40-ish for team B anymore, that bookmaker still has the initial 2.00 for them. Is it ok to bet on this 2.00 ? What if a bookmaker is constantly slow with adjusting odds and you could regularly do it ? Not for 2.00 -> 1.40, but maybe 2.00 -> 1.80.

I don't really depend on one bookmaker so I usually check others so I have no problem with this one.

2) By accident you discover that a bookmaker allows to parlay 1X2 and Asian Handicap market, which is of course a software issue. So you could parlay home win with AHC -0.5 for all kind of matches, which will give you good value odds. Is it ok to parlay these two dependant bets ?

I discovered it, so I will be using it. This is an exploit and not a scam.

3) This is the quote from user LAngel from that thread above (can't quote properly, because thread is locked)

there was a cheat where if you activate bonus bet, and spin until you get the 5-hit fish bonus, and immediately restart the game before stopping the symbol selector whee, your session will continue as if you had the bonus bet on (extra bonus chance) but not have to pay double for spins anymore that entire session.

Is it ok to take advantage of this software issue in general ? For $20 ? For $500k ? (Leave aside the fact, that LAngel played with "cheated" money).

I will definitely take advantage of it, again, this is an exploit, it is a cheat. But, I can tell you, I will never be able to sleep for a while that is why I can just say that  I will take advantage of it but, to be honest, I won't. Did I know this beforehand or I accidentally found it? Either way, I might take 1 bet or 2 before reporting this.

4) Lets say I have a trading bot (in betting or crypto exchange) and this bot goes wild due to misprogramming and I lose loads of money. Are all these users filling my orders scammers, when it's obvious that these prices are wrong ?

I think I will be frustrated but I agree with @kire - cryptzino


There is a fine line between a scam and an exploit explained by @Lakai01. And there are two types of people behind the exploit. The ones that would be taking advantage of it and the ones that would be reporting it. Though I can't exploit anything and I don't do scams since I am not that kind of guy. Maybe we can also put cheating in here since that is when people take advantage of the exploit they know or found.

[bitbollo]

1) Lets start with a simple example, a football match, which is offered by every bookmaker you can imagine. There is breaking news, that team A will miss a lot of their players due to a flu. Odds are dropping like crazy in all bookmakers, but there is one bookmaker that is slow and has bad software. While all bookmakers only offer 1.40-ish for team B anymore, that bookmaker still has the initial 2.00 for them. Is it ok to bet on this 2.00 ? What if a bookmaker is constantly slow with adjusting odds and you could regularly do it ? Not for 2.00 -> 1.40, but maybe 2.00 -> 1.80.

Well, bookmakers have the right to not pay a bet since it could be an error of listing or because they are suspecting a rigged match.
I mean, they feel free to adapt and making what they want since you're using their service and accepting a TOS.
Likewise in my country (ITALY) we have a monopole about betting so fixed rules to be accepted, no real competitions etc etc.
For what I have seen, when there is an issue like this you're just not payed.

2) By accident you discover that a bookmaker allows to parlay 1X2 and Asian Handicap market, which is of course a software issue. So you could parlay home win with AHC -0.5 for all kind of matches, which will give you good value odds. Is it ok to parlay these two dependant bets ?

I think that this is ok. It's very rare as error, and most of the times... they just don't pay

3) This is the quote from user LAngel from that thread above (can't quote properly, because thread is locked)

Forcing the website to obtain a specific condition, no should not be ok. And of course they can't just not payed you if they find you're cheating

4) Lets say I have a trading bot (in betting or crypto exchange) and this bot goes wild due to misprogramming and I lose loads of money. Are all these users filling my orders scammers, when it's obvious that these prices are wrong ?

Absolutely not. You offered your bet = your bet has been accepted by some other one.
Like betting in an horse @1000 . Most of the times this horse is already out, it's your problem if you decide to make this bet...
There is the remote chance of an error listing or like "Pardubice" game, many horses that are running and you decide to bet on underdog

I think there is always a common sense / ethical to be used. Respect rules, respect TOS, respect local laws.

Sometimes ago a website has quoted Parma (Italian football team) to go in lower series (Serie A to Serie B).
However it was ABSOLUTELY sure they will go in the lower series due strong economic issues (they were selling autobus used for the player and so on). Some bookmakers were quoting the same ... They don't read newspapers? Yes probably

[Upgrade00]

I would take the perspective of the gamblers in this situation. Are there any rules protecting them and their wagers?
Going through the ToS of so many gambling sites, they put in lots of leeway and wiggle room which allows them to legally protect themselves should a flaw in their system be exploited. So when such flaws are brought to light, mostly when a big win happens, they reserve the right to refuse to pay the player.
We should also consider that many players may have unintentionally played games (such as betting above the payable multiplier limit) that would have been otherwise rejected were they to have hit a huge winning due to there being a flaw, but as they didn't, there was no issue and their stakes were lost, so they were always going to lose either way.

