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Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: Empirical1.2 on December 13, 2015, 01:58:50 pm

Title: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Empirical1.2 on December 13, 2015, 01:58:50 pm
Millions of Features, Features for Me!

There are far too many opportunities out there and prioritizing new features for BitShares becomes very challenging. 
Profit is perhaps the most important means of prioritizing.

So I would like to take some time to outline a plan I am devising for getting features lined up and prioritized based upon the concept of Fee Backed Assets (FBA). 

5. Gambling Systems


In terms of profit potential blockchain based dice would the most investable FBA imo.

Quote
After you deposit bitcoins into Just Dice you have the option to invest all or part of your balance in the house bank. Just Dice takes 10% of the profit and distributes 90% to the investors in real time, every players losing bet makes your investment go up instantly!

Every players winning bet makes your investment go down but the odds are always in your favour and no one could ever send the house broke because the maximum profit per bet is 0.05% of the house bank.

Never has a feature that allows anybody in the world to put themselves at an advantageous position in a gambling operation been offered. That is normally reserved for those rich and politically connected enough to own a gambling operation or for the investor class with barriers to entry that preclude most of the world’s population.

On average your investment will increase 0.9% as often as the house bank is turned over. For example at the moment the house bank is ฿42,500 so every time that amount is wagered by users the site should make on average 1% profit with 0.9% of that going to investors. The house bank turns over approximately every 14 days on average! I first invested in Just Dice 3 months ago and the investment I made has risen 22.5% since then. So far the site has paid out ฿18,000 to investors.

The only risks are government seizure and shut down and hackers or the site operators disappearing with the money. This is sincerely the best passive investment I have ever found.

http://www.bitroll.co/just-dice-a-gambling-investment-revolution/

Unfortunately centralized sites are more prone to closures or hit and runs...

http://www.bitroll.co/just-dice-closes-due-to-canadian-bitcoin-regulations/

JustDice's bankroll was >  ฿50,000 (Double the CAP of BTS) & from the above, appeared to be making >$300 000 profit a month.



Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Xypher on December 13, 2015, 02:01:38 pm
If there is a Bitshares Dice system, we'd be keen on developing it.
Will talk with Kuro and hybrid about the possibilities of hacking together a basic system.

Disclosure : We have been in the works for a betting system focused on gamers for months now and are at the verge of launching it.

Regards
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Empirical1.2 on December 13, 2015, 02:09:33 pm
If there is a Bitshares Dice system, we'd be keen on developing it.
Will talk with Kuro and hybrid about the possibilities of hacking together a basic system.

Disclosure : We have been in the works for a betting system focused on gamers for months now and are at the verge of launching it.

Regards

 +5% Cool

Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Xypher on December 13, 2015, 02:13:45 pm
If there is a Bitshares Dice system, we'd be keen on developing it.
Will talk with Kuro and hybrid about the possibilities of hacking together a basic system.

Disclosure : We have been in the works for a betting system focused on gamers for months now and are at the verge of launching it.

Regards

 +5% Cool

Doing this on Bitshares is advantageous because of

1. Lower confirmation times
2. Transparency.

This is one of the projects that can truly show the power of Bitshares and increase the market cap, but am not sure if we'll be able to attract sufficient users overnight. Bitcoin has a much larger user base in comparison with Bitshares so its a quick to access market.

The way I see it,

1. A user sends Bitcoin to our electron-io system (new ui and cross exchange coming soon)
2. Gets bitshares in the betting system
3. Places bets
4. Either takes winning or losses in Bitshares or can get it exchanged instantaneously from electrons.io

Beautiful user case that brings both users and profitability.

Regards
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Empirical1.2 on December 13, 2015, 02:33:06 pm
^ Very good   :D I assume electrons.io is a centralized service and not based on the blockchain?

The key USP of blockchain based dice would be no risk of hit and runs, seizures or closures, so you could invest/gamble with confidence as well as perhaps being provably fair at the blockchain level.

As BM mentioned gambling systems, I'd be interested if CNX could offer something and what cost or reduced cost for % of fees.

A dice game on the decentralized blockchain accessible via here https://bitshares.openledger.info/#/explorer would be great.

The TX fee for Dice bets could be made very small and go to BTS with the house edge going to FBA holders. 

I'm not sure but I think the flaw I see with JustDice business model is that anyone could invest in the bankroll & while investors would get a % of profits, they didn't benefit from the growth of the bank roll/revenue.

It would seem like a superior model would be to offer shares in the business which is used to fund development and the initial bankroll.
Profits can be dispersed between BTS, Investors and growing the bankroll up to X size. That way the value of the shares you purchased would increase over time too.


This is one of the projects that can truly show the power of Bitshares and increase the market cap, but am not sure if we'll be able to attract sufficient users overnight. Bitcoin has a much larger user base in comparison with Bitshares so its a quick to access market.

 +5% Even when Bitcoin had a $70 million CAP not too different to what BTSX had Satoshi Dice had a few hundred thousand dollars profit but yes by targetting Bitcoiners with the advantages of decentralization, (No more hit and runs, seizures or closures) we could rapidly expand the potential market.


Looking at the 2012 Bitcoin gambling report is probably our best 'bet' :)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/01/22/bitcoin-casinos-release-2012-earnings/

(Bitcoin had a low user base & CAP through 2012 of about $70 million, so not too dissimilar.)

Satoshi dice had nearly 1.8 million BTC worth of volume and BitZino 700 000 BTC, so probably about $30 million dollars turnover. 2.5 million of the 9 million BTC would be about 700 million BTS worth of BitAsset volume & I think there were about 6 million betting transactions. Imagine just a fraction of that.
 
The most important thing is that a really low house edge, provably fair, funds accounted for on the blockchain option could not only satisfy gambling demand & bootstrap BitAsset use internally, but displace Bitcoin options which have recently been hit by a string of 'ponzi' take the money and runs...

Gambling is what made up half of Bitcoins volume and helped Bootstrap it and it still makes up the major chunk today. So nevermind BTS, it's possible that whoever takes the gambling even takes Bitcoin.

Edit: Smartcoin/BitUSD dice would also be a good USP. A smaller blockchain that attempted Dice without stable BitAssets would be very volatile, so you wouldn't feel comfortable leaving your winnings/balance on there for an extended period.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: monsterer on December 13, 2015, 03:29:53 pm
A centralised bitshares dice is trivial to create; you could probably knock a daemon together in a week or so.

