

Show HN: A Bitcoin casino with 23 games. - noduerme
https://strikesapphire.com

======
jackpirate
I would guess most bitcoiners are mathematically inclined people, and not
super into pure gambling. That said, I think poker might take off, especially
here in the US where things have gotten super murkey. This has the potential
ro revitalize the bitcoin debate amongst naysayers. I wish there were more
"obviously legitimate" services that use bitcoin out there.

If this takes off at all, there is no way that a lone programmer can provide
adequate security for a project like this. You _will_ get hacked, there's just
so many potential attack vectors.

~~~
jerf
"That said, I think poker might take off, especially here in the US where
things have gotten super murkey."

I know the IRS isn't fooled by "it's not dollars, it's just these things that
can be freely converted back and forth between dollars on the open market",
where "these things" is a category well beyond merely "BitCoin" or even
currencies. If you set up a local-ish economy that solely trades in cows,
literal, actual cows, expect the IRS to continue to enforce its relevant laws
based on the market value of cows. I seriously doubt that the laws against
online gambling will be fooled, and even if a few of them are, it's very
easily corrected. BitCoin doesn't add much to the murkiness at all; if it's
illegal to do it with dollars it's almost certainly (and certainly eventually)
illegal to do it with BitCoins.

~~~
jackpirate
Things aren't murky with the IRS. That's perfectly straightforward: you must
report net gambling income.

Things are murky with the legality of transferring money via credit card to
online casinos, and if the individual gambler is actually breaking the law by
participating. Bitcoin resolves that murkiness.

~~~
jerf
I use the IRS as an example, not the totality of Federal law. To the extent it
is illegal to transfer dollars to an online casino, it either is or will be
illegal to transfer anything else with market value. BitCoin won't resolve the
murkiness one bit.

Something I think you may need to understand is that this isn't a remotely new
idea. BitCoin may not have existed before, but casino chips, again, literal
physical casino chips, to use just one example from a richly populated field,
have been around forever, and Federal law does not watch someone trading
around chips and just shrug its shoulders and go "Well, golly, I guess those
aren't dollars, I'll just walk away I guess." It does something more like
"Well, golly, I guess we'll just slap some money laundering charges on too."

~~~
knowtheory
First, individual gamblers are not the target of any sort of federal online
gambling regulation.

The regulations on online gambling revolve around the accepting and disbursing
of funds by online gambling sites. Bitcoins do, and don't address this issue.
It does address the issue in so far as it makes transactions between parties
opaque, but it also doesn't address the issue if an FBI agent can just sign up
for an account and demonstrate the system working for transferring BTC.

------
ch0wn
You should add a warning for users without flash. I'm just looking at a large,
black browser window.

~~~
noduerme
hm. yeah, probably.

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Kilimanjaro
Some ideas for the bitcoin inclined entrepreneur:

    
    
        - bitpal : just like paypal, send bitcoins to friends
        - bitcard: like mastercard, online purchases with bitcoins
        - bitbank: a bank for your bitcoins, with interest
        - bitshop: like amazon, buy stuff online
        - bitbay : like ebay, auctions and more
    

Plenty of stuff to do and strike gold if bitcoin really takes off. Of all,
casino and porn are the real winners, as usual.

~~~
dolphenstein
Why would you need bitpal? I thought the transfer of bitcoins is already part
of the design. And a bitbank with interest won't work due to the (eventual)
fixed money supply. A bank will go broke.

~~~
carbonica
PayPal does more than just send money - it can hold a balance for you
securely, which given all of the hacking incidents (MtGox, BetCoin), is a
pretty important thing for the BitCoin community to get right. Sending someone
money without having to worry about the security is a pretty important
service.

Who knows how you make money off it, though.

------
preinheimer
I'd be rather wary of using any small time online casino. Apart from people
simply skimming the numbers, there's tonnes of issues behind reliable random
number generation and shuffling. Real casinos & lotteries screw this up all
the time (<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/01/ff_lottery/all/1>) with
people who (in theory) should be good at this.

~~~
Wingman4l7
An excellent (if a bit dated) example of this is discussed in depth in this
article:

[http://www.cigital.com/papers/download/developer_gambling.ph...](http://www.cigital.com/papers/download/developer_gambling.php)

~~~
preinheimer
Excellent read, thanks for the link.

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JohnnyBrown
Out of curiosity, where do you live/host? I've been thinking about creating a
bitcoin poker game but it would probably be foolish from the US

~~~
noduerme
I live outside the US and hosting is done in various other countries according
to law. I spent about $15k and 5% of the company's equity in legal fees to
insure that everything that would transpire here would be fully legal -- that
part was a lot harder than coding it, if you want to know the truth, and some
day I'll write a book on it or something, but... yeah. The reason no one's
done this is because it's an extremely daunting legal and political landscape,
so to take it on, just make sure you've kind of gamed out what happens under
each scenario. On the other hand, if you don't care it's pretty easy to launch
a poker script for bitcoin...just get outta the US before you do it, I'm sure
you'll make some bank ;)

~~~
codingthebeach
<https://betco.in/>

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dsl
Are you happy with your web host (whom I will not name) in Panama? I've been
looking for decent overseas hosting.

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seanalltogether
I expect moving to bitcoin will become very popular within the gambling
community soon.

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braindead_in
"Your computer or another computer on your network is compromised with a
virus. This allows online criminals to use it as part of a botnet to send spam
and attack websites." Very disturbing message. The details says that my IP
Address is associated with a Zombie computer and sends spam. The only
suggestion is the run the Anti Virus. Very unhelpful since there are no
Windows PCs on my home network.