Taking advantage of a obvious system error is no doubt unethical, but does it qualify as scamming, I don't think so, as intention cannot be judged easily.
• If I visited an ATM and it dispensed more cash that I requested and I kept the money without counting it, that should not be a scam as I wasn't aware and not in the habit of counting cash I receive from a machine.
• If I indeed counted it and still kept the money (thinking; my lucky day), this is open to discussion, but possibly an exploit.
• But if I counted it, kept the money and attempted several other times to cheat the machine, this should be outrightly fraudulent as I'm taking advantage of an obvious glitch repeatedly with intent to cheat. A scam.

Intent is important both on the part of the platform and the gambler.
• If the same machine were to be underpaying people who use it and the providers were aware but left it as most were not aware, up until a scammer comes along and exploits that flaw to their advantage, and at this point they whip out their user agreements. Have they been running a scam?

[tyKiwanuka]

Thanks for all your posts and opinions, I wish I had more merits to send And when it looks like I argue against your points/opinions, this is not personally against you and probably not even my own opinion, but to keep a discussion going and have different point-of-views, so don't be mad with me

Exploits take advantage of "mistakes" while scamming takes advantage of "ignorance". You can argue that mistakes and ignorance are the same, but ignorance only becomes a mistake once you know about it. If you were ignorant beforehand, it isn't a mistake, but rather ignorance.

This would actually mean that LAngel's case wasn't a scam, since Bitcasino knew about the software issue and even knew the person was a bad actor, as they stated:

This is not the first encounter we’ve had with this person and this was made crystal clear when we uncovered a 100% match to a previous user
who had been investigated and subsequently blocked for tampering with games.
(...)
Previously, this user managed to extract a large amount of BTC from ourselves and also hit a few other crypto casinos in a very similar manner.

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5260832.msg54754514#msg54754514

So maybe the very first attempt was a scam, but all things that happened afterwards probably not according to the above definition. Just remains the question, if he made the following "scams" with the "same cheated" money.

Well, bookmakers have the right to not pay a bet since it could be an error of listing or because they are suspecting a rigged match.
I mean, they feel free to adapt and making what they want since you're using their service and accepting a TOS.

Absolutely not. You offered your bet = your bet has been accepted by some other one.

And this is something, which I find kind of "unfair", if that makes any sense. I know there is no way around it, but it's the same scenario. It's just that I am a private person with no T&C and no possibility to cancel/void an accepted bet, while bookmakers are always protected by their T&C and can basically do anything they want. Something which @Upgrade00 stated as well.

I will definitely take advantage of it, again, this is an exploit, it is a cheat. But, I can tell you, I will never be able to sleep for a while that is why I can just say that  I will take advantage of it but, to be honest, I won't. Did I know this beforehand or I accidentally found it? Either way, I might take 1 bet or 2 before reporting this.

If you did a huge scam, there is always the question, if you actually could enjoy the money - I know for myself I couldn't.

Then one could also think about who the person is, who is scamming. If it's some poorer guy, who regularly scams smaller amounts from a (rich) casino site to feed some hungry mouths or send his kids to school, then a lot of people would probably be ok with it. If it's a person who has enough money (well, what is enough money) and just scams money to buy things he doesn't need, then most people wouldn't be ok with it I guess.

And then there would always be a judgement according to whom you actually harm with a scam. There surely is some difference in public opinion about scamming a bank, an insurance, a casino or a private person.

[nakamura12]

Base on the op, my opinion about what did that person do about the bonus is that it is almost the same as stealing since that person abuse the issue on the site instead of reporting it to the platforn or customer support. I even found someone who played on a site and found bugs, issue and later on found a bug and able to withdraw lots of money.

[kire - cryptzino]

2) By accident you discover that a bookmaker allows to parlay 1X2 and Asian Handicap market, which is of course a software issue. So you could parlay home win with AHC -0.5 for all kind of matches, which will give you good value odds. Is it ok to parlay these two dependant bets ?

I would take it.

I'm betting on an outcome on the odds given by the bookie.

I am surprised by this answer, since I find this at the very least immoral. The difference between 2) and 3) is not that big on paper imo, and for 3) you clearly say "scam". You said:

If the conditions are set in my favor due misknowledge or else, it's not my problem.

....but if you can parlay 1X2 and AHC, I don't think you can assume "misknowledge or else" and thus it must be software issue (by human error, i.e. this being allowed to be parley'd). If it's really misknowledge, then that bookie should look for new personnel maybe Probably this is a bit apples and oranges with slots/betting though (?). Or I am not familiar enough with slots.

This is the borderline I can accept. As a user, I'm betting on whatever they are giving me to. I'm not altering anything.

Nothing scammy as the 'reseting' of the session of the slot topic. The situation there is a pure scam, intentionally altering the site's environment using a bug.

1) Lets start with a simple example, a football match, which is offered by every bookmaker you can imagine. There is breaking news, that team A will miss a lot of their players due to a flu. Odds are dropping like crazy in all bookmakers, but there is one bookmaker that is slow and has bad software. While all bookmakers only offer 1.40-ish for team B anymore, that bookmaker still has the initial 2.00 for them. Is it ok to bet on this 2.00 ? What if a bookmaker is constantly slow with adjusting odds and you could regularly do it ? Not for 2.00 -> 1.40, but maybe 2.00 -> 1.80.

No. I will skip.

It's borderline. Bookie being slow is not my fault. Yet, the bookie will then cancel the bet anyway.