Truely decentralised requires a different blockchain and that's what Play is doing I think.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Empirical1.2 on December 13, 2015, 03:44:48 pm
A centralised bitshares dice is trivial to create; you could probably knock a daemon together in a week or so.

Truely decentralised requires a different blockchain and that's what Play is doing I think.

Yeah and decentralized is where the USP of BTSDice would be.

As well as perhaps USD Smartcoin vs. extremely volatile potentially soon to be worthless DAC share of PLAY/other new blockchain.   
(Which discourages leaving funds/balances, possibly even more so than the risk of theft/seizure etc.)

Given that BM listed 'gambling systems' as potential BTS features in his recent post, I think there's a chance BTS may be able to add it.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: puppies on December 13, 2015, 04:20:14 pm
Gambling systems could be huge. 

What are our options for provably fair on blockchain rng?

Breaking bets up into rounds and having each bettor submit the hash of a secret, and then once that betting round is done having all parties revel secret could work, but it's clunky. 

What other sources of rng can we think of?
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Empirical1.2 on December 13, 2015, 04:28:32 pm
Gambling systems could be huge. 

What are our options for provably fair on blockchain rng?

Breaking bets up into rounds and having each bettor submit the hash of a secret, and then once that betting round is done having all parties revel secret could work, but it's clunky. 

What other sources of rng can we think of?

I don't know what method you'd use for a game with multiple players & betting rounds like poker which I imagine would be super complex to develop.

But my understanding was that PLAY had come up with an rng solution that could be applied to BTS too for games like Dice. (Which I imagine is much simpler to develop than poker on blockchain)

Quote
PLAY adopts a distributed algorithm for random number generation , leveraging delegates in the
DPOS structure to provide the randomness. PLAY delegates generate private key data and publish
the hash of the key data when a block is published.
In the end the random number employed is generated by a successive multiple (at least 101 or
more) number of key data, so that as long as one delegate is honest and hasn’t leaked his data,。
we can safely assume that no one could know the random number generated in the end, making
the number fair and reliable.

https://www.dacplay.org/pdf/BitSharesPLAYNoneTechnical_EN.pdf
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Xypher on December 13, 2015, 04:38:43 pm
IMO, its best to start centralized, see the viability and market interest, then go for decentralized.
So many crypto-projects scream decentralized from day one, spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in product development and turn up with a product that ends up either being shit or used by nobody.
The lean model guys. Cut the fat!
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: puppies on December 13, 2015, 05:21:59 pm
Play uses the delegates to create a random number.  Each delegate publishes the hash of a secret and the previous secret on every block.  These are then hashed together to generate a random seed.  This revealed secret was removed from 2.0.  We could rely on some number published by witnesses, but it would be more prone to manipulation.  A centralized service could use a single shared secret as the random seed and then publish that secret when there's a drawing. 

I actually had what I considered a provably fair roulette game running back on 1.0.  It got exactly zero usage.  Running it on 2.0 would be more expensive due to the increased transaction fees.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Empirical1.2 on December 13, 2015, 06:11:56 pm
IMO, its best to start centralized, see the viability and market interest, then go for decentralized.
So many crypto-projects scream decentralized from day one, spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in product development and turn up with a product that ends up either being shit or used by nobody.
The lean model guys. Cut the fat!

The weakness of decentralized dice on the BTS blockchain is that despite BTS speed, it's still slower than centralized sites and it can't cater to microbets.  However you'd be comparing apples and oranges to use your centralized option as a gauge for BTSDice potential Your model has no USP for Bitcoin gamblers unfortunately, but there may still be a small market for it, especially if you accept BTS directly & you're one of the first movers, so I wish you luck.

Nearly all gambling will be moving to the blockchain, it's an inevitability, it's a hugely profitable industry controlled by centralised monopolies & governments. The blockchain can access all markets and undercut many existing options by >80%. (Lotteries, Sports betting, Poker, Casino games) along with the advantages of decentralization.

Augur is currently valued at $25 million (possibly due to limited market supply) https://gatecoin.com/
So we know investors see potential even before a bet has been placed.

I don't know specifically what gambling systems BM has in mind but it will only be developed if investors think there's enough potential and make bids on the FBA.

Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: luckybit on December 13, 2015, 06:50:17 pm
Millions of Features, Features for Me!

There are far too many opportunities out there and prioritizing new features for BitShares becomes very challenging. 
Profit is perhaps the most important means of prioritizing.

So I would like to take some time to outline a plan I am devising for getting features lined up and prioritized based upon the concept of Fee Backed Assets (FBA). 

5. Gambling Systems


In terms of profit potential blockchain based dice would the most investable FBA imo.

Quote
After you deposit bitcoins into Just Dice you have the option to invest all or part of your balance in the house bank. Just Dice takes 10% of the profit and distributes 90% to the investors in real time, every players losing bet makes your investment go up instantly!

Every players winning bet makes your investment go down but the odds are always in your favour and no one could ever send the house broke because the maximum profit per bet is 0.05% of the house bank.

Never has a feature that allows anybody in the world to put themselves at an advantageous position in a gambling operation been offered. That is normally reserved for those rich and politically connected enough to own a gambling operation or for the investor class with barriers to entry that preclude most of the world’s population.

On average your investment will increase 0.9% as often as the house bank is turned over. For example at the moment the house bank is ฿42,500 so every time that amount is wagered by users the site should make on average 1% profit with 0.9% of that going to investors. The house bank turns over approximately every 14 days on average! I first invested in Just Dice 3 months ago and the investment I made has risen 22.5% since then. So far the site has paid out ฿18,000 to investors.

The only risks are government seizure and shut down and hackers or the site operators disappearing with the money. This is sincerely the best passive investment I have ever found.

http://www.bitroll.co/just-dice-a-gambling-investment-revolution/

Unfortunately centralized sites are more prone to closures or hit and runs...

http://www.bitroll.co/just-dice-closes-due-to-canadian-bitcoin-regulations/

JustDice's bankroll was >  ฿50,000 (Double the CAP of BTS) & from the above, appeared to be making >$300 000 profit a month.

Mixing gambling into a decentralized exchange will KILL BITSHARES for China and ruin Bitshares for a lot of people. I would say due to the regulatory and legal ramifications the risks of adding gambling to Bitshares is both unnecessary and exceeds any possible benefit.

If you add gambling to Btishares in as a primary feature then the whole network could be seen as a pyramid scheme, like MMM, which could result in it being banned in China and Russia. It could also make Bitshares very unpopular in the United States.

