4 ms·

Although it may be evil and expensive, it is absolutely not gambling. The last person to bid, wins. There is no chance, no draw, no random event. The last perso

Although it may be evil and expensive, it is absolutely not gambling. The last person to bid, wins. There is no chance, no draw, no random event. The last person gets it.

branden 17y ago
More accurately, you win if yours is the last bid to reach the server. You have less control over that than you think. Unless you pay for their premium service, of course.
diego 17y ago
Except getting the item is not winning. It's only winning if you pay less than retail price.
- sachinag 17y ago
  No, and this is where most people make the mistake. The winner of any auction is the last and highest bidder. Whether or not it is rational to bid more than retail is irrelevant to determining the winner of an auction. People conflate "I would never do that" with "no one would ever do that".
  - diego 17y ago
    You didn't understand my point. Winning is not getting the item. I define winning as paying less than it would cost at Amazon or wherever you would buy it. If you pay $20 in bids plus $50 for an item that costs $65 at Amazon, you lost $5 (even if your time is free). Yes, you "won" the auction but the real winner in economic terms is the house. [edit: what is the point of participating in an auction for commodity goods other than to pay less than retail? I assume that people who take part in this site do it in the hope of coming out ahead, not to win an auction at any cost even if it means paying more than the item is worth. I don't see how users of this site can confuse "winning an auction" with winning in economic terms]
    - edmccaffrey 17y ago
      "I define winning as" You don't get to redefine words to support your personal opinion, and still have a valid argument.
      - diego 17y ago
        That definition is the only one that makes sense from an economic standpoint. If you spent $100 on an item that cost $90 on Amazon, you lost. I don't care if you won the item. The winner of the auction is not necessarily the winner in economic terms, and that's all that matters. [edit: what makes a game of chance is the point that you win or lose money, not whether you win or lose the auction. I'm not confused, I'm just not getting distracted by the semantics of "winning the auction" vs. the real objective you are after]
        blhack 17y ago
        You need to substitute "winning" for "being an idiot". It is an english language problem...If you spend $90 on a $50 item, you lose because you are losing money. We are talking about lose in the "win/lose" usage of the word. You're not wrong, you're just confused.
        blhack 17y ago
        Do I lose when I get a soda from the soda machine at work instead of purchasing it in bulk? Do I lose if I purchase it in bulk from costco instead of pooling the resources of my friends, starting a company, and buying directly from a distributor? Is the soda machine a "game of chance"? The answer to all of these questions is "no". None of them are games of chance. This would be a game of chance if it was "pay $10 and you might win, but we won't tell you until the end" instead of "pay $10 and if somebody pays $11 we will tell you so that, if you chose to, you can bay $12. This cycle will continue until the item reaches a point that nobody is willing to spend more for the item" This is not a game of chance because you get to CHOSE if you are going to win, and they TELL you if you will before the conclusion of the auction (or game, in your description). You ARE simply confused about this, because it isn't possible for a rationally thinking person to make the argument that you are and mean it.
gort 17y ago
This doesn't appear to be true. In an article linked to by the story: http://jcs.org/notaweblog/2009/03/06/trying_to_game_swoopo_com/ http://jcs.org/notaweblog/2009/03/06/trying_to_game_swoopo_c... we are told that last-second manual bids had a possibly suspicious tendency to get lost, and it is hard or impossible to win without using their (evil) helper software.

Although it may be evil and expensive, it is absolutely not gambling. The last person to bid, wins. There is no chance, no draw, no random event. The last person gets it.

branden 17y ago

More accurately, you win if yours is the last bid to reach the server. You have less control over that than you think. Unless you pay for their premium service, of course.

diego 17y ago

Except getting the item is not winning. It's only winning if you pay less than retail price.

sachinag 17y ago
No, and this is where most people make the mistake. The winner of any auction is the last and highest bidder. Whether or not it is rational to bid more than retail is irrelevant to determining the winner of an auction. People conflate "I would never do that" with "no one would ever do that".
- diego 17y ago
  You didn't understand my point. Winning is not getting the item. I define winning as paying less than it would cost at Amazon or wherever you would buy it. If you pay $20 in bids plus $50 for an item that costs $65 at Amazon, you lost $5 (even if your time is free). Yes, you "won" the auction but the real winner in economic terms is the house. [edit: what is the point of participating in an auction for commodity goods other than to pay less than retail? I assume that people who take part in this site do it in the hope of coming out ahead, not to win an auction at any cost even if it means paying more than the item is worth. I don't see how users of this site can confuse "winning an auction" with winning in economic terms]
  - edmccaffrey 17y ago
    "I define winning as" You don't get to redefine words to support your personal opinion, and still have a valid argument.
    - diego 17y ago
      That definition is the only one that makes sense from an economic standpoint. If you spent $100 on an item that cost $90 on Amazon, you lost. I don't care if you won the item. The winner of the auction is not necessarily the winner in economic terms, and that's all that matters. [edit: what makes a game of chance is the point that you win or lose money, not whether you win or lose the auction. I'm not confused, I'm just not getting distracted by the semantics of "winning the auction" vs. the real objective you are after]
      - blhack 17y ago
        You need to substitute "winning" for "being an idiot". It is an english language problem...If you spend $90 on a $50 item, you lose because you are losing money. We are talking about lose in the "win/lose" usage of the word. You're not wrong, you're just confused.
      - blhack 17y ago
        Do I lose when I get a soda from the soda machine at work instead of purchasing it in bulk? Do I lose if I purchase it in bulk from costco instead of pooling the resources of my friends, starting a company, and buying directly from a distributor? Is the soda machine a "game of chance"? The answer to all of these questions is "no". None of them are games of chance. This would be a game of chance if it was "pay $10 and you might win, but we won't tell you until the end" instead of "pay $10 and if somebody pays $11 we will tell you so that, if you chose to, you can bay $12. This cycle will continue until the item reaches a point that nobody is willing to spend more for the item" This is not a game of chance because you get to CHOSE if you are going to win, and they TELL you if you will before the conclusion of the auction (or game, in your description). You ARE simply confused about this, because it isn't possible for a rationally thinking person to make the argument that you are and mean it.

gort 17y ago

This doesn't appear to be true. In an article linked to by the story: http://jcs.org/notaweblog/2009/03/06/trying_to_game_swoopo_com/ http://jcs.org/notaweblog/2009/03/06/trying_to_game_swoopo_c... we are told that last-second manual bids had a possibly suspicious tendency to get lost, and it is hard or impossible to win without using their (evil) helper software.