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The business is more than likely violating gambling regulations by soliciting US customers. IANAL, but Satoshi Dice did block US players due to legal concerns h
by Romoku 13y ago
The business is more than likely violating gambling regulations by soliciting US customers. IANAL, but Satoshi Dice did block US players due to legal concerns https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=135521.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=135521.0.
- 6thSigma 13y agoI was more so curious if a lawyer might try to categorize this site under currency trading or some other type of derivatives trading rather than straight gambling. (IANAL)
- MichaelGG 13y agoCan you explain how they blocked US players? I skimmed that page and only saw "not possible since you play via sending to a bitcoin address; there's no IP to block".
- dllthomas 13y agoPresumably they blocked US players who don't know how to use a proxy?
- MichaelGG 13y agoCan you explain further? Playing is literally done only by sending to a Bitcoin address. You win or lose and get paid back or not. There's no website involved in the actual game.
- dllthomas 13y agoBy "proxy" I didn't necessarily mean "web proxy". If at any point an IP address is visible it is feasible to exclude transactions that involve US IP addresses. This is, of course, trivial to circumvent - which was my point.
- stuhood 13y agoBitcoin is a decentralized system, so there is no reasonable place to put these IP restrictions. If there is a single Bitcoin mining node (out of thousands[0]) that will accept your transaction, you can play. [0] http://blockchain.info/connected-nodes http://blockchain.info/connected-nodes
- dllthomas 13y agoYou're not speaking to the important question, which is whether there is any way for the recipient to tell the originating IP of a bitcoin transaction. I am gathering the answer is "no". If "yes", then there is an obvious place to put the IP restrictions: in the satoshi dice service itself. Obviously, even in this case, it could be defeated with a proxy.
- icebraining 13y agoThe point is that the recipient of the money doesn't interact at all to receive it; the rest of the network just "decides" (based on the transaction) that such address now has X more coins. The machine with the address/wallet is not consulted.
- dllthomas 13y agoThat is not the point. The information could be available, and the recipient could therefore act on it. If the information is not available then that is the point - but that could in principle be the case even if there was interaction.
- icebraining 13y agoBut it's not like the recipient could invalidate the transaction even if it had that information.
- dllthomas 13y ago
- cstrat 13y agoI believe all they did was block US users from seeing the website - there is no way to block users from transacting with Satoshidice.
- Romoku 13y agoSorry for the confusion. They blocked US players from their website where they could get information on what was currently being bet on and where to send their Bitcoin. IIRC Satoshi Dice worked by sending Bitcoin to a specific address for a bet and the address changed each time which they displayed on their website. By blocking US players from the website they could legally claim to be in compliance with the regulation (IANAL).
- MichaelGG 13y agoHmm the site seems to load the same for me US IP or not. You do have to click "I agree" that you're legal, though.
- Romoku 13y agoWell some months ago it was a separate landing page, but I guess they changed it. They still don't display the information unless you agree that you are in a legal jurisdiction to use the service.