I would prefer to see cannabis commodities and assets than to see blatant gambling because it only will take away from the legitimate features like prediction markets. If someone does want to do a dice type feature why not just make it external to Bitshares or use DAC Play?
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: luckybit on December 13, 2015, 06:56:38 pm

In terms of profit potential blockchain based dice would the most investable FBA imo.


Prediction markets are equally profitable with a lot less risk. Prediction markets solve real world problems and you can make a cause for many good uses for prediction markets. Gambling is not the same and gambling only exists to trick one group of people out of their money for the benefit of the holders of the asset.

The statistics, the odds, they almost always benefit the house, the casino, etc. Additionally one of the only companies to be attacked by the SEC happened to be Satoshi Dice, so why would anyone want to bring that particular attention onto Bitshares?

My opinion, gambling should not ever be an official feature. Gambling and prediction markets in the same interface, on the same platform, diminish the viability of both. If you're trying to promote prediction markets while some other group of people is trying to promote Bitshares as a casino, how are you supposed to disassociate prediction markets from gambling?

And they could then say Bitshares is just one big casino and how would you prove it isn't if you're treating it like a casino yourself? There are few ideas that I hate but I hate this idea to bring gambling onto Bitshares. It would offer no benefit that you couldn't get from actual markets, but it would bring all the risks that Bitshares is trying to avoid. It's like selling junk food in a high class gourmet restaurant.

In my opinion, all gambling should happen on DAC Play, the gaming platform specifically for not so serious stuff. You don't want to mix currency trading, stocks, gambling, with prediction markets and all of this other stuff in the same app because marketing wise and politically it's a mess. If I could vote against this FBA I would.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Empirical1.2 on December 13, 2015, 07:14:44 pm
I would prefer to see cannabis commodities and assets than to see blatant gambling because it only will take away from the legitimate features like prediction markets. If someone does want to do a dice type feature why not just make it external to Bitshares or use DAC Play?

Prediction markets will offer sports betting which is 'blatant gambling' and that is going to ruffle a whole lot more feathers than dice.

Quote
Augur may become the greatest gambling platform in history

...Augur is destined to become the cypherpunks answer to gambling prohibition—the betting man’s version of the online drug market Silk Road...

Augur also serves the less high-minded—though no less noble—purpose of providing cost savings and convenience to gamblers. Restrictions on gambling serve to protect government revenue at the betting man's expense. State-sanctioned casino operators pay high taxes, and state-run lotteries fleece their customers. But there's no logical or moral case for government restrictions on gambling, since no third party is harmed when consenting adults wager money on the future. Augur actually has the potential to make the world safer by taking away market share in the gambling industry from criminals.


https://reason.com/blog/2015/08/11/augur-gambling-prediction-ethereum
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: luckybit on December 13, 2015, 08:54:04 pm
I would prefer to see cannabis commodities and assets than to see blatant gambling because it only will take away from the legitimate features like prediction markets. If someone does want to do a dice type feature why not just make it external to Bitshares or use DAC Play?

Prediction markets will offer sports betting which is 'blatant gambling' and that is going to ruffle a whole lot more feathers than dice.

Quote
Augur may become the greatest gambling platform in history

...Augur is destined to become the cypherpunks answer to gambling prohibition—the betting man’s version of the online drug market Silk Road...

Augur also serves the less high-minded—though no less noble—purpose of providing cost savings and convenience to gamblers. Restrictions on gambling serve to protect government revenue at the betting man's expense. State-sanctioned casino operators pay high taxes, and state-run lotteries fleece their customers. But there's no logical or moral case for government restrictions on gambling, since no third party is harmed when consenting adults wager money on the future. Augur actually has the potential to make the world safer by taking away market share in the gambling industry from criminals.


https://reason.com/blog/2015/08/11/augur-gambling-prediction-ethereum

There is a huge difference between dice which is blatant gambling and prediction markets. Prediction markets are more than just gambling because you can analyze a prediction market to get truly valuable information.

You get nothing of value from analyzing dice. Dice is just gambling, it's literally junk information, it's junk food. Why should we sell junk food when we can sell gourmet food in our restaurant?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futarchy
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Akado on December 13, 2015, 09:17:44 pm
You already have this buy buying into OBITS which now also supports revenue from fun-casino! Why reinvent stuff? Use it to see how it works and then if you prefer work on a decentralized model or something. Unless you really want something different that would be that special I would just use the casino that will be integrated into OpenLedger
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: fuzzy on December 13, 2015, 09:24:13 pm
I like this idea.  The only question I have is whether this is something PLAY will be doing.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Xeldal on December 13, 2015, 09:27:56 pm
What is the actual function we are talking about here, that dice requires, and bitshares does not currently have?

Is it just a transparent, verifiable RNG? 
Or does it require an escrow smart contract whose result is based on the outcome of the RNG?

Is the existence of such a function, by itself, considered gambling?  Or is it how a frontend website/client uses that function.
Are there any other legitimate uses for that type of contract?  Couldn't the contract be created with existing multisig functions?

At the very least we could have the RNG.  There's no way, that this alone could be considered gambling.  Random numbers are used for all sorts of things.   It would be up to the frontend how to use it, and only they would be subject to whatever legal or cultural consequences.   

I don't think bitshares needs to directly offer gambling, but I do think bitshares should have the simple tools available for someone who does want to offer it themselves. 
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Akado on December 13, 2015, 09:30:31 pm
I don't think bitshares needs to directly offer gambling, but I do think bitshares should have the simple tools available for someone who does want to offer it themselves.

OpenLedger is offering it... It's not decentralized, it's hosted by a third party, but still. That's what we need. Utility.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Empirical1.2 on December 13, 2015, 09:32:45 pm
I would prefer to see cannabis commodities and assets than to see blatant gambling because it only will take away from the legitimate features like prediction markets. If someone does want to do a dice type feature why not just make it external to Bitshares or use DAC Play?

Prediction markets will offer sports betting which is 'blatant gambling' and that is going to ruffle a whole lot more feathers than dice.

Quote
Augur may become the greatest gambling platform in history

...Augur is destined to become the cypherpunks answer to gambling prohibition—the betting man’s version of the online drug market Silk Road...

Augur also serves the less high-minded—though no less noble—purpose of providing cost savings and convenience to gamblers. Restrictions on gambling serve to protect government revenue at the betting man's expense. State-sanctioned casino operators pay high taxes, and state-run lotteries fleece their customers. But there's no logical or moral case for government restrictions on gambling, since no third party is harmed when consenting adults wager money on the future. Augur actually has the potential to make the world safer by taking away market share in the gambling industry from criminals.


https://reason.com/blog/2015/08/11/augur-gambling-prediction-ethereum

There is a huge difference between dice which is blatant gambling and prediction markets. Prediction markets are more than just gambling because you can analyze a prediction market to get truly valuable information.