If a bookie cancels a 2.00, when it's 1.80-ish everywhere else after a drop, then it's the bookie scamming imo. As you say, it's their fault and they should just take it on the chin and try to improve. I had information advantage and they can't punish me for that.
Even the 2.00 (that goes down to 1.40 in other places), I wouldn't expect to get cancelled, unless you put huge amounts on it. Did you experience these bets getting cancelled regularly ?

Many years ago. I can't even remember the odds providers names.

I guess you are aware that almost all of the bookies are using one of the few odds providers on the market.

Back then, a particular provider was significantly slower (5+ minutes) than the rest and all bookies using it was 'going behind' the odds movements - ups or downs. Soon after many people started exploiting this, the bookies changed their TOS and started cancelling bets.

[bitbollo]

And this is something, which I find kind of "unfair", if that makes any sense. I know there is no way around it, but it's the same scenario. It's just that I am a private person with no T&C and no possibility to cancel/void an accepted bet, while bookmakers are always protected by their T&C and can basically do anything they want. Something which @Upgrade00 stated as well.

It can be sound as a silly difference, but this is the difference. When you bet in a bookmaker you're accepting their T&C. And these are designed to help and prevent at the most any loss for the house. We should remember each time that bookmaker are company that should have profit.
If it was very easy win with betting, no one was offering this kind of stuff.

Or as I have seen in my country (monopole) horse with odds of @1.00 ! Is it unfair? Yep is it!
Since if you win you get money back, if you lose ....
Also in my country some website have banned good better, or live corned due AML laws decide to avoid people to make large bets (over 500 euro).
They know very well that these type of better are very dangerous for their business, so they should find any excuse and exclude people from betting!
But is not for all. If you lose no one will complain, and you are allowed to place large bets.

[FlightyPouch]

Most of my answers on those numbered questions are the same as the others so I would start here.

What of the above is an exploit and what is a scam ? Where does an exploit start and a scam begin ?

I agree that there is this line between exploit and scamming and I guess it should not be exploiting but cheating. It is unfair for a scam to be compared with exploit since exploit can be ended with a good cause while scam is bad and it just ends there. A scam in gambling is usually on the part of the owner of the site like lying for that provably fair or maybe saying that there are supports 24/7 but they don't really care most of the time.

And what about fixed matches ? These matches do exist, every day there is match fixing, but most of the time we gladly don't know or aren't aware. If you (get to) know about a fixed match and bet on it, does that make you a scammer/cheater ?

You are a cheater. That is an exploit in your side, those players are the scammers since people think they are playing seriously but they are not. @Lakai already said it and these team or group are scamming those people usually for the sake of money.

Gambling is a (most of the time unfair) competition in the end. Should the "software factor" be completely called immoral and unethical behaviour, when you take advantage of it ? If there is a line for you, where is it ?

Well, that is cheating and that is just unethical behaviour since you take advantage of it but if not, then that is just good, you know. This depends though on how you found that exploit, right? If you did some hacking and dived to their system, then that is just immoral and unethical behavior but still could end up good, isn't it since we have a white hat and a black hat hackers. As @Upgrade00 said, the intent is both important on two sides since that usually will be the deciding factor of whether they will be taking advantage of it or not.

[swogerino]

I don’t know any casino yet that let’s you use both moneyline bet combined with asian handicap in a single bet.That is called cheating as you are artificially raising the odds for the same type of bet and event.You can of course bet moneyline plus over goals in a single bet and almost all casinos allow this.

Exploiting and scamming looks a lot to me like whitehat hackers and blackhat hackers.A person who can find an exploit can choose to tell it for money being a whitehacker in this case or trying to cheat from this exploit and being a blackhat hacker.From what I have seen in the world there are a lot more blackhat hackers unfortunately.

[target]

LAngel situation is funny but I will take it as an exploit but he should be paid for the winnings he got.

But then the casino investigated and the situation changed because it was found out the BTC he bet is actually from the casino itself. If it weren't investigated and probably he won just 0.5 to 1BTC, there wouldn't be any digging about his history but he will get paid. 

Anyway, exploiting and scamming has a fine line between them. An organization will likely pay the person who exploits the bug or even hire them for being a genius to which the casino also painted him as a genius. Now the casino is more prepared for that kind of exploit.

[tyKiwanuka]

Back then, a particular provider was significantly slower (5+ minutes) than the rest and all bookies using it was 'going behind' the odds movements - ups or downs. Soon after many people started exploiting this, the bookies changed their TOS and started cancelling bets.

...which is pathetic imo They (the provider) should have just fixed the issues on their end, instead of kind of forcing their customers to bully their customer/punters then. But I guess the bookies liked that "tool" in the end


Another scenario, which would only work in smaller markets/sports though:

You have a flagged and heavily limited account in a bookmaker. Early odds come out, player A vs player B, 1.80 - 2.00. You want to bet on player B, but with higher odds. So with your flagged account you bet on player A multiple times max stake (because of the limit, you can't stake a lot though). Odds move of course, and are maybe 1.60 - 2.40 then. That is when a friend of you with unflagged/unlimited account places max bet on that 2.40.

Into what kind of category would that fall ? Exploit ? Scam ? Market manipulation ?

[kire - cryptzino]

...

