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Show HN: My friends just built a Bitcoin casino
- bitino 14y agoyou can see the game in action here - http://bitino.com/about/ http://bitino.com/about/
- engineerMike 14y agoIt looks like 30 bucks in few seconds. Nice. Like it. I am curious how are you guys making profit then?
- dan1234 14y agoFYI, there are a few typos in that page: "ammounts" should read "amounts" "Private Game URL's" does not need an apostrophe "You muse keep your game" should read "You must keep your game" (I'm guessing that one)
- bitino 14y agofixed. thanks
- bitino 14y agonothing like getting on the front page of HN when you are no way ready for it.
- jerguismi 14y agoI don't really understand why "provably fair" would be so big deal. The house is winning always, no matter what. But I don't gamble myself, so perhaps I don't uderstand that world that well.
- Drakim 14y agoI guess with bitcoin being so anonymous, it would be easier to get away with fraud and never be caught compared to a company that accepts USD though VISA.
- bitino 14y agoit's all about reputation. all games are made public online. all payouts are displayed on the website. if things went array for any reason it would be public knowledge very quickly and thus the end of the site.
- 3pt14159 14y agoI like the idea of provably random, but I think I would change it in a subtle way: I would pull the least relevant digits from a list of stocks (or currencies), sum them, then hash them. The key would be to do this after the bets are placed. Since any amount of jitter on the least significant digit for any of the stocks completely changes the outcome, and since there are already massive third parties interested in the exact nature of these numbers, you would have a very random, very provable flip. You wouldn't need a changing seed because the bets would come in and then everyone would wait a second or two and then the result would be provably fair. The problem with your provably random method is that it is still possible for the house to get a slight edge. Since the server seed is random, you could regenerate it hundreds of thousands of times so that the house has a slight edge for the first two or three flips (assuming there are lots of people playing on the same deck, it gets wayyyy easier if it is one deck per person). You don't need that much of an edge to dominate your competition. An edge of 2 or 3% doubles your revenue; which would 4x or 6x your profit, since margins are usually thin for gambling sites.
- EwanToo 14y ago
- phreeza 14y agoThis mixing of algorithms and gambling in the provably fair section got me wondering: Couldn't one set up a kind of market for randomness? Basically you could buy and sell a variance in exchange for an expected value, and people that agree on a trade send bitcoin (or whatever) to a third party, which then draws and pays out the corresponding amount to each party. It would make for some moderately interesting math, I wonder if there would be an interest in such a service? Basically casinos could then wrap this marketplace and have people gamble, with their expected gains being at a sort of market optimum.
- Bjartr 14y agoI'm not sure if I understand, do you mean something like this? http://gamesbyemail.com/News/DiceOMatic http://gamesbyemail.com/News/DiceOMatic
- stwe 14y agohttp://bitino.com/about/ http://bitino.com/about/ says I have to keep my game URL private otherwise people can steal my BitCoins, but there is no HTTPS? No deal.
- phreeza 14y agoCut them some slack, this is obviously as MVP as it gets.
- bitino 14y ago+1
- celticninja 14y agocan you clarify what was said above, are bitcoins held in the same way instawallet does?
- EwanToo 14y agoOn initial glance, and I may be a million miles off here, it feels like the history section which shows payouts is rather redundant. It seems like there's nothing to stop the casino inserting their own played games (either real but fixed, or entirely faked) to "adjust" the balance of historical payouts in one direction or another? The concept of the public seeds is clever though
- nwh 14y ago> The concept of the public seeds is clever though It's what all the other bitcoin gambling websites do. I can't hotlink it, but visit here[0] and click "verification" in the top right. [0]: http://satoshidice.com/# http://satoshidice.com/#
- bitino 14y agowe hear you. however, historical payouts dont effect the veracity/authenticity and fairness of the game. they are displayed to highlight some recent payouts more to establish initial credibility than anything else.
- impostervt 14y agoI gave it a shot with 0.1 BTC. Funds were available to start using a few seconds after I sent them. Went up a bit, got a 10, decided to cash out. Funds can't be withdrawn until the initial transfer has been confirmed 6 times (standard w/ bitcoins). Fun, simple. GJ.