You get nothing of value from analyzing dice. Dice is just gambling, it's literally junk information, it's junk food. Why should we sell junk food when we can sell gourmet food in our restaurant?

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

Yes you can ask some interesting questions via prediction markets, but their bread and butter will be 90% sports betting where the demand is, so there will be no sugar coating that whatever platform offers prediction markets is among other things a blatant gambling platform.

Do you not see the heat daily fantasy betting is getting in the US at the moment?
http://voiceherald.com/2015/12/13/fantasy-sport-sites-stay-open-despite-illegal-gambling.html

At the same time DraftKings are willing to take the risk because they like dollar, dollar bills y'all....

Quote
"Global opportunity for online betting and casino market estimated at $27 (billion) now, $36B by 2018," one slide in DraftKings' presentation said. Another noted that "sports wagering" was a large potential market, with one estimate "that illegal sports wagers are as much as $380 billion annually."

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/critics-say-ny-evidence-suggests-fantasy-sports-sites-consider-themselves/2257426

I'm all for prediction markets too, but they're going to take the same if not more heat than other forms of gambling.

Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: bytemaster on December 13, 2015, 10:59:48 pm
The challenge with gambling is that it exposes the developers of the software to more risk than just about any other thing we could write.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Empirical1.2 on December 13, 2015, 11:58:20 pm
The challenge with gambling is that it exposes the developers of the software to more risk than just about any other thing we could write.

Thanks for the reply, completely understandable but obviously a pity.

This might not be relevant, I don't speak code, but it seems Vitalik is writing gambling related code for Ethereum...

https://m.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/3kwsaf/if_you_are_going_to_be_building_gambling_sites/

https://github.com/ethereum/dapp-bin/blob/master/serpent_gamble/prepare.py

I guess the difference is it's then up to third parties to implement it.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: ebit on December 14, 2015, 12:05:49 am
I like this idea. 
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Akado on December 14, 2015, 12:16:18 am
The challenge with gambling is that it exposes the developers of the software to more risk than just about any other thing we could write.

Didn't the creating of Augur mean it's ok to do this sort of stuff? Assuming it's decentralized and there's no need for a specific 3rd party to host it...
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Empirical1.2 on December 14, 2015, 12:24:17 am
The challenge with gambling is that it exposes the developers of the software to more risk than just about any other thing we could write.

Didn't the creating of Augur mean it's ok to do this sort of stuff? Assuming it's decentralized and there's no need for a specific 3rd party to host it...

Not necessarily OK they are taking an educated risk

Quote
What about the legal / regulatory aspect of this?

We have been in active, constructive communications with past and current members of key regulatory agencies, including the CFTC.
This legal analysis was written by one of our advisors (and two other friends of the project). Page 67, section b "Decentralized Applications," pg. 70, 2. "Predictions Markets," and pg. 73, section c "Law and Decentralization" are the parts that relate to us. We think it captures our views on how regulators will approach this.
The law does not prohibit the creation of open-source, decentralized prediction market software, nor the distribution of of cryptocurrencytokens. In fact, writing source-code is a protected activity under the First Amendment as demonstrated in Junger v. Daly.
We have examined legal precedents and case law, our legal advisory is world-class and we are being entirely transparent about what we are building. We have been, and are more than happy to continue, engaging in discussions with any interested parties, including regulatory authorites, about the software.

http://www.augur.net/blog/augur-answers

Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Akado on December 14, 2015, 12:39:21 am
The challenge with gambling is that it exposes the developers of the software to more risk than just about any other thing we could write.

Didn't the creating of Augur mean it's ok to do this sort of stuff? Assuming it's decentralized and there's no need for a specific 3rd party to host it...

Not necessarily OK they are taking an educated risk

Quote
What about the legal / regulatory aspect of this?

We have been in active, constructive communications with past and current members of key regulatory agencies, including the CFTC.
This legal analysis was written by one of our advisors (and two other friends of the project). Page 67, section b "Decentralized Applications," pg. 70, 2. "Predictions Markets," and pg. 73, section c "Law and Decentralization" are the parts that relate to us. We think it captures our views on how regulators will approach this.
The law does not prohibit the creation of open-source, decentralized prediction market software, nor the distribution of of cryptocurrencytokens. In fact, writing source-code is a protected activity under the First Amendment as demonstrated in Junger v. Daly.
We have examined legal precedents and case law, our legal advisory is world-class and we are being entirely transparent about what we are building. We have been, and are more than happy to continue, engaging in discussions with any interested parties, including regulatory authorites, about the software.

http://www.augur.net/blog/augur-answers

Didn't know about that.. I guess in case something went bad, most investors wouldn't care and just call Augur a scam lol

"In fact, writing source-code is a protected activity under the First Amendment as demonstrated in Junger v. Daly." This is interesting, as long as it can't be argued it can harm someone and/or be used for tax evasion? But that should be arguable against gambling...

So what could possible solutions be?
Developing a gambling system in anonymity?
Friendly jurisdiction?

Or the software must be decentralized..  But that doesn't necessarily keep original devs safe
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: luckybit on December 14, 2015, 02:56:29 am
I would prefer to see cannabis commodities and assets than to see blatant gambling because it only will take away from the legitimate features like prediction markets. If someone does want to do a dice type feature why not just make it external to Bitshares or use DAC Play?

Prediction markets will offer sports betting which is 'blatant gambling' and that is going to ruffle a whole lot more feathers than dice.

Quote
Augur may become the greatest gambling platform in history

...Augur is destined to become the cypherpunks answer to gambling prohibition—the betting man’s version of the online drug market Silk Road...

Augur also serves the less high-minded—though no less noble—purpose of providing cost savings and convenience to gamblers. Restrictions on gambling serve to protect government revenue at the betting man's expense. State-sanctioned casino operators pay high taxes, and state-run lotteries fleece their customers. But there's no logical or moral case for government restrictions on gambling, since no third party is harmed when consenting adults wager money on the future. Augur actually has the potential to make the world safer by taking away market share in the gambling industry from criminals.


https://reason.com/blog/2015/08/11/augur-gambling-prediction-ethereum

There is a huge difference between dice which is blatant gambling and prediction markets. Prediction markets are more than just gambling because you can analyze a prediction market to get truly valuable information.