Another scenario, which would only work in smaller markets/sports though:

You have a flagged and heavily limited account in a bookmaker. Early odds come out, player A vs player B, 1.80 - 2.00. You want to bet on player B, but with higher odds. So with your flagged account you bet on player A multiple times max stake (because of the limit, you can't stake a lot though). Odds move of course, and are maybe 1.60 - 2.40 then. That is when a friend of you with unflagged/unlimited account places max bet on that 2.40.

Into what kind of category would that fall ? Exploit ? Scam ? Market manipulation ?

Bookies are not balancing their books like that.

E.g., You cannot move the odds so easily, especially with a limited account and small bets.

Most of the flagged and heavily limited accounts have limits of 1$/€, max 5$/€.

If you want to pick a tendency, you could try NBA/NHL games where odds are usually moving in one direction for hours and green it in an exchange.

IF you want to watch a roller coaster - check the horses

BTW I would appreciate your opinion here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5261890.0

Thanks

[tyKiwanuka]

Bookies are not balancing their books like that.

E.g., You cannot move the odds so easily, especially with a limited account and small bets.

You can I am talking about niche markets here and early odds. I experienced it myself, without doing anything bad. It was just a super value bet (in my eyes), so I placed max bet multiple times in a short period of time and after each bet, the odds went down automatically.

The bookmakers use flagged accounts all the time to help them shape their (early) odds, before they up the general limit. Same reason why SBO changed their policy/limits some time ago, they get cheap information from the sharps that way. But you can't put the limits too low or they are not interested anymore. So your $1-$5 limit is somewhat correct, but the very good books limit their best players just to the point, where they will still stick around. They are very valuable to them.

[Steamtyme]

1) Lets start with a simple example, a football match, which is offered by every bookmaker you can imagine. There is breaking news, that team A will miss a lot of their players due to a flu. Odds are dropping like crazy in all bookmakers, but there is one bookmaker that is slow and has bad software.

I don't see anything wrong here. This is more of a level of service issue than anything. Especially so if they are consistently lagging in updating, this would be a glaring issue they would have to blatantly ignore. There could be any number of reasons for it, and would be something I expect them as a business operator to rectify and/or adapt to. I say that s this would be glaringly obvious to them, and not some random secret issue that could go unnoticed.

2) By accident you discover that a bookmaker allows to parlay 1X2 and Asian Handicap market, which is of course a software issue. So you could parlay home win with AHC -0.5 for all kind of matches, which will give you good value odds. Is it ok to parlay these two dependant bets ?

I don't wager often, so I don't get the logistics behind this. My take is that you run it once, make sure there is an exploit and prove it. You then contact their team and explain and prove it to them. Beyond that you are taking a hidden exploit and turning it into a scam. Not many people would be able to take advantage of it and if you attempt to be stealthy this could carry on for a long term.

3) Is it ok to take advantage of this software issue in general ? For $20 ? For $500k ? (Leave aside the fact, that LAngel played with "cheated" money).

No. I place this in the same category as #2. Try it prove it and then contact support to make them aware of it. If you go beyond that and attempt to game it for yourself you are knowingly attempting to turn an exploit into a scam.

4) Lets say I have a trading bot (in betting or crypto exchange) and this bot goes wild due to misprogramming and I lose loads of money. Are all these users filling my orders scammers, when it's obvious that these prices are wrong ?

In trading that would be on you, you are trusting your software to make decisions for you. No one is tricking it with a series of commands or events to make it do something outside of designed operation.

I feel the moment you discover something that is hidden and use this to manipulate the odds in your favor you are acting unethically and in bad faith. It crosses some lines and I would expect casinos and bookmakers to refuse service to individuals who abuse these hidden exploits without reporting them.

You have a flagged and heavily limited account in a bookmaker. Early odds come out, player A vs player B, 1.80 - 2.00. You want to bet on player B, but with higher odds. So with your flagged account you bet on player A multiple times max stake (because of the limit, you can't stake a lot though). Odds move of course, and are maybe 1.60 - 2.40 then. That is when a friend of you with unflagged/unlimited account places max bet on that 2.40.
Into what kind of category would that fall ? Exploit ? Scam ? Market manipulation ?

This depends. Are you taking a share of your friends profits. If so I feel this is 2 individuals manipulating and attempting to scam a bookmaker. If your friend happened to place a bet after you mentioned something along the lines of wishing you had been able to get those odds, then that's them using information for their own gain - not having participated in getting the odds manipulated.

Personally if they aren't offering the odds you want and can't find them elsewhere the spot doesn't exist. Fabricating it through betting and exploiting that using a different account makes this unethical imo. It's really no differnt than you just having an alt account to circumvent their TOS.

[Upgrade00]

Into what kind of category would that fall ? Exploit ? Scam ? Market manipulation ?

Sounds so much like a pump and dump scheme.
There was intent in this case to move the odds in their favour assuming both individuals were working together. It would count as market manipulation to me. An exploit would be taking advantage of an existing flaw. A scam would be to use dubious and sometimes criminal means to cheat a system.
Bookies can protect themselves with their ToS in different situations, and they make it as wide as possible to leave then enough wiggle room, so players can as well push the very limits to swing the odds to their favour. When both parties get too close to the edges, it could be outrightly unethical, but isn't a scam imo.