~~~
jerguismi
I get the same notice...

~~~
noduerme
I think I've just loosened the restriction that was stopping you, but I'm not
sure. Try again now...

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crux_
An interesting combo, even just as a thought experiment: bitcoin + mental
poker. (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_poker>)

Wonder if there's a way to distribute a pot that doesn't require trusting a
central server?

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gfodor
bitcoin casino is a tautology

~~~
noduerme
mayyybe. It's definitely a gamble with my earnings. The basic thing here is
that while I'm not 100% sold on Bitcoin, it provides the chance to enter an
otherwise locked-down market. It's like a one-time chance to go back to 1995
and open an online casino. Nobody knows if this is going to work, because
nobody knows if Bitcoin will make it or not...and I might wind up holding a
ton of useless Bitcoins for all I know. But it's like buying land in Alaska,
y'know? Who knows what's under there.

~~~
bigohms
I admire the spirit and dedication to execute in a new derivative domain. By
the looks of the product, you've executed initially well, now just a matter of
making it sustainable.

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Arxiss
I couldn't enter the site. HEre is what i get:

Your request was blocked by BlockScript based on the policies of the
strikesapphire.com website.

BlockScript is security software which protects websites and empowers
webmasters to stop unwanted traffic. BlockScript detects and blocks requests
from all types of proxy servers and anonymity networks (such as web-based
proxies, open proxies, Tor, VPN servers, etc.), hosting networks, undesirable
robots and spiders, and even entire countries. For more information, see:
www.blockscript.com

~~~
alptrv
I was blocked too, and I'm not using any proxies or tor.

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duiker101
You said you don't take bets from italians, so why does the website appear to
me totally in italian (with many mistakes)?

~~~
noduerme
Because my friend who picked up street Italian from her boyfriend in Rome
helped me do the first translation right before Italy passed the law. She
probably screwed up a little, but she gets an A for effort =)

------
cabalamat
Your software appears to be broken. I input my email address and it said you
already had it. Then I got an email with a verification link, so I clicked on
the link, tried to log in, and the page said I needed to verify.

~~~
noduerme
Please try again. I see what happened, I had just done a testrun of cloudflare
on the game server, and it wasn't talking to the playerservers anymore because
the new DNS hadn't propagated yet. The system is distributed on a few
continents. If it still doesn't work, give it about 5 minutes. I know it's a
funny time to test that out, when this is ranking on the front page of HN, but
it's actually less stress than when I start having a lot of real bets riding.
I haven't announced this elsewhere, yet.

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nsomaru
Why would anyone engage in any "programmed" gambling game? It would seem
trivial to give the user the appearance of winning but ultimately have it
programmed that the house comes out on top.

~~~
gaius
This is funny, because a brick-and-mortar casino is also "programmed" so the
house comes out on top.

~~~
smallblacksun
Brick and mortar casinos are heavily regulated and inspected to ensure that
they are fair. While all the games have a house edge, they are ultimately
probabilistic. The concern with an online casino is that its blackjack game
won't just rely on the house X% edge, but will fix the deals so that the house
always comes out ahead after some set number of deals.

~~~
gaius
Jurisdictions that regulate online gambling take a fairly dim view of that, to
the extent that they inspect your hardware and source code from time to time.

~~~
smallblacksun
When you are in a brick and mortar casino you know what jurisdiction it is in.
When on a website, you don't know if it is in the UK (good) or Somalia (bad).

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daniel-cussen
How about a bitcoin bank instead? BTW, how much are you spending on lobbying?

~~~
ashconnor
How would a BitCoin bank work?

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rgbrgb
I'd prioritize design and initial load time - my two cents.

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Tichy
I only see a hectic video on that site.

------
PaulHoule
this is insanely illegal in the U.S. -- it can get you in trouble and it can
get Bitcoin in trouble

~~~
Bud
There is no "Bitcoin" to _get_ in trouble. That's the whole point. There's
nobody to go after.

~~~
eli
Huh? There's the person running the illegal gambling site to go after.

~~~
Bud
Are you confused? As was quite clear from my wording, I was speaking about
Bitcoin, only. My point, once again, was that "Bitcoin" can't get in trouble
from this, because there is no central Bitcoin entity to go after. It's
obvious that the site operator could possibly get in trouble, though. However,
you don't know with certainty that this site is "illegal" in any way, so I
don't see why you are opining about that.

------
pkteison
Bitcoin is for the distrustful (for those who are more trusting, credit cards
are sufficient.) Casinos require trust. How to reconcile the two?

~~~
streptomycin
Why is Bitcoin "for the distrustful"?

And if you don't see why Bitcoin is necessary in this scenario, try starting
an online casino that takes payments from credit cards, and see what happens.

~~~
noduerme
hahaha yup. +1 for nailing it. if you're a silicon valley boy w/o any links to
the mob, you're pretty much screwed. Bitcoin to the rescue? Who knows =)

------
earle
You're also probably in violation of some rather serious laws. Talk to an
attorney.

~~~
Bud
It's decidedly uninteresting and unhelpful to read a comment about how
something is "probably" violating laws. It either is, or it isn't. If you
don't know, don't post about it. Let someone with an actual legal background
post.

It's not like speculating about this isn't blindingly obvious; everyone knows
that online casinos can get into legal grey areas.