You get nothing of value from analyzing dice. Dice is just gambling, it's literally junk information, it's junk food. Why should we sell junk food when we can sell gourmet food in our restaurant?

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

Yes you can ask some interesting questions via prediction markets, but their bread and butter will be 90% sports betting where the demand is, so there will be no sugar coating that whatever platform offers prediction markets is among other things a blatant gambling platform.

Do you not see the heat daily fantasy betting is getting in the US at the moment?
http://voiceherald.com/2015/12/13/fantasy-sport-sites-stay-open-despite-illegal-gambling.html

At the same time DraftKings are willing to take the risk because they like dollar, dollar bills y'all....

Quote
"Global opportunity for online betting and casino market estimated at $27 (billion) now, $36B by 2018," one slide in DraftKings' presentation said. Another noted that "sports wagering" was a large potential market, with one estimate "that illegal sports wagers are as much as $380 billion annually."

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/critics-say-ny-evidence-suggests-fantasy-sports-sites-consider-themselves/2257426

I'm all for prediction markets too, but they're going to take the same if not more heat than other forms of gambling.

How are you going to predict the future (how a prediction market will be used) without a prediction market?
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: luckybit on December 14, 2015, 03:00:05 am
The challenge with gambling is that it exposes the developers of the software to more risk than just about any other thing we could write.

Thanks for the reply, completely understandable but obviously a pity.

This might not be relevant, I don't speak code, but it seems Vitalik is writing gambling related code for Ethereum...

https://m.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/3kwsaf/if_you_are_going_to_be_building_gambling_sites/

https://github.com/ethereum/dapp-bin/blob/master/serpent_gamble/prepare.py

I guess the difference is it's then up to third parties to implement it.

Vitalik can get away with that because Ethereum is general purpose. Bitshares is specifically a financial platform though and mixing gambling and finance in the same interface is crazy stupid.

Why not integrate Silk Road into the interface so high frequency traders can keep up their supply of cocaine?

Sometimes it's just not worth it to build something directly on Bitshares or to have the developers associated with certain things. It's not that I'm against gambling but I just think if you want gambling there is a DAC Play blockchain specifically set up to take on these sorts of risks. I don't see why all risk should be centralized on Bitshares if Bitshares is the most critical blockchain, the mother blockchain.

Why not take the risks on the chains which were set up specifically for these sorts of experiments?


Here is the law in China
Quote
Whoever, for the purpose of profit, gathers people to engage in gambling, runs a gambling house or makes gambling his profession shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or public surveillance and shall also be fined.

Is it worth killing Bitshares in China? China is the main market for Bitshares and you want to poison that market with gambling so regulators can have every excuse they need to go after witnesses and even users?

Unlike Ethereum which is general purpose and have many types of apps, Bitshares is only finance, and as soon as you associate it with gambling you make it very easy to ban. If those associations are to be made, why would you want to have the core developers make that association by building a casino right beside the stock market?

Imagine you're some Chinese politician or regulator and you're using Bitshares for the first time, introduced to Bitshares because of crowd funding or the stocks, and you see a casino built into it? It's one thing to have an ad for a casino which is a separate third party operation, but it's something else completely to build it into the interface itself. If it must be decentralized, use the DAC Play blockchain and then put the UIA on Bitshares so people can buy it through Bitshares.

Also remember Lottoshares? If it's such a big demand then why aren't people using that?
http://www.onlinebetting.com/legal/china/


In order to reduce risks on the developers, witnesses and the blockchain itself all of the topics below should be avoided:

1. Drugs or controlled substances
2. Gambling
3. Bribery
4. Dealing in obscene matter

If individuals want to take their chances with these non-violent but clearly fronwd upon activities then they can create a UIA and do so as a third party (this way the risk is entirely on the people who want to take it). There is no need for a FBA or to bring the whole blockchain into their experiment because by doing that you also spread risk and potentially infect the whole blockchain with police investigations.

Gambling isn't likely to make Bitshares have a 100 billion dollar market cap. If a casino were such a good idea then you'd be using the DAC Play blockchain, or Lottoshares, or Lottoshares, or any of the others. My guess is a casino done they way you'd be thinking about doing it would bring only risks, it wouldn't better the world in any kind of way, or advance liberty in any kind of way, so it's not like prediction markets which actually have some purpose.

Of course I'm not the decision maker, the community is. It's very possible that the majority in the community either don't live in a country like China, or they don't live in the USA, so they might think it's a good idea to do it.  I just hope if they go into it that they realize there are cops who don't have anything better to do but to investigate stuff like that.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: jakub on December 14, 2015, 08:56:23 am
Sometimes it's just not worth it to build something directly on Bitshares or to have the developers associated with certain things. It's not that I'm against gambling but I just think if you want gambling there is a DAC Play blockchain specifically set up to take on these sorts of risks. I don't see why all risk should be centralized on Bitshares if Bitshares is the most critical blockchain, the mother blockchain.

Why not take the risks on the chains which were set up specifically for these sorts of experiments?
Unlike Ethereum which is general purpose and have many types of apps, Bitshares is only finance, and as soon as you associate it with gambling you make it very easy to ban. If those associations are to be made, why would you want to have the core developers make that association by building a casino right beside the stock market?

 +5%
I agree with luckybit on this one.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: monsterer on December 14, 2015, 09:08:27 am
What is the actual function we are talking about here, that dice requires, and bitshares does not currently have?

Is it just a transparent, verifiable RNG? 
Or does it require an escrow smart contract whose result is based on the outcome of the RNG?

Is the existence of such a function, by itself, considered gambling?  Or is it how a frontend website/client uses that function.
Are there any other legitimate uses for that type of contract?  Couldn't the contract be created with existing multisig functions?

At the very least we could have the RNG.  There's no way, that this alone could be considered gambling.  Random numbers are used for all sorts of things.   It would be up to the frontend how to use it, and only they would be subject to whatever legal or cultural consequences.   

I don't think bitshares needs to directly offer gambling, but I do think bitshares should have the simple tools available for someone who does want to offer it themselves.

You need a smart contract really. You have a bank, which is a big account full of currency, under the control of the 'house' and you have players who bet against the house using random numbers. The rnd decides who wins, paying the currency out to the winner (scaled by the probability of winning).

It's exact place at which the bet is struck that becomes the focus of any legal investigation, I think.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Empirical1.2 on December 14, 2015, 02:47:37 pm
The challenge with gambling is that it exposes the developers of the software to more risk than just about any other thing we could write.

Thanks for the reply, completely understandable but obviously a pity.

