SatoshiDICE.com - The World's Most Popular Bitcoin Game

[ribuck]

The limits are dynamically adjusted based on house funds, so at the time the limit was 50 but now it is 5

I think this is dangerous for the house, because the limit dynamically reduces immediately after any large payout.

Therefore, most of the largest bets are going to be ones that the house loses.

The tradeoff ribuck is that there is supposed to be guaranteed funds to payout any win, granted there have been problems with unconfirmed funds being used to payout wins, but they come through eventually.

If there was no dynamic limit and two big payoffs hit in close proximity then SatoshiDICE may be put in the position of having to say "Umm... we will have your money tomorrow" which would kill it's rep.

Oh I'm not advocating that they should accept bets that they may not be able to pay off. Just that if they were better capitalized, they could set a limit that is conservative (will probably never need to be dynamically reduced) yet high enough to engage the big players.

Unless I'm missing something in the maths of the dynamic limit, it's going to harm the business if the way it works isn't changed.

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[dooglus]

Unless I'm missing something in the maths of the dynamic limit, it's going to harm the business if the way it works isn't changed.

I think you're missing something in the maths.

The house edge is the same whatever the bet size, so the bet size doesn't hurt the expected house win rate, it just affects the risk of ruin.  And the risk of ruin is managed by dynamically adjusting the maximum bet size to only accept bets they can afford to lose.

If they only accept bets up to 100 when they can afford to (which makes sense) they still make 1.5% (or whatever the edge is these days - it's advertised differently in different places) on average each time they take a bet for 100 BTC.

By the way, here's where I saw it say the house edge is less than 1%:

[titeuf_87]

I've had some issues lately with transactions taking a long time to confirm and not showing in my wallet till they got confirmed, but I could still look them up on the website to see if I won or not.

But now I've encountered another issue: I've made a bet and it doesn't show up on the website, even though it does show up on blockchain.info and it's already confirmed:
blockchain transaction
link to satoshidice for that transaction

[eleuthria]

I've had some issues lately with transactions taking a long time to confirm and not showing in my wallet till they got confirmed, but I could still look them up on the website to see if I won or not.

But now I've encountered another issue: I've made a bet and it doesn't show up on the website, even though it does show up on blockchain.info and it's already confirmed:
blockchain transaction
link to satoshidice for that transaction

SD is going VERY slowly today, there's been quite a few bets that took a couple hours to actually get processed, but so far they all do eventually get processed.

[titeuf_87]

It got processed now. Yay

Was just weird that that one took so long to show up on the website, while I never had any problems with that before.

[dooglus]

It got processed now. Yay

Was just weird that that one took so long to show up on the website, while I never had any problems with that before.

I wonder if they're waiting to have enough confirmed funds to pay winners now to avoid the other problem that's been going on of paying out with funds that never confirm.

[Stephen Gornick]

I wonder the reason behind the business decision to limit bets to 5 BTC, even those in the under 32,000, under 64,000 range.

That certainly limits the automated martingale bots.

On the surface I would presume this is to lower their risk to variance and let their wallet grow bigger so that they can offer larger maximums on the higher payoff bets, particularly those at the "less than 256" and lower range.

Other reasons might exist too though.  There's been nearly three-quarter million dollars worth of bitcoins wagered through SatoshiDICE since it began.  There aren't many online gambling services where you can go down to 7-11, give the cashier $500, and before you've even left the store pissed it away by making a losing bet online.  So maybe this low limit is a way to prevent the service from being used in this manner.  

Gaming machines were invented by engineers (well, first by a car mechanic, then innovation from engineers).  But these machines didn't immediately become wild successes until they were improved upon by psychologists.

Here's an article describing dopamine and gambling:
 - http://www.zimbio.com/Parkinson's+disease/articles/PvPlIdIItCp/How+come+Slot+machine+game+Gambling+Considered

5 BTC maximums are more likely to ensure its players keep coming back.  Thus SatoshiDICE is doing something it needs to do especially considering it only has a period of time before it is likely to face competitors taking the exact same approach.

[finway]

I wonder the reason behind the business decision to limit bets to 5 BTC, even those in the under 32,000, under 64,000 range.

That certainly limits the automated martingale bots.

On the surface I would presume this is to lower their risk to variance and let their wallet grow bigger so that they can offer larger maximums on the higher payoff bets, particularly those at the "less than 256" and lower range.

Other reasons might exist too though.  There's been nearly three-quarter million dollars worth of bitcoins wagered through SatoshiDICE since it began.  There aren't many online gambling services where you can go down to 7-11, give the cashier $500, and before you've even left the store pissed it away by making a losing bet online.  So maybe it is a way to prevent the service from being used in this manner.  