There is however a thin line between, scamming and manipulating and there would be diverse opinions on this.

[SyGambler]

a nice discussion really
overall I don't count odds delay as an abuse but I try to avoid them as much as I can just because most likely my account will be super limited by taking such bets
at the end all sportsbetting sites have rules and they can void the bets whenever they want so sometimes books can be  unfair with their customers as well
also if we count this as an abuse then arbitrage may be considered the same as well , for me both are fine and as I said the books can always use their void sword so bettors aren't breaking any rules

the 2nd and 3rd ones are abuses and should be reported , never seen the 2nd one happening tho

the trading one is normal , the other traders aren't responsible for others' mistakes and they may be using bots as well
overall I can't see how this can happen , even if you put small orders the exchange should be matching you with the highest buy orders
unless you are doing it with a small coin and that can be explained as a try to dump the market and get rid of that coin

[serjent05]

• But if I counted it, kept the money and attempted several other times to cheat the machine, this should be outrightly fraudulent as I'm taking advantage of an obvious glitch repeatedly with intent to cheat. A scam.

It is an exploit not a scam since it is a glitch/error of the machine.  It has been defined clearly from the posts before yours how scam and exploit are different. You can refer to Lakai01 since he clearly differentiates the two.

There was intent in this case to move the odds in their favour assuming both individuals were working together. It would count as market manipulation to me. An exploit would be taking advantage of an existing flaw. A scam would be to use dubious and sometimes criminal means to cheat a system.

when a system is involved, it is always portrayed as an exploit.  Cheating a system is not scamming but rather exploiting the flaw to one's owns advantage.

There is however a thin line between, scamming and manipulating and there would be diverse opinions on this.

The thin line between an exploit and scam is this explained well here

So with exploits I am dependent on someone else having made a mistake which I can now exploit. However, you had absolutely no influence on the fact that the error is also built in. This is different with a scam attack, where I try to get my victim to make a mistake, so I deliberately deceive him.

[Upgrade00]

...

You should read the contents of my reply. I never said it was a scam but manipulation. An exploit would be finding a glitch, but when you create it yourself it's manipulation, imo at least.
I was sharing similar ideas as the reply you linked, but with different words;

There was intent in this case to move the odds in their favour assuming both individuals were working together. It would count as market manipulation to me. An exploit would be taking advantage of an existing flaw. A scam would be to use dubious and sometimes criminal means to cheat a system.

[Lakai01]

the trading one is normal , the other traders aren't responsible for others' mistakes and they may be using bots as well
overall I can't see how this can happen , even if you put small orders the exchange should be matching you with the highest buy orders
unless you are doing it with a small coin and that can be explained as a try to dump the market and get rid of that coin

There are already scenarios where this could happen.
Many of the bots are self-developed and adapted to best suit the trading behavior of the bot-owner.

A simple bug that could lead to the loss of a lot of money would be, for example, a comma error. In German-speaking countries, for example, 10k is written like this:

10.000,00

In English-speaking countries in particular, however, the exact opposite is true:

10,000.00

If you as a developer make a mistake and you place a sell order for 1 BTC for 10 dollars instead of 10k dollars, this is a rather painful loss. In the early days of the Exchanges you have seen something like this in the order books from time to time, e.g. on bitcoin.de, where coins were set at 10% of the market price - and the orders were of course filled immediately

But I'm with you on this: It's definitely no "offence" of the buyer if someone places such a sell order.

[tyKiwanuka]

4) Lets say I have a trading bot (in betting or crypto exchange) and this bot goes wild due to misprogramming and I lose loads of money. Are all these users filling my orders scammers, when it's obvious that these prices are wrong ?

In trading that would be on you, you are trusting your software to make decisions for you. No one is tricking it with a series of commands or events to make it do something outside of designed operation.

I agree with that of course

But lets look at it from the the other side. You see a 10 BTC sell order in a self-regulated exchange for $100 per BTC and you buy them. Would you feel good about it ? Would you consider this behaviour ethical ? If you don't buy them, then another user will buy them. Would you hesitate to buy them to not have any compunction ?

Does it make any difference, if you actively buy them or just had a order in the market that mysteriously got filled ?

the 2nd and 3rd ones are abuses and should be reported , never seen the 2nd one happening tho

I never saw it for 1X2 and AHC too, but there was for example a bookmaker in the past, where in Formula 1 you could parlay odds for winner & Top3 market. When I told them, they never got back to me and didn't even fix it.

[SyGambler]

I never saw it for 1X2 and AHC too, but there was for example a bookmaker in the past, where in Formula 1 you could parlay odds for winner & Top3 market. When I told them, they never got back to me and didn't even fix it.

Well you did your part then and they are just careless
this has happened with me in another site where I reported a feature that can make players have frequent +EV bets , they said they will study it and get back to me
well they never replied back but they changed their ToS and made it that they have the right to cancel that feature for bettors whenever they want 

[serjent05]

But lets look at it from the the other side. You see a 10 BTC sell order in a self-regulated exchange for $100 per BTC and you buy them. Would you feel good about it ? Would you consider this behaviour ethical ? If you don't buy them, then another user will buy them. Would you hesitate to buy them to not have any compunction ?