This might not be relevant, I don't speak code, but it seems Vitalik is writing gambling related code for Ethereum...

https://m.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/3kwsaf/if_you_are_going_to_be_building_gambling_sites/

https://github.com/ethereum/dapp-bin/blob/master/serpent_gamble/prepare.py

I guess the difference is it's then up to third parties to implement it.

Vitalik can get away with that because Ethereum is general purpose. Bitshares is specifically a financial platform though and mixing gambling and finance in the same interface is crazy stupid.

Why not integrate Silk Road into the interface so high frequency traders can keep up their supply of cocaine?

Sometimes it's just not worth it to build something directly on Bitshares or to have the developers associated with certain things. It's not that I'm against gambling but I just think if you want gambling there is a DAC Play blockchain specifically set up to take on these sorts of risks. I don't see why all risk should be centralized on Bitshares if Bitshares is the most critical blockchain, the mother blockchain.

Why not take the risks on the chains which were set up specifically for these sorts of experiments?


Here is the law in China
Quote
Whoever, for the purpose of profit, gathers people to engage in gambling, runs a gambling house or makes gambling his profession shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or public surveillance and shall also be fined.

Is it worth killing Bitshares in China? China is the main market for Bitshares and you want to poison that market with gambling so regulators can have every excuse they need to go after witnesses and even users?

Unlike Ethereum which is general purpose and have many types of apps, Bitshares is only finance, and as soon as you associate it with gambling you make it very easy to ban. If those associations are to be made, why would you want to have the core developers make that association by building a casino right beside the stock market?

Imagine you're some Chinese politician or regulator and you're using Bitshares for the first time, introduced to Bitshares because of crowd funding or the stocks, and you see a casino built into it? It's one thing to have an ad for a casino which is a separate third party operation, but it's something else completely to build it into the interface itself. If it must be decentralized, use the DAC Play blockchain and then put the UIA on Bitshares so people can buy it through Bitshares.

Also remember Lottoshares? If it's such a big demand then why aren't people using that?
http://www.onlinebetting.com/legal/china/


In order to reduce risks on the developers, witnesses and the blockchain itself all of the topics below should be avoided:

1. Drugs or controlled substances
2. Gambling
3. Bribery
4. Dealing in obscene matter

If individuals want to take their chances with these non-violent but clearly fronwd upon activities then they can create a UIA and do so as a third party (this way the risk is entirely on the people who want to take it). There is no need for a FBA or to bring the whole blockchain into their experiment because by doing that you also spread risk and potentially infect the whole blockchain with police investigations.

Gambling isn't likely to make Bitshares have a 100 billion dollar market cap. If a casino were such a good idea then you'd be using the DAC Play blockchain, or Lottoshares, or Lottoshares, or any of the others. My guess is a casino done they way you'd be thinking about doing it would bring only risks, it wouldn't better the world in any kind of way, or advance liberty in any kind of way, so it's not like prediction markets which actually have some purpose.

Of course I'm not the decision maker, the community is. It's very possible that the majority in the community either don't live in a country like China, or they don't live in the USA, so they might think it's a good idea to do it.  I just hope if they go into it that they realize there are cops who don't have anything better to do but to investigate stuff like that.


Quote
Also remember Lottoshares? If it's such a big demand then why aren't people using that?


- A lottery's USP over Dice is the much larger jackpot, Lottoshares did not have that and the one it did have was paid out in Lottoshares and so would be worthless if you tried to cash out in the tiny illiquid LTS market.
- They also did not have a decentralized rng IIRC
- As a new low value DAC, they would be perceived as even more risky than a centralized site.
- The blockchain performance at that time as well as GUI would not have been compelling enough to attract centralized business.

Quote
Gambling isn't likely to make Bitshares have a 100 billion dollar market cap. If a casino were such a good idea then you'd be using the DAC Play blockchain, or Lottoshares, or Lottoshares, or any of the others. My guess is a casino done they way you'd be thinking about doing it would bring only risks, it wouldn't better the world in any kind of way, or advance liberty in any kind of way, so it's not like prediction markets which actually have some purpose.

Gambling will be successful for exactly the same reason a decentralized exchange may be successful.

Less threat of theft, hit and run, seizure and closure, however now that BTC is maturing there are more trusted and legal BTC centralized exchanges and so the risks are lower and thus the DEX has to compete on price. With gambling this is not the case, there are many thefts. hit and runs and closures so the USP still exists and will for a while. 

The reason previous options have met with limited success is the same reason a DEX has been unsuccessful to date, they haven't been able to marry the user experience of centralized options with the advantages of decentralization. BTS 2.0 is the first blockchain capable of achieving of this. The difference with the DEX and most other two way markets including PM's is that besides developing the product you need to bring enough buyers and sellers together and create initial liquidity to make it viable. (This is why I probably wouldn't invest heavily in the BTS Prediction Market FBA, BTS has demonstrated the ability to develop a good product but not take it to market - this is very hard for anyone - and I suspect Augur may bootstrap first and suck up >90% market share just like BTC vs. Alts. A PM may also require a lot of other moving parts/management to be competitive.) Dice is appealing as only a good product needs to be created and even the first customer will enjoy the same experience that he'll enjoy when there are many more.

Is it worth killing Bitshares in China? China is the main market for Bitshares and you want to poison that market with gambling so regulators can have every excuse they need to go after witnesses and even users?

The current TX fee, already makes further Chinese penetration unlikely imo.

BTS as a finance platform in China will among other things be used for capital control circumvention just like BTC and Stealth CNY will allow for a wide range of illegal business activities and potential tax avoidance that is going to give BTS problems in China as it expands in size anyway.   

Quote
Unlike Ethereum which is general purpose and have many types of apps, Bitshares is only finance, and as soon as you associate it with gambling you make it very easy to ban. If those associations are to be made, why would you want to have the core developers make that association by building a casino right beside the stock market?

BTS merged with FMV and DNS, I believe the ultimate ambition is to make it a general purpose platform wherever it is in the best interests of BTS to do so.

The platform DAC's like Ethereum and BitShares depend on money & ultimately profit coming into the system to fund further development, bootstrap their key smartcoins and create a bustling blockchain economy, like BTC, Ethereum may help bootstrap ETH and their key smartcoin products on the back of  gambling, most likely Augur sports betting. Due to the consequent network effect, anyone wishing to issue financial products and services might choose to do so on the most popular and fastest growing platform, this is where customers looking for those products may also turn to first.






Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Samupaha on December 14, 2015, 03:18:23 pm
I agree also that because of risks in gambling we shouldn't do it, at least for now. Maybe later when we are so big that nobody can ignore us.