Gaming machines were invented by engineers (well, first by a car mechanic, then innovation from engineers).  But these machines didn't immediately become wild successes until they were improved upon by psychologists.

Here's an article describing dopamine and gambling:
 - http://www.zimbio.com/Parkinson's+disease/articles/PvPlIdIItCp/How+come+Slot+machine+game+Gambling+Considered

5 BTC maximums are more likely to ensure its players keep coming back.  Thus SatoshiDICE is doing something it needs to do especially considering it only has a period of time before it is likely to face competitors taking the exact same approach.

I thought 5BTC meas SatoshiDICE has been robbed (cheated,defeated)...

[arklan]

welp, just made my first bet with the Dice. *waits patiently*

EDIT: WINNAR! .25 bet, got a little over .5 back. that's... snazzy, is what that is.

[arklan]

ok, i'm confused. the site's working fine - that's not the confusion.

i see the payout odds for < 4800 are a bit over 73%, with payout of 1.343%. unless i'm a bigger idiot then i think i am, that means over multiple bets, you're garunteed to win 23% more oftne then you lose, meaning it's effectivley a garunteed way to increase your supply of income.

obviously, i'm missing something here. little help?

[Gladamas]

ok, i'm confused. the site's working fine - that's not the confusion.

i see the payout odds for < 48000 are a bit over 73%, with payout of 1.343x. unless i'm a bigger idiot then i think i am, that means over multiple bets, you're garunteed to win 23% more oftne then you lose, meaning it's effectivley a garunteed way to increase your supply of income.

obviously, i'm missing something here. little help?

FTFY

You're not doubling your money every time you win, you are getting 1.343x your money. So the expected value is

Code:

((732422*1.343)+(267578*0.005))/1000000=0.984980636

Plus, you pay transaction fees both ways.

[arklan]

ok, i'm confused. the site's working fine - that's not the confusion.

i see the payout odds for < 48000 are a bit over 73%, with payout of 1.343x. unless i'm a bigger idiot then i think i am, that means over multiple bets, you're garunteed to win 23% more oftne then you lose, meaning it's effectivley a garunteed way to increase your supply of income.

obviously, i'm missing something here. little help?

FTFY

You're not doubling your money every time you win, you are getting 1.343x your money. So the expected value is

Code:

((732422*1.343)+(267578*0.005))/1000000=0.984980636

Plus, you pay transaction fees both ways.

would you mind trotting that past me again? where'd ya get the 26758*0.005?

i'f i'm understandign the math there correctly, you're saying that over time, you'd lose a small amount. about 2.5%, is that right?

[dooglus]

You're not doubling your money every time you win, you are getting 1.343x your money. So the expected value is

Code:

((732422*1.343)+(267578*0.005))/1000000=0.984980636

would you mind trotting that past me again? where'd ya get the 26758*0.005?

i'f i'm understandign the math there correctly, you're saying that over time, you'd lose a small amount. about 2.5%, is that right?

Expected value is the sum of each possible return to you, multiplied by the probability of it happening.

There are 2 possible outcomes:
  * you win 1.343 times your money, with probability 0.732422
  * you win 0.005 times your money, with probability 1 - 0.732422 = 0.267578
(because even when you lose you get a little something back - just to prove they got and processed your bet).

So the expected return is (0.732422 * 1.343) + (0.267578 * 0.005) = 0.984980636 times your money.

That means you lose (1 - 0.984980636) * 100 = 1.5019364% on average per bet.

[arklan]

ah, got it now. thanks.

[Gladamas]

ok, i'm confused. the site's working fine - that's not the confusion.

i see the payout odds for < 48000 are a bit over 73%, with payout of 1.343x. unless i'm a bigger idiot then i think i am, that means over multiple bets, you're garunteed to win 23% more oftne then you lose, meaning it's effectivley a garunteed way to increase your supply of income.

obviously, i'm missing something here. little help?

FTFY

You're not doubling your money every time you win, you are getting 1.343x your money. So the expected value is

Code:

((732422*1.343)+(267578*0.005))/1000000=0.984980636

Plus, you pay transaction fees both ways.

would you mind trotting that past me again? where'd ya get the 26758*0.005?

i'f i'm understandign the math there correctly, you're saying that over time, you'd lose a small amount. about 2.5%, is that right?