If it was me, I would feel good because I got a huge discount and I don't see any wrong on that action. In the sense of being ethical, I believe it is because the buyer bought it legally.  This case is almost the same as seeing money on the street and picking it up not knowing who lost it.  The only difference is that we know that the seller intends to sell that BTC, whether there is a price error or not is out of my concern, I do not forced or trick him to sell at such low price so why would I feel that I wronged him.

Does it make any difference, if you actively buy them or just had a order in the market that mysteriously got filled ?

It does in a sense of awareness. 

[hatshepsut93]

4) Lets say I have a trading bot (in betting or crypto exchange) and this bot goes wild due to misprogramming and I lose loads of money. Are all these users filling my orders scammers, when it's obvious that these prices are wrong ?

When you trade on an exchange, the orders might be placed long before they get executed, so in your scenario of bot malfunction, it's more like you are mistakenly fulfilling someone's orders, rather than the vice versa, so it's not a scam.

As for exploiting and scamming, strictly speaking, scamming is using persuasion to trick humans, while exploiting is using flaws of the software to steal something. They are both bad, obviously. Sometimes people passively benefit from software flaws, like receiving double orders for the price of one - in that case a honest person should notify their counterparty about their mistake.

[Lakai01]

But lets look at it from the the other side. You see a 10 BTC sell order in a self-regulated exchange for $100 per BTC and you buy them. Would you feel good about it ? Would you consider this behaviour ethical ? If you don't buy them, then another user will buy them. Would you hesitate to buy them to not have any compunction ?

Does it make any difference, if you actively buy them or just had a order in the market that mysteriously got filled ?

I personally would hesitate so long (because I just couldn't believe it) until the order is fulfilled by someone else who would be less worried about whether all this is true

But I see the subtle difference just like you do. Actively fulfilling the order and taking advantage of someone's "mistake" is much harder than having the order filled automatically by a bot, for example. The latter would make me happy, the former I would most likely just not do.

[Kakmakr]

I think where the situation got a little muddy with  LAngel and Bitcasino was that he did not cheat Bitcasino.io... but rather cheated on another site where he exploited a weak point and then he used that money to gamble at Bitcasino.io

So it makes this case a bit more complex, because the question is... Can they void your winnings, if you did not exploit a bug on the casino where you won the jackpot, but you used money to bet on that casino that you exploited on another gambling site.

I think legally you stand no chance in court to justify your case, if you used any money that was gained illegally through any means. Whatever gives you a unfair advantage over the "house" and other players, should be deemed illegal.    (Bots are mostly based on skill, like they are doing on that "Seuntjies" site, so if your skill in bots are superior and it is allowed on the site, then I do not think it is wrong.)  

[tyKiwanuka]

Sometimes people passively benefit from software flaws, like receiving double orders for the price of one - in that case a honest person should notify their counterparty about their mistake.

Here you could have different layers/scenarios again. Lets assume this is just a one-time glitch and not something you can exploit again.

If your order was for $5 and through this glitch you got $5 on top. Would you want to give the money back no matter what ? I think most people would take the extra $5 and move on. Now if you got $100k plus $100k, this is a different ball game. There is an individual threshold with being "honest" and the higher the amount, the more likely you will be honest imo.

The latter would make me happy, the former I would most likely just not do.

I think 99,99% would take the 10 BTC. You see the opportunity and grab it in the heat of the moment, without thinking too much, this is just normal human behaviour (when you know someone else would do it, if you don't do it). And it's anonymous. The interesting thing is what happens afterwards - I guess the overwhelming majority would feel guilty and even try to somehow give the money/BTC back to the rightful owner. I could even imagine a scenario, where you put the BTC up again for $100 and let someone else deal with those feelings

-

Some years ago there was a Youtuber, who made some tutorial about a wallet installation or whatever. He had a good stack and was cautious, as you should be, by blurrying his private keys for the video. But when he minimized a window, his private keys were visible for the split of a second. One viewer wrote down the keys, imported them into his wallet and send the funds away. Not for stealing them, but to protect them and give them back to the Youtuber. Very proactive, noble and honest

[hatshepsut93]

If your order was for $5 and through this glitch you got $5 on top. Would you want to give the money back no matter what ? I think most people would take the extra $5 and move on. Now if you got $100k plus $100k, this is a different ball game. There is an individual threshold with being "honest" and the higher the amount, the more likely you will be honest imo.

It's true that the size of mistake plays a large role, and people know that often times when a mistake is small, the company might not even respond to them, so it's not worth the effort to notify them. But with smaller business, it can be really important to disclose such incidents, because these mistakes might be vulnerabilities that can cause serious damage to them. And in our case, I think all crypto casinos are still rather small, and since some of them have public bankrolls, it's better to not ignore such things if you encounter them.

[Steamtyme]

But lets look at it from the the other side. You see a 10 BTC sell order in a self-regulated exchange for $100 per BTC and you buy them. Would you feel good about it ? Would you consider this behaviour ethical ? If you don't buy them, then another user will buy them. Would you hesitate to buy them to not have any compunction ?
Does it make any difference, if you actively buy them or just had a order in the market that mysteriously got filled ?