But just as a thought experiment, how exactly the FBA should work in this case? How would you build gambling business that's core is FBA? What kind of new transaction should be created on the blockchain that will be the revenue source for the FBA?
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Xeldal on December 14, 2015, 03:28:43 pm

Quote
Unlike Ethereum which is general purpose and have many types of apps, Bitshares is only finance, and as soon as you associate it with gambling you make it very easy to ban. If those associations are to be made, why would you want to have the core developers make that association by building a casino right beside the stock market?

BTS merged with FMV and DNS, I believe the ultimate ambition is to make it a general purpose platform wherever it is in the best interests of BTS to do so.


More and more I feel all we have is BitSharesX by a new name, and we're stuck, not allowed to do anything else. 
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Xypher on December 14, 2015, 03:34:42 pm
How many of you guys would actually be interested in backing the house if we launch a dice based project (open source maybe)  ?
Keep in mind, it will be basic and not decentralized, but functional and good enough to get things rolling.
Should, ofcourse ask kuro and hybridd if its even possible, but yea.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Empirical1.2 on December 14, 2015, 03:39:57 pm
I agree also that because of risks in gambling we shouldn't do it, at least for now. Maybe later when we are so big that nobody can ignore us.

The problem is whether you can get big enough without delving into activities like gambling, which was one of the primary activities that bootstrapped Bitcoin (As well as things like Silk Road)  A key USP of a decentralized blockchain is the difficulty in shutting it down so it stands to reason you may attract and profit the most from activities some people might want to shut down.

Microsoft and some big financial names are also looking favourably on Ethereum, despite the fact that Augur is the biggest Ethereum dapp being developed, which is clearly going to have sports betting as it's bread and butter. The fact Vitalik is writing gambling related smart contracts doesn't seem to phase them either.

In BTS there is a lot of risk though, I just bring it up from time to time to test the waters because the inevitable future is coming on imo


Quote
Unlike Ethereum which is general purpose and have many types of apps, Bitshares is only finance, and as soon as you associate it with gambling you make it very easy to ban. If those associations are to be made, why would you want to have the core developers make that association by building a casino right beside the stock market?

BTS merged with FMV and DNS, I believe the ultimate ambition is to make it a general purpose platform wherever it is in the best interests of BTS to do so.


More and more I feel all we have is BitSharesX by a new name, and we're stuck, not allowed to do anything else.

I liked the crypto-currency aspect of BTSX. But I think the 'features for me' thread demonstrates that developers and shareholders are willing to consider a wide range of blockchain additions not necessarily limited to finance but based on risk/reward etc.
.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: yvv on December 14, 2015, 03:55:40 pm
How many of you guys would actually be interested in backing the house if we launch a dice based project (open source maybe)  ?
Keep in mind, it will be basic and not decentralized, but functional and good enough to get things rolling.
Should, ofcourse ask kuro and hybridd if its even possible, but yea.

There are a million of bitcoin casinos out there. If you have to put together one more, you have quite a competition. You have to put together some features which no other casino has.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Xypher on December 14, 2015, 04:03:03 pm
Instant confirmations.
People would actually love it.
I hate having to wait so much on Bitcoins you know ?
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: monsterer on December 14, 2015, 04:42:42 pm
How many of you guys would actually be interested in backing the house if we launch a dice based project (open source maybe)  ?
Keep in mind, it will be basic and not decentralized, but functional and good enough to get things rolling.
Should, ofcourse ask kuro and hybridd if its even possible, but yea.

Many people would probably take that risk, but not me, because without a gambling licence you can expect a knock at the door from your local authorities who would confiscate the bank :)
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Xypher on December 14, 2015, 04:45:04 pm
How many of you guys would actually be interested in backing the house if we launch a dice based project (open source maybe)  ?
Keep in mind, it will be basic and not decentralized, but functional and good enough to get things rolling.
Should, ofcourse ask kuro and hybridd if its even possible, but yea.

Many people would probably take that risk, but not me, because without a gambling licence you can expect a knock at the door from your local authorities who would confiscate the bank :)


I have a connect whose license could be "possibly" used.
Will need to link up and confirm.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: luckybit on December 14, 2015, 04:45:10 pm
http://lottoshares.com/
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: monsterer on December 14, 2015, 04:48:30 pm
You could probably emulate a crude decentralised Dice by having a feed price which was just a random number between 0 and 100, say. You'd have to trust the feed producer, which isn't ideal, tho...
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: fav on December 14, 2015, 04:49:27 pm
@ccedk should have a licence for gambling
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Empirical1.2 on December 14, 2015, 04:56:11 pm
Instant confirmations.
People would actually love it.
I hate having to wait so much on Bitcoins you know ?

I don't see as much potential in centralized sites, but instant deposit confirmations is good advantage.

https://just-dice.com/ now uses CLAM crypto-currency,

I asked in their troll box and average deposit confirmation time is 6 minutes so BTS is much better than even that. (Also for the record, their trollbox said their site makes about $1000 per day profit and the stats are there too.) So there is some value in non BTC centralized dice sites.

Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Xypher on December 14, 2015, 05:07:12 pm
Yea, instant conf, makes it far more interesting.
That said, there are other expenses

1. Licensing guy will need x amount upfront. Lets say I can get it for 2k
2. Development will be another pain in the  bum - we'll need to spend cash there
3. There's the house rake - so that will require funds.
4. Marketing ?

So yea, as much as I'd want to launch this as a weekend project and hand it back to the community, looking at the expenses, I wouldn't jump on it.
Possible ? Yes.
Costly ? Maybe.
Profitable ? Yes.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: yvv on December 14, 2015, 05:11:22 pm
Instant confirmations.
People would actually love it.
I hate having to wait so much on Bitcoins you know ?

I don't see as much potential in centralized sites, but instant deposit confirmations is good advantage.

https://just-dice.com/ now uses CLAM crypto-currency,

I asked in their troll box and average deposit confirmation time is 6 minutes so BTS is much better than even that. (Also for the record, their trollbox said their site makes about $1000 per day profit and the stats are there too.) So there is some value in non BTC centralized dice sites.

So, what's a point in making another dice casino? Just negotiate just-dice to accept BTS, bitUSD, bitWhatever. [edit]Or make a CLAM gateway in bitshares and you are good to play.[/edit]
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: puppies on December 14, 2015, 05:18:37 pm
Imo prior to gambling taking off we need stealth transactions. 

With stealth transactions I could safely help fund development, and could safely partake.

