

Ask HN: Would you pay to play? - x0ner

I am trying to figure out a pricing model for my application and I am left stuck wondering if I am doomed for failure because I force people to pay (at least $1) to play. The incentive is that you could win $100, so to me it kind of makes sense, but I know there are some people who still will find a reason to stop from throwing a buck up.<p>I was thinking I could potentially do a free system that allowed you to play and if you won, you would get N credits to use towards a paid puzzle (with a cash prize). It sounds like that may be better, but complicates my design.<p>So the quick question is this - Would you pay $1 for the chance to win $100 or would you put the work in to get free credits to potentially win $100?
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trotsky
From your description it sounds like you'd be considered an online gambling
operator by the SAFE Port Act in the US.

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x0ner
Someone had mentioned this when I pitched the idea. Couldn't the fees to play
be considered a service? You are not betting, but instead solving a problem.

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mryan
You really need to seek some professional legal advice on this - you are
thinking of setting up a gambling website, and will need to be registered with
and regulated by the relevant authority.

If you are pitching this as a "service", I believe you will need to offer free
play. An example from the UK: Let's say a particular chocolate bar brand is
running a competition where you can win a prize by finding a special code
inside the chocolate wrapper. They are legally required to offer free entry
for this to be classified as a competition (so you can write to them and ask
for a free entry form - they have to comply).

If you can only enter the "competition" by paying, it is considered gambling
and regulated accordingly.

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PilotPirx
I'm not a gambling person. In such cases there is one thing I know for sure:
You won't throw away your personal money, so for every $ I win you will need
to earn one $ (at least).

Another problem: How do I know, that your program is anything like playing
fair? You could set up chances in program from anything like 1/100, 1/100,000
or no win at all. How do you want to built up a really great reputation for
your customers to trust you on this?

The puzzle would even complicate matters. It would need to generate a new
problem for every customer, otherwise you'll soon find the solution on the web
and everybody will win. Or people will write bots to cheat about it.

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x0ner
You have pointed out a few things I have been working with already. The first
one I have covered, but that goes a lot more into the design.

To your second point, I am not sure. I obviously am not in the business to
cheat people of their money, but I knew that could be a barrier initially. Any
suggestions on building that trust? I believe I could be transparent with how
the game is built without opening methods to cheat, but I would need to be
sure and even then I think some would be skeptical.

The game itself is a shared real-time experience, so this would not be an
issue.