Say you play this game 1 million (1,000,000) times, and bet 1 BTC each time. On average, you will win 732,422 times out of 1,000,000 plays, because the probability of winning is 73.2422%. If you win you will get 1.343 x 1 BTC, or 1.343 BTC. So by playing 1,000,000 times you are expected to win (732422*1.343) Bitcoins.

Given that if you make a bet you either win or lose the bet, it is expected that you win 73.2422% of the time, and you make 1,000,000 bets, then it is expected that you lose (1000000-732422), or 267,578, times. If you lose a bet, SatoshiDice pays you back 0.005x your bet, so if you bet 1 BTC each time for 1,000,000 plays, you will get (267578*0.005) BTC back.

This means that in 1,000,000 bets, and thus betting 1,000,000 BTC, you will get (732422*1.343)+(267578*0.005) back. ((732422*1.343)+(267578*0.005)), the amount you get back, over the amount you originally bet, 1,000,000 BTC:

Code:

((732422*1.343)+(267578*0.005))/1000000

Equals 0.984980636. Therefore, for every 1 BTC you bet, you are expected to get 0.984980636 BTC back on average (so you lose ~1.5%). This is the expected value. I hope this clears up the confusion.

[arklan]

clears it up completely. thank you. 

[homer]

Still haven't been paid for bets from two days ago when the Block Chain split.  They are just sitting in my wallet expecting to be paid.  These TX ID's are not showing up in blockchain.info, and NOW they are not showing up on satoshidice either where as they were before....WTF?!?!

Amount: +32.00 BTC
TX: a1f9a00b28db38132182032035bc43f24ca647b684bc4e339afa4e2c0dec50a1

Amount: +1.00551999 BTC
TX: 9dd9643367959718e3cfcd7ff9df0bfaf9fff085903185b92d54b8220ee041dc

Amount: +0.50250999 BTC
TX:f4c9cf60c4533e3b496e1d595076bf840194751c76f87cc3c2da18a9c5a5083d

Amount:  +0.50250999 BTC
TX: dcb49a44a304427c005ff2bf8ae9894b415c6537b2673d8d3f81bc2003b13b72

Amount: +0.50250999 BTC
TX: 9fcf405077ed5772bcf99f9d0d2bb3ac328fe90031474febd6f89392dee9e228

Amount: +4.02357999 BTC
TX: aaab67f030a85bdb29e72792f6326c7f12444a28b62bf3749a09036689b583f5

Amount: +2.01153999 BTC
TX: 8259da6a55f1d0ff0d7cea4e424c0aa431f35b388b77560f5559a178d0de2280

Amount: +1.00551999 BTC
TX: 4103ad8656fa8432f4d50f77c79e8c1f739c71f10801339788e057df899c334f

Amount: +1.00551999 BTC
TX: d9809ef9e4255cd137550ee076472245f0d6e1cd2e5ff778450f2c7ca64ff5c4

Amount: +0.50250999 BTC
TX: 8e746439fc42f0ad47380453a9a1a1fdac2e93461d763cda278945a3b8fb07e3

Amount: +1.00551999 BTC
TX: 0a8f642695953e15572961a889861579a2babef57ba1cb9335ac77a7bddc8836

Amount: +1.00551999 BTC
TX: e1720316fcbba42cc5b75c12053e56ca5c36b90082b354aca5a7347d04d5b21f

Amount:  +1.00551999 BTC
TX: ad0a6c5720516305e7031a3c12ece5a48d3eab09a9be01f3170bc5a3da3365d3

Amount: +1.00551999 BTC
TX: eed0b401ab5618d47c530f46c1867df3bfc9531bba810a8e2abf81340150ddbe

TOTAL: +47.08379987 BTC

WHEN CAN I EXPECT TO GET PAID ON THESE???

[Maged]

Still haven't been paid for bets from two days ago when the Block Chain split.  They are just sitting in my wallet expecting to be paid.  These TX ID's are not showing up in blockchain.info, and NOW they are not showing up on satoshidice either where as they were before....WTF?!?!

...

TOTAL: +47.08379987 BTC

WHEN CAN I EXPECT TO GET PAID ON THESE???

What were the TX ID's of the bet transactions? (not the payout transactions)

[homer]

For the 32 BTC it was: b26f43bd23e4c3bfa5b3e469201f000db66ba91889f3156b09b0214621f1f956
http://satoshidice.com/lookup.php?tx=b26f43bd23e4c3bfa5b3e469201f000db66ba91889f3156b09b0214621f1f956&limit=250&min_bet=0&status=ALL

I'm noticing that it just sent the TX back to me because it was over the max bet.  I didn't realize that the max bet had been decreased and had sent it a big bet.

[kano]

"Block Chain split" ?