The backend would be easy.  The front end, advertising, and regulatory compliance would be the killers.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: monsterer on December 14, 2015, 05:24:37 pm
Imo prior to gambling taking off we need stealth transactions. 

With stealth transactions I could safely help fund development, and could safely partake.

No you couldn't. The hole in the proposal design would be exposed with any seizure of private keys. The government can see who sent them the coins, if they own the private keys.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Empirical1.2 on December 14, 2015, 05:27:37 pm
http://lottoshares.com/

AFAIK that's a physical lottery based in tiny St Marteen in the Caribbean, population 80 000?

Lottoshares are just a UIA that receives profits based on it's success, they also have a currently centralized online casino site too.

Ultimately they want to move some aspects of both operations onto the blockchain, but with such a small population they will have a low ceiling and I think they have to pitch/prove the model to the government too.

When they run the numbers it's not particularly appealing when compared to investing, even in most centralized dice sites.

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,18452.msg236687.html#msg236687

And that's if they achieve that...

So again not a good gauge for decentralized gambling potential and as I said previously, decentralized lottery would be a harder nut to crack because it requires a large jackpot to justify playing it over dice. (Though considering traditional lotteries lose up to 50% to taxes, expenses, the lotteries of the future will ultimately be on the blockchain because of much better odds, however being a physical lottery, lottoshares will still have comparable expenses and taxes too.)

Instant confirmations.
People would actually love it.
I hate having to wait so much on Bitcoins you know ?

I don't see as much potential in centralized sites, but instant deposit confirmations is good advantage.

https://just-dice.com/ now uses CLAM crypto-currency,

I asked in their troll box and average deposit confirmation time is 6 minutes so BTS is much better than even that. (Also for the record, their trollbox said their site makes about $1000 per day profit and the stats are there too.) So there is some value in non BTC centralized dice sites.

So, what's a point in making another dice casino? Just negotiate just-dice to accept BTS, bitUSD, bitWhatever. [edit]Or make a CLAM gateway in bitshares and you are good to play.[/edit]

Yeah I'm not a fan of another centralized dice site, but I can see a centralized BTS one would have some advantages & could get a little traction.  (Depending on how it's structured, the point would be to profit, by owning a % of the house at the ground level.) 

I'm looking at the advantages of a decentralized dice site which would have clear USP's and the ability to gain a large market share over time, in the process bringing millions of transactions and income into the BitShares ecosystem to increase BTS value, fund further development and help bootstrap BTS smartcoins.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: puppies on December 14, 2015, 05:44:18 pm
Imo prior to gambling taking off we need stealth transactions. 

With stealth transactions I could safely help fund development, and could safely partake.

No you couldn't. The hole in the proposal design would be exposed with any seizure of private keys. The government can see who sent them the coins, if they own the private keys.

I was thinking more along the lines of creating an account not linked to me.  Sending blinded funds to it.  Unblinding those funds.  Upgrading to ltm, and using that account to fund and or gamble.  The final hop would be open for all to see anyways.

Edit.  And yes I know I could do all that now, it's just a lot more work than it should be and there is very little blinded activity to hide mine.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: monsterer on December 14, 2015, 06:45:45 pm
I was thinking more along the lines of creating an account not linked to me.  Sending blinded funds to it.  Unblinding those funds.  Upgrading to ltm, and using that account to fund and or gamble.  The final hop would be open for all to see anyways.

Edit.  And yes I know I could do all that now, it's just a lot more work than it should be and there is very little blinded activity to hide mine.

That's still just as traceable isn't it? The unlinked account knows who sent it blinded funds and the gambling bank knows the unlinked account for the same reason.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: puppies on December 14, 2015, 06:51:58 pm
I was thinking more along the lines of creating an account not linked to me.  Sending blinded funds to it.  Unblinding those funds.  Upgrading to ltm, and using that account to fund and or gamble.  The final hop would be open for all to see anyways.

Edit.  And yes I know I could do all that now, it's just a lot more work than it should be and there is very little blinded activity to hide mine.

That's still just as traceable isn't it? The unlinked account knows who sent it blinded funds and the gambling bank knows the unlinked account for the same reason.

Yes.  But since I would control the private keys for the unlinked account the authorities would need to gain access to my private keys to prove it was me, and without knowing who I am that would be difficult.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: Samupaha on December 14, 2015, 06:53:13 pm
I agree also that because of risks in gambling we shouldn't do it, at least for now. Maybe later when we are so big that nobody can ignore us.

The problem is whether you can get big enough without delving into activities like gambling, which was one of the primary activities that bootstrapped Bitcoin (As well as things like Silk Road)  A key USP of a decentralized blockchain is the difficulty in shutting it down so it stands to reason you may attract and profit the most from activities some people might want to shut down.

Microsoft and some big financial names are also looking favourably on Ethereum, despite the fact that Augur is the biggest Ethereum dapp being developed, which is clearly going to have sports betting as it's bread and butter. The fact Vitalik is writing gambling related smart contracts doesn't seem to phase them either.

In BTS there is a lot of risk though, I just bring it up from time to time to test the waters because the inevitable future is coming on imo

If we are going to go for gambling, it should be done with a plan that really has great potential. Not any kind of ordinary web casinos etc. that have lots of competition. We do not need any licenses, because this is a DAC and anybody can develop the software. Of course Cryptonomex is skeptical about legal risks and that's their decision to make. This should be done by somebody else, preferably some anonymous group so there wont be any possibilities to sue anybody.

Everything should be in the blockchain: bitassets are only accepted money, all transaction types are native, RNG is in the blockchain etc.

It could be even a downloadable "casino-wallet" if running a website is too risky. Maybe that would be the "unfair advantage" that will help gambling feature to stand out from competition?

If we are going to gambling, we have to go big way. I'll oppose any half-baked and half-funded attempts that aren't doing anything that will differentiate them from competition.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: bytemaster on January 05, 2016, 07:43:22 pm
If only there was a MAS where those who provide the gambling services could be insured by the gamblers and each other.
If only there was a way to insure against regulatory persecution.
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: btswolf on January 05, 2016, 07:55:35 pm
If only there was a MAS where those who provide the gambling services could be insured by the gamblers and each other.
If only there was a way to insure against regulatory persecution.
Are you trying to sell something?  8)
Title: Re: BitShares Dice FBA
Post by: tonyk on January 05, 2016, 08:43:50 pm
If only there was a MAS where those who provide the gambling services could be insured by the gamblers and each other.
If only there was a way to insure against regulatory persecution.

 +5%