7 ms·

You're a fricking genius.

by Gepsens 5y ago

noduerme 5y ago
Sarcasm much? I'm a full blown idiot. I was just solving one problem at a time.
- Gepsens 5y ago
  Erm no, I really liked your post
  - nickthemagicman 5y ago
    Same. It was very interesting.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    thanks.
elcomet 5y ago
He's a frickin genius because he found ways to break the law with impunity for his own profit ? I'm surprised by HN sometimes.
- noir_lord 5y ago
  You can respect the ingenunity if not the morality of it. His solution was a clever hack because he worked around the law without apparently breaking it directly - clever. That said gambling systems are specifically one class of software I refuse to work on.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - hnbad 5y ago
    I think the lawyer who convinced the gov't that the operation was legal being a former MP and this taking place in a nation of less than 100,000 people is a crucial element to the story. Incidentally both gambling AND fintech (including crypto) are on the list of industries I refuse to do work with. So I guess BTC gambling would have been off the table for two reasons.
- noduerme 5y ago
  Uh, excuse me, but this whole story demonstrates that I went to extreme lengths to never break any laws, no matter how large or small the jurisdiction. Had I been willing to bend laws, I'd surely be a lot richer today.
  - skrebbel 5y ago
    Come on, cURL'ing to a foreign server to get a random number and not just reading /dev/urandom is logically identical. It's a hack, just like calling into GPL'ed code over HTTP is a hack to avoid "linking" the GPL'ed code. It doesn't really suddenly turn a site from gambling site into a non-gambling site. I mean, I have mad respect for the hustle with the former MP etc. I agree with what you say in that you did not actually break the law - because you found a loophole (made a loophole? hustled it? again, I'm impressed). You ran a gambling site from IoM though :-)
    - noduerme 5y ago
      What's so funny is - I was in a peer group of early btc founders who were starting random Bitcoin hustles and didn't care at all about laws. No one at that time had even approached the IoM about whether BTC was currency - nor would they have, because trying to find legal haven was the furthest thing from their minds. And so not surprisingly, the IoM didn't have a ready answer when I asked them whether gambling with Bitcoin was actually gambling. But the letter of the law was that gambling occurs _in the jurisdiction where_ the random chance takes place. So it really was different from hitting a local RNG, legally. It added a nice little feature too, which was that every spin and deck could be stored on a separate server that would show them all at the end of the day. This was a little before "proven randomness" took off in btc casinos, but I made the RNG reports available daily for analysis (without explaining the whole infrastructure, obviously). [edit] I just want to say that yes, you're obviously right, and yeah, I ran a casino from the IoM... without anyone knowing if that was okay or not... and it was just a moment in my life. of which I'm proud, I guess. I was living illegally in a small apartment in Alhama de Granada after violating my EU visa. hah. It was a great, great piece of software and I don't know if I'll ever write anything that good again. But it didn't really change my life or anything.
- concordDance 5y ago
  "the law"? There is no "The law", just a bunch of different jurisdictions with different laws. He didn't break Switzerland law. Does Switzerland's law not matter for some reason?
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  No laws were broken, else they'd be in jail. It's how the big companies that HN worships get away with not paying taxes. Morally dubious? For sure.
  - maccard 5y ago
    > No laws were broken, else they'd be in jail. Just because OP isn't in jail doesn't mean they didn't break the law. Laws are broken all the time.
    - noduerme 5y ago
      No. I'm not in jail because I did everything by the book. Everyone else thought it was the wild west.
  - void_mint 5y ago
    > No laws were broken, else they'd be in jail. Generous to assume that all that break laws go to jail.
- dna_polymerase 5y ago
  The breaking the law consists entirely of not acquiring a license. Otherwise everything they did was perfectly legal.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    finally, someone understands :)
- nickthemagicman 5y ago
  You mean like the people who smoked marijuana before it was legal? Or the people who got same sex married before it was legal? Or the slaves who escaped slavery before it was legal? Should the slaves have just not try to free themselves because it was "illegal"? The law does not equal morality.
- void_mint 5y ago
  Is your assertion that, because you deem his actions immoral, they did not require intelligence?
- nix23 5y ago
  >He's a frickin genius because he found ways to break the law with impunity for his own profit ? Obviously he did not break the law, finding holes like that is the number one job of a tax-lawyer.
- mellavora 5y ago
  I respect both the legality and the morality of it. First, he did comply with all applicable law. No laws were broken. Second, he did not break the spirit of the law. The law clearly allows gambling from the Isle of Man. Third, he did not conflate the law with morality. What is the morality of a 400,000 GBP 'licensing' fee? Laws around licensing are weird. Another poster mentioned that pouring wine than liquor into a glass is illegal, but liquor then wine is fine. Not much moral sense in that reg.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    Thank you. And yes, it's incredible the morally bankrupt things you see under color of law if you try getting into that business. Side story, I was once invited to be a guest of the now deposed dictator of Ghana when I casually floated to his lawyer who I met in a casino in Prague the idea of making them the next offshore gambling capital of the world. I did a little research on the country and then respectfully declined. In my view, I never broke a law or did anything immoral (since I was extremely transparent about the odds of every game and I made sure to only take adults from countries where gaming online was legal... who wanted to play, and knew the rules). And not conflating morality with legality -- while respectfully considering both -- is just a precondition to being an individual in a complicated world.
- abstractbarista 5y ago
  Yes. Gambling should be legal anyway.

