

Bet anonymously with Bitcoin on Bitbet.us - orkaa
http://bitbet.us
Anyone can anonymously place a bet - no account needed.
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xanados
This betting site has a really stupid betting system. It appears that the
amount of money you receive isn't based on a pricing of the bet, as is done on
all real prediction markets, but based on a simple payout of all the bets
received on the other side of the bet by the end of the bet date. This system
has two practical consequences: 1. You can't determine the markets current
probability estimates from the current state of the market, as you can with
priced markets. 2. You should never bet until the last second so you can know
the odds for the bet. In fact, it would make sense to create a sniping bot
that would programmatically calculate the odds, compare them to your
probability estimate, and only make the bet if it is favorable. There is
another site called Bets of Bitcoin (<http://betsofbitco.in/>) that has
similarly dumb rules.

Edit: It appears that they actually tilt the payouts of bets based on an
arbitrary weighting factor towards earlier bettors (arbitrary in that it
doesn't at all take into account changing risk circumstances or likely levels
of risk decay as a real market would), in some undisclosed fashion. I
recommend that no one bet on this highly flawed system.

~~~
jany
[http://polimedia.us/trilema/2013/i-would-like-to-address-
tha...](http://polimedia.us/trilema/2013/i-would-like-to-address-that-
question-at-this-time/)

~~~
xanados
Wow, that's a lot of vitriol. I didn't mean to upset him so much, but I
apologize to him for the offense. I understand that this is his baby so any
criticism feels very personal. I could have been nicer.

That said, I must disagree with some of the substantive points he made in this
post.

> No, you clueless douche, it doesn’t have that consequence. It has the exact
> opposite consequence : that in this system you can determine actual current
> market valuations of risk. This unlike the systems you cite, which are
> nothing but glorified scams, and which specifically prevent you from gauging
> the market sentiment precisely because they’re not market priced.

BitBet, for the bet of Houston Texans to win the Super Bowl, has .07 against
and .08 for (an implied probability of approximately 50%). The reality is that
if I place a bet today, I won't know the odds that I'm betting against until
the last day of the betting. It's true that there are economic results showing
that the pricing in parimutuel betting will settle to the market expected
value _in equilibrium_ , but this example shows that these markets require
much greater liquidity to provide anything resembling real-life probability
estimates. You simply can't open a contract on a prediction market for 50:50
that the Texans will win the Super Bowl and have anyone take the other side of
your trade.

> This idiocy is based on the presumption that you can import the “real odds”
> from somewhere. This is not what BitBet is doing, importing the “real odds”
> from somewhere else. BitBet establishes the actual odds.

In a priced market, informed market participants look at the probability
represented by market prices and make their bets taking into account the
information that they have. This action causes all of the information to be
revealed in aggregate. His statement above implies that the "real odds" are
being set by the market, not by reality, which is an inversion of cause and
effect. The real odds are always imported from elsewhere, namely reality
itself, as estimated through private and public information and analysis.

In order to profit in parimutuel games, you have to have both an accurate
understanding of the reality, and an accurate estimate of public sentiment
(and knowledge of the actual payout algorithm, of course). For priced markets
to converge upon truthful values only requires that informed market
participants bet based on their private information and best estimates, which
is a much lower bar.

Not all parimutuel markets are created equally of course. Dynamic parimutuel
markets[1] have some advantages over traditional markets (they don't suffer
from a lack of buy liquidity, for example, but still don't allow traders to
know their payouts at the time of the bet), but this doesn't seem to be one.

All that said, I intend no offense to the creators of this project, and wish
them all the best in all of their journeys. Three cheers! I wish the world had
more prediction markets.

1: [http://dpennock.com/papers/pennock-ec-2004-dynamic-
parimutue...](http://dpennock.com/papers/pennock-ec-2004-dynamic-
parimutuel.pdf)

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wtn
Why would they register that domain? From Wikipedia:

Under .US nexus requirements .US domains may be registered only by the
following qualified entities:

• Any United States citizen or resident,

• Any United States entity, such as organizations or corporations,

• Any foreign entity or organization with a bona fide presence in the United
States

To ensure that these requirements are met, NeuStar frequently conducts "spot
checks" on registrant information.

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DanBC
You might want to change a couple of words on the FAQ. Anything that mentions
POTUS and death threats is taken seriously.

There's nothing to say where you're based, or if you're obeying their laws.
Where are you based? Are you obeying their laws? What have you done to protect
yourself from vigorous US law enforcement attempts?

EDIT: For the silent downvoters - which part is controversial?

People who say 'bomb' in an airport are dragged off. People who mention, even
jokingly, death threats to POTUS attract extra investigation.

This website is doing several things which are not legal in the US. Betting on
sports games; financial transactions for off-shore gambling; etc.

This website has a domain registered in the US for US residents only.

~~~
mootothemax
I think that that's an attempt to try and prove that they're not an
assassination market:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market>

 _An assassination market or market for assassinations is a prediction market
where any party can place a bet (using anonymous electronic money, and
pseudonymous remailers) on the date of death of a given individual, and
collect a payoff if they "guess" the date accurately..._

 _It has been argued that the feasibility of an assassination market precludes
the acceptance by governments of any form of anonymous electronic money._

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sakopov
It's a neat idea and I'm glad bitcoin is moving forward, but to me this is
really dirty business to be in.

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rshm
interesting to see .us domain name, given online betting is illegal in us.

~~~
morsch
Well, they're not betting with real money, are they?

~~~
mikeash
Doubt it matters. Any commodity that has value ought to be covered, and value
is simply determined by people's willingness to pay, so bitcoins clearly have
value. You can't get around gambling laws by gambling with chickens rather
than dollars, so why would bitcoins be any different?

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joelthelion
If only one of these fifty bitcoin betting site developers created a
prediction market instead, he'd have my money.

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Beat-O
Awesome idea! I'd like a bit better browsing by categories and specific areas
of betting. Hope it picks up!

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fastball
Has this been done before, but without BTC?

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Murkin
Who resovles bets ?

~~~
orkaa
Bets are resolved by moderators.

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Evbn
Since when is bitcoin anonymous?