- impostervt 14y ago6 confirmations finally occurred, was able to withdraw. So, all in all, no problems.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- npguy 14y agoJust curious, how this link was posted anew, since there was one on HN previously? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5293812 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5293812
- duqee 14y agoI like the idea, but I could not even see the menu! I had this annoying video overlaying the menu: http://pbrd.co/Z60dPK http://pbrd.co/Z60dPK It seems like it stuck in place.
- scottlilly 14y agoI'd be concerned about running an online casino with a .com domain. The US government has a track record of seizing domains. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/feds-seize-foreign-sites/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/feds-seize-foreign-...
- Ovid 14y agoBut this is what is really interesting about it. If the US government moves to shut this casino down, are they admitting that bitcoins are money?
- bitino 14y agowe are not a casino. this is a tiny side product built by a couple of guys over a couple of days to explore bitcoin.
- Ovid 14y agoWhy are you not a casino? People gamble with bitcoins and can win more bitcoins. Your site describes itself as "Win Bitcoins playing classic exciting gambling games at our Bitcoin Casino. Fair and Verified Games. Instant Withdrawals." My apologies if I've mischaracterized you, but a casino is "a public room or building where gambling games are played." bitino seems to clearly be an online variant of that. (Edit: can't grammar)
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- zumth 14y agoI'm wondering about the security of the generators and hashes you use. SHA-256 is to my knowledge fine, however the Mersenne twister used by Python isn't (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersenne_twister http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersenne_twister, although there may be modifications in Python). You have little plaintext, so I can't really find anything obvious, but given the nature of the site, you may want to use something cryptographically secure.
- joosters 14y ago"Bitino is a games company based in London." Then you are breaking the law. UK-based gambling companies have to ensure that customers are over 18. Running a gambling game that uses anonymous payments goes against this principle!
- snitko 14y agoOh no, somebody call the bitcoin police, quick.
- Colliwinks 14y agoOr the regular police would suffice, in this case.
- semanticist 14y agoYou could still do identity verification using either a 3rd party service, or by getting sight of ID documentation. (Certified copies of passports posted out, for instance. Sounds mad, I know, but I worked at a gaming start up and we had to do that for some customers!) In fact, you'll have to do that ANYWAY to be compliant, regardless of the method you use to fund accounts.
- joosters 14y agoTrue, although by the time you've signed up and proven ID, you've lost the 'spontaneous' appeal of the site (making it quick and easy to have a bet). I guess the site still has the advantage of low-cost money transfers and no risk of chargebacks, so bitcoins may have a use here. I wonder if it is possible to use bitcoins and comply with the UK gambling restrictions against money laundering? At first glance, it looks impossible, bitcoins being (supposedly) untraceable. However, you might be able to comply if you insist that winnings are always paid back to the same bitcoin wallet that they came from. The justification here being that your website won't have 'washed' the money any further than it was already laundered.
- semanticist 14y ago
- DanBC 14y agoIs any of the equipment based in England? You might want to check the Gambling Commission website to check if you need a licence.
- michaelochurch 14y agoFlagged. Bitcoin is a scam designed to make money for early adopters.
- Xcelerate 14y agoI was saving the private URL's (e.g. http://bitino.com/uQWyylFetc... http://bitino.com/uQWyylFetc...) to go back to and withdraw my cash later. (My browser cookies clear upon exit). The pages show the correct bitcoin balance, but they're not letting me withdraw! It says I haven't played a game, so even when I go ahead and play another, it still says "You haven't played yet!" Could you fix this ASAP because I actually put a decent amount of money in this...
- BitCoinWarrior 14y agoYou posted 33 minutes ago. Give them a chance to reply and resolve your issue
- Xcelerate 14y agoOkay, I revoked the accusation. I'm afraid my instinct is to mistrust people by default. We'll soon see if my instincts are wrong.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- bitino 14y agoclearing your cookies may have caused the issue. send through here an address and we will process the withdrawal reply
- Xcelerate 14y agoThanks for the reply! There's actually a lot of them. Is there a way to just modify it so that I can withdraw using just the private URL? (Otherwise, I'll send another support email [from gummybean] with the addresses.)