You're a fricking genius.

noduerme 5y ago

Sarcasm much? I'm a full blown idiot. I was just solving one problem at a time.

Gepsens 5y ago
Erm no, I really liked your post
- nickthemagicman 5y ago
  Same. It was very interesting.
- noduerme 5y ago
  thanks.

elcomet 5y ago

He's a frickin genius because he found ways to break the law with impunity for his own profit ? I'm surprised by HN sometimes.

noir_lord 5y ago
You can respect the ingenunity if not the morality of it. His solution was a clever hack because he worked around the law without apparently breaking it directly - clever. That said gambling systems are specifically one class of software I refuse to work on.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- hnbad 5y ago
  I think the lawyer who convinced the gov't that the operation was legal being a former MP and this taking place in a nation of less than 100,000 people is a crucial element to the story. Incidentally both gambling AND fintech (including crypto) are on the list of industries I refuse to do work with. So I guess BTC gambling would have been off the table for two reasons.
noduerme 5y ago
Uh, excuse me, but this whole story demonstrates that I went to extreme lengths to never break any laws, no matter how large or small the jurisdiction. Had I been willing to bend laws, I'd surely be a lot richer today.
- skrebbel 5y ago
  Come on, cURL'ing to a foreign server to get a random number and not just reading /dev/urandom is logically identical. It's a hack, just like calling into GPL'ed code over HTTP is a hack to avoid "linking" the GPL'ed code. It doesn't really suddenly turn a site from gambling site into a non-gambling site. I mean, I have mad respect for the hustle with the former MP etc. I agree with what you say in that you did not actually break the law - because you found a loophole (made a loophole? hustled it? again, I'm impressed). You ran a gambling site from IoM though :-)
  - noduerme 5y ago
    What's so funny is - I was in a peer group of early btc founders who were starting random Bitcoin hustles and didn't care at all about laws. No one at that time had even approached the IoM about whether BTC was currency - nor would they have, because trying to find legal haven was the furthest thing from their minds. And so not surprisingly, the IoM didn't have a ready answer when I asked them whether gambling with Bitcoin was actually gambling. But the letter of the law was that gambling occurs _in the jurisdiction where_ the random chance takes place. So it really was different from hitting a local RNG, legally. It added a nice little feature too, which was that every spin and deck could be stored on a separate server that would show them all at the end of the day. This was a little before "proven randomness" took off in btc casinos, but I made the RNG reports available daily for analysis (without explaining the whole infrastructure, obviously). [edit] I just want to say that yes, you're obviously right, and yeah, I ran a casino from the IoM... without anyone knowing if that was okay or not... and it was just a moment in my life. of which I'm proud, I guess. I was living illegally in a small apartment in Alhama de Granada after violating my EU visa. hah. It was a great, great piece of software and I don't know if I'll ever write anything that good again. But it didn't really change my life or anything.
concordDance 5y ago
"the law"? There is no "The law", just a bunch of different jurisdictions with different laws. He didn't break Switzerland law. Does Switzerland's law not matter for some reason?
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
No laws were broken, else they'd be in jail. It's how the big companies that HN worships get away with not paying taxes. Morally dubious? For sure.
- maccard 5y ago
  > No laws were broken, else they'd be in jail. Just because OP isn't in jail doesn't mean they didn't break the law. Laws are broken all the time.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    No. I'm not in jail because I did everything by the book. Everyone else thought it was the wild west.
- void_mint 5y ago
  > No laws were broken, else they'd be in jail. Generous to assume that all that break laws go to jail.
dna_polymerase 5y ago
The breaking the law consists entirely of not acquiring a license. Otherwise everything they did was perfectly legal.
- noduerme 5y ago
  finally, someone understands :)
nickthemagicman 5y ago
You mean like the people who smoked marijuana before it was legal? Or the people who got same sex married before it was legal? Or the slaves who escaped slavery before it was legal? Should the slaves have just not try to free themselves because it was "illegal"? The law does not equal morality.
void_mint 5y ago
Is your assertion that, because you deem his actions immoral, they did not require intelligence?
nix23 5y ago
>He's a frickin genius because he found ways to break the law with impunity for his own profit ? Obviously he did not break the law, finding holes like that is the number one job of a tax-lawyer.
mellavora 5y ago
I respect both the legality and the morality of it. First, he did comply with all applicable law. No laws were broken. Second, he did not break the spirit of the law. The law clearly allows gambling from the Isle of Man. Third, he did not conflate the law with morality. What is the morality of a 400,000 GBP 'licensing' fee? Laws around licensing are weird. Another poster mentioned that pouring wine than liquor into a glass is illegal, but liquor then wine is fine. Not much moral sense in that reg.
- noduerme 5y ago
  Thank you. And yes, it's incredible the morally bankrupt things you see under color of law if you try getting into that business. Side story, I was once invited to be a guest of the now deposed dictator of Ghana when I casually floated to his lawyer who I met in a casino in Prague the idea of making them the next offshore gambling capital of the world. I did a little research on the country and then respectfully declined. In my view, I never broke a law or did anything immoral (since I was extremely transparent about the odds of every game and I made sure to only take adults from countries where gaming online was legal... who wanted to play, and knew the rules). And not conflating morality with legality -- while respectfully considering both -- is just a precondition to being an individual in a complicated world.
abstractbarista 5y ago
Yes. Gambling should be legal anyway.