Chess and gambling

[fork]

Is starting an online chess bitcoin gambling site like online poker sites illegal? I've heard that because chess is a game of pure skill it does not fall under the typical illegal status in the United States. Is this true? Supposing that online chess gambling was legal in the United States what would happen if players from outside the United States started using the site? Could the company running the site from United States be in legal trouble with regards to the law in other countries because their citizens accessed the site and gambled?

[the joint]

Is starting an online chess bitcoin gambling site like online poker sites illegal? I've heard that because chess is a game of pure skill it does not fall under the typical illegal status in the United States. Is this true? Supposing that online chess gambling was legal in the United States what would happen if players from outside the United States started using the site? Could the company running the site from United States be in legal trouble with regards to the law in other countries because their citizens accessed the site and gambled?

Not sure about the legality of this, but I'd imagine that you'd run into the problem of cheating using bots or chess engines.

[mystery2048]

How about a chess site where the players just play and observers can place bets on the outcome of a game?

[Stephen Gornick]

Now that the states are starting to approve licenses for online gambling (Nevada just gave permission to IGT and Bally to operate online poker) the category will grow, but it still is very regulated.  (there were 30 applicants to offer online poker, and only those two approved.) 

Here's a Bitcoin chess thread:

 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=79290.0

Here's an article on the Nevada licensing that just happened:
 
 - http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20120624/NEWS/120629917/1001

[nave]

Is starting an online chess bitcoin gambling site like online poker sites illegal? I've heard that because chess is a game of pure skill it does not fall under the typical illegal status in the United States. Is this true? Supposing that online chess gambling was legal in the United States what would happen if players from outside the United States started using the site? Could the company running the site from United States be in legal trouble with regards to the law in other countries because their citizens accessed the site and gambled?

Not sure about the legality of this, but I'd imagine that you'd run into the problem of cheating using bots or chess engines.

As a potential player I'd mostly be worried about this.

[Coinabul]

I've seen three separate attempts at creating Bitcoin chess.

None worked.


Good luck!

[EnergyVampire]

I agree with most of the comments posted here.

What about a Computer Chess tournament?

[fork]

Computer chess tournament gambling sounds good. But that doesn't answer the question, what happens if people from outside the United States uses the site even if the United States itself calls it legal.

[Boussac]

Chessbase is one of the world's largest chess site.
They are selling "ducats" for euros to pay for chess lessons or chess games with grand masters.
Why not get them to offer bitcoins instead of these crummy ducats of theirs.

[FreeMoney]

Is starting an online chess bitcoin gambling site like online poker sites illegal? I've heard that because chess is a game of pure skill it does not fall under the typical illegal status in the United States. Is this true? Supposing that online chess gambling was legal in the United States what would happen if players from outside the United States started using the site? Could the company running the site from United States be in legal trouble with regards to the law in other countries because their citizens accessed the site and gambled?

Not sure about the legality of this, but I'd imagine that you'd run into the problem of cheating using bots or chess engines.

As a potential player I'd mostly be worried about this.

I think chess variants are a pretty good solution to that. At least it will narrow the cheaters from "anyone with Chess Master" to programmers with skills.

[rjk]

Chessbase is one of the world's largest chess site.
They are selling "ducats" for euros to pay for chess lessons or chess games with grand masters.
Why not get them to offer bitcoins instead of these crummy ducats of theirs.

Damn, I've seen your site under your profile pic "e-ducat.fr" but it wasn't until you mentioned Ducats that I clicked. I'm so slow - ducat is money, so bitcoin == e-money.

[finkleshnorts]

I'm guessing there is a market out there for bitcoin stratego. Much less prone to cheating. I would play.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Is starting an online chess bitcoin gambling site like online poker sites illegal? I've heard that because chess is a game of pure skill it does not fall under the typical illegal status in the United States. Is this true? Supposing that online chess gambling was legal in the United States what would happen if players from outside the United States started using the site? Could the company running the site from United States be in legal trouble with regards to the law in other countries because their citizens accessed the site and gambled?

Not sure about the legality of this, but I'd imagine that you'd run into the problem of cheating using bots or chess engines.

As a potential player I'd mostly be worried about this.

It was mentioned that the observers would only bet on the outcome, not the players. The betters will be able to see the stats of the players: Games played; wins; loses; draws; forfeits; game lengths; etc. Whatever information that could be provided to prove that no hanky-panky is (has/will) taking place.