Well i can't imagine a scenario when that would be possible. Might be because I don't trade or know what happens if someone places an order insanely lower than the market price.

All things being equal and I'm first to have the chance. Here is how I'd go about it. I'd buy them, and would feel good about it. Not because I got a deal, but because my first reaction is going to be to contact the exchange support stating I think there was an error, and ask them to contact the seller. This is why I would buy them because I know how I would proceed, and don't have enough faith in the rest of humanity to do the same.

If nothing comes of it and support either doesn't hear back or at all from the seller then great for me, if not then they get their coins and I take my $1000 back. I try to operate in the digital arena the same as I would irl, and this reminds me of someone clearing out their kids stuff and having some random valuable that they have no idea it's actual worth. Some businesses will work out a fair market price, others will low ball it and then reap the rewards.

Again not knowing the intricacies of placing orders for trades, and how I would get an order filled that far below market while others would be passed over; it's hard to comment on. I feel it would be a similar situation for me though. I would check in to see if there was an error and sort it out in a manner that seems fair.

I get why some may think it's okay to do things another way and grab a 100K score off someones error, but that's not me. I'd love to have a score like that but not by directly taking it out of the pockets of someone else.

[deisik]

4) Lets say I have a trading bot (in betting or crypto exchange) and this bot goes wild due to misprogramming and I lose loads of money. Are all these users filling my orders scammers, when it's obvious that these prices are wrong ?

This seems to be a good place to start out (you should have probably made it #1 item in the list)

It is obvious that traders filling your orders are unaware of the fact that your bot went nuts. Moreover, they themselves may be using bots. In this way, you can't call them scammers or cheaters. And even if it looks like something went totally wrong on your side, there is no certainty of that. To sum it up, in trading the answer is pretty straightforward. You cannot call scammers those people who are filling your allegedly wrong orders as there's no knowing

Indeed, it is more complicated with casinos as little doubt arises when something is totally off, e.g. when you start winning all of a sudden and that is definitely not due to a streak of luck. With that in mind, there are two major choices to be made. If you consider the casino in point as a legit and honest one, then exploiting the bug will be cheating (I don't think scamming is an appropriate term here). However, if they are themselves scammers (e.g. refuse to pay out jackpots or anything to that effect), then cheating on them can be morally justified (as I see it)

[tyKiwanuka]

However, if they are themselves scammers (e.g. refuse to pay out jackpots or anything to that effect), then cheating on them can be morally justified (as I see it)

Yep, something I had in my mind for discussion too at a later point. Like does scamming a scammer make you a scammer yourself ? From the general answers so far in this thread, I would assume that most users would be ok with doing it and you are no scammer per se, more like a modern Robin Hood maybe. But then again, a lot of users showed high moral standards (which is good) and even scamming a scammer is not easy to square with your conscience. You either have it kind of in your DNA or not imo and feel bad for doing it yourself, no matter the circumstances. Technically it will be hard anyway, since they are pro with scamming most of the times and you are not.   

[Lakai01]

Technically it will be hard anyway, since they are pro with scamming most of the times and you are not.  

I honestly wouldn't be so sure. Most of the scamers don't work alone but in a group, where they get orders from their bosses including scripts, what to say/write in which situation and they just play the scripts. There was a documentary about it on german television, I can link to it if you are interested.

There are also a lot of "Scam the scammer" videos on Youtube and co. where exactly such cases are shown, where the scammers themselves were tricked:



Source: Google Search

Some of them are really funny to watch, but some also leave you sad when you realize that the scamers only do this because they were ordered to do so ...

[iTradeChips]

In the case of the software glitches, it really depends on the intention of the user if he wants to take advantage of it or report it to the website or casino software developer. But I really don't think that it is a scam because the user did not use any deceptive action to gain the trust of someone so he can get their money. Some would call the glitch a bug which then blames the developer for having the bug in the first place. I don't see the software issues as a scam but rather software issues that is being, wait for it...EXPLOITED by the users.

[deisik]

However, if they are themselves scammers (e.g. refuse to pay out jackpots or anything to that effect), then cheating on them can be morally justified (as I see it)

Yep, something I had in my mind for discussion too at a later point. Like does scamming a scammer make you a scammer yourself ? From the general answers so far in this thread, I would assume that most users would be ok with doing it and you are no scammer per se, more like a modern Robin Hood maybe. But then again, a lot of users showed high moral standards (which is good) and even scamming a scammer is not easy to square with your conscience. You either have it kind of in your DNA or not imo and feel bad for doing it yourself, no matter the circumstances. Technically it will be hard anyway, since they are pro with scamming most of the times and you are not

I see your point

You basically say that to scam a scammer still requires you to be a scammer deep down inside ("to have it in your DNA") even if it can be justified on some moral high ground. However, if it is a good thing in its own right and serves a good end, you might try to reframe it. For example, disobeying an unlawful order:

Not only should an unlawful order not be obeyed, obeying such an order can result in criminal prosecution. Military courts have long held that military members are accountable for their actions even while following orders

The trick "I was only following orders" doesn't work out in most cases. And we can draw some parallels here, i.e. not scamming a scammer when you are able to pull it off can be thought of as being involved in the scam. If you look at it from this angle, your conscience should remain clean and intact

[semobo]

In the case of the software glitches, it really depends on the intention of the user if he wants to take advantage of it or report it to the website or casino software developer. But I really don't think that it is a scam because the user did not use any deceptive action to gain the trust of someone so he can get their money. Some would call the glitch a bug which then blames the developer for having the bug in the first place. I don't see the software issues as a scam but rather software issues that is being, wait for it...EXPLOITED by the users.