Backgammon also comes to mind. That was just about to take off prior to the US being locked out of online poker, I remember.

~Bruno~

[FreeMoney]

Is starting an online chess bitcoin gambling site like online poker sites illegal? I've heard that because chess is a game of pure skill it does not fall under the typical illegal status in the United States. Is this true? Supposing that online chess gambling was legal in the United States what would happen if players from outside the United States started using the site? Could the company running the site from United States be in legal trouble with regards to the law in other countries because their citizens accessed the site and gambled?

Not sure about the legality of this, but I'd imagine that you'd run into the problem of cheating using bots or chess engines.

As a potential player I'd mostly be worried about this.

It was mentioned that the observers would only bet on the outcome, not the players. The betters will be able to see the stats of the players: Games played; wins; loses; draws; forfeits; game lengths; etc. Whatever information that could be provided to prove that no hanky-panky is (has/will) taking place.

Backgammon also comes to mind. That was just about to take off prior to the US being locked out of online poker, I remember.

~Bruno~

Seems quite a task to stop players from placing wagers as observers. It also opens the possibility that they'll bet against themselves. The hank-panky will occur.

Backgammon +1

[Boussac]

Chessbase is one of the world's largest chess site.
They are selling "ducats" for euros to pay for chess lessons or chess games with grand masters.
Why not get them to offer bitcoins instead of these crummy ducats of theirs.

Damn, I've seen your site under your profile pic "e-ducat.fr" but it wasn't until you mentioned Ducats that I clicked. I'm so slow - ducat is money, so bitcoin == e-money.

I am starting to think that my blog domain name is too cryptic 

[Boussac]

My site is only for fun but there is no way I can detect players from using chess computers to cheat.

Chessbase offers this feature: do you have an idea how they can detect cheaters ?
I am guessing they are running chess bots in parallel with the games and looking for similar move patterns but that's a feat given the very large numbers of simultaneous games.

[spndr7]

I've seen three separate attempts at creating Bitcoin chess.

None worked.


Good luck!

Have a look at this great HTML5 powered chess site.

http://en.lichess.org

Running on opensource package

https://github.com/ornicar/lichess

This could be integrated with bitcoins for playing advanced chess.

[SgtSpike]

I'm guessing there is a market out there for bitcoin stratego. Much less prone to cheating. I would play.

I thought I was the only one who played that game...!

I'd totally wager micro-amounts on online Stratego games. 

[Financisto]

I've seen three separate attempts at creating Bitcoin chess.

None worked.


Good luck!

I agree with most of the comments posted here.

What about a Computer Chess tournament?

As I'm a real enthusiast of that idea (BTC prizes for chess fans), I will post here my suggestion in order to increase the success rate of any further attempt (IMHO):

* Allow human/computer matches  (there's no way to avoid that kind of cheating);

* Maybe people should post their codes (turning them open source) in order to play;

P.s. I'm not sure about that, but it would boost the development of chess bots around of players community;

* Try to add weekly / monthly tournaments with jackpot prizes;

* Players pay some amount to get in (buy-in tickets) and that value fills the jackpot;

* a higher percentage of buy-in tickets (e.g. 83%) goes to current tournament's jackpot;

* a lower percentage of buy-in tickets (e.g. 16%) goes to next tournament's jackpot;

* Prize goes to first 3 winners or more depending on jackpot's value;

* House's profit should be something around 1% to 8% of total tickets sold;

P.s. strategy (online) games are far harder to turn into a viable and steady way of playing 4 money than (online) gambling. It all becomes programmers/coders battles.

Some references:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Chess

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_chess

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_engine

Have a look at this great HTML5 powered chess site.

http://en.lichess.org

Running on opensource package

https://github.com/ornicar/lichess

This could be integrated with bitcoins for playing advanced chess.

It has already evolved: https://github.com/ornicar/lila

P.s. strategy games are far harder to turn into a viable and steady way of playing 4 money than gambling.

Cheers!

[teukon]

P.s. strategy (online) games are far harder to turn into a viable and steady way of playing 4 money than (online) gambling. It all becomes programmers/coders battles.

There are some strategy games that don't really have this problem.  Go and Hex both fit the bill (I'm sure there are others).  There are active AI groups for both of these games but the top level, even with serious computing power, falls significantly below strong amateur human play.  As a bonus, Go is quite popular in Asia and gambling is very popular (and usually legally grey).