Its not okay to take advantage of the glitches if its violates their laws and most of the gambling ToS says they have rights to hold the rewards if it happens mistakenly so the player will complain here it as scam if they didn't paid as regular rewards.When the site failed to detect the issue before the money gets withdrew then the site can't claim it as scam done from the player side.

[deisik]

But I really don't think that it is a scam because the user did not use any deceptive action to gain the trust of someone so he can get their money. Some would call the glitch a bug which then blames the developer for having the bug in the first place. I don't see the software issues as a scam but rather software issues that is being, wait for it...EXPLOITED by the users

It is not scamming in the strict sense

But the terminology used is still mostly a matter of convention. You could call it, for example, cheating. In this manner, the person who found a bug and took advantage of it toward his monetary gain could justify his actions by appealing to the very advantage of the casino itself over the players, that is to say, the house edge. He could think something like "they have an advantage over us anyway, and by rigging the odds in my favor, I just set the things straight as they should be". Is it a legit excuse for milking a casino?

[tyKiwanuka]

He could think something like "they have an advantage over us anyway, and by rigging the odds in my favor, I just set the things straight as they should be". Is it a legit excuse for milking a casino?

House edge is fine imo and no excuse. The casinos have some costs and they are running a service that you actively choose to use, so they should get paid. What I dont like is, when they have super high house edge only because they are incapable of running their business properly or are simply greedy. Offline slots in pubs here often only have a payout of 60% - 70% and this is just rip-off imo, although there are higher running costs compared to an online casino. But they have big lobby, because their big profits also means big taxes and thus the state protects them kind of (and the state always struggles to get taxes from online casinos).

[deisik]

He could think something like "they have an advantage over us anyway, and by rigging the odds in my favor, I just set the things straight as they should be". Is it a legit excuse for milking a casino?

House edge is fine imo and no excuse. The casinos have some costs and they are running a service that you actively choose to use, so they should get paid. What I dont like is, when they have super high house edge only because they are incapable of running their business properly or are simply greedy. Offline slots in pubs here often only have a payout of 60% - 70% and this is just rip-off imo, although there are higher running costs compared to an online casino

That's definitely a rip-off

With that said, though, how can we be so sure that a 1% house edge is not a rip-off? We just feel that's kinda normal (read, small), but do we really know that for certain, as in justified true belief (the classical definition of knowledge), with emphasis on true? Has it never occurred to you why exactly the house edge is so small? Would it really be enough to cover the costs if it were only for the house edge and nothing else? If most profits actually come from the casino's bankroll as discussed in this thread (with which you must be familiar), then even a 1% house edge might be a rip-off, after all. And then things may start to look differently (to a cheater, at least)

[tyKiwanuka]

With that said, though, how can we be so sure that a 1% house edge is not a rip-off? We just feel that's kinda normal (read, small), but do we really know that for certain, as in justified true belief (the classical definition of knowledge), with emphasis on true? Has it never occurred to you why exactly the house edge is so small? Would it really be enough to cover the costs if it were only for the house edge and nothing else? If most profits actually come from the casino's bankroll as discussed in this thread (with which you must be familiar), then even a 1% house edge might be a rip-off, after all. And then things may start to look differently (to a cheater, at least)

In general I think a 1% house edge is fine, unless we know the turnover a certain casino has, because 1% can be huge or tiny profit. Since no casino will publish their turnover, I would then assume that it's not a rip-off, until I get those numbers. So to answer your question: Do we know for sure that it's not a rip-off ? No.

The house edge is so small, because casino will always win longterm - risk-free. Could it be even lower ? Probably, but without numbers hard to judge. I have no idea what it costs to run an online casino and what turnover you can generate. The sheer number of casinos popping up suggests they are making good money though; in a market that never seems to get saturated.

With this higher bankroll thing (link doesn't work btw), I already told you that it's too far from reality for me. Yes, you have your street games example, but everyone is free to have a higher bankroll than the house and you can't call people rip-off artists just for that.

[deisik]

With this higher bankroll thing (link doesn't work btw), I already told you that it's too far from reality for me. Yes, you have your street games example, but everyone is free to have a higher bankroll than the house and you can't call people rip-off artists just for that

Well, it's not about me, actually. I was just thinking like a cheater would (probably) think, following his possible train of reasoning. The truth is, it is not so much about being true or false in an objective sense but rather more about sounding plausible. Put differently, a would-be cheater is not so much concerned about finding the truth as about looking for an excuse that would justify his actions in a way that is acceptable to him personally

In a wider context, this is how our minds work internally. We may indeed look for objective evidence coupled with strict logical reasoning (aka formal proof), but whether we accept the conclusions we arrive at or decline them is essentially the same set of processes that guide a cheater in his pursuit of self-justification

The link should work now