Is EOSbet dice a scam or legit? Let's take a deeper look ...
EOSbet's dice game has recently made headlines for having an insanely high number of transactions and volume in its network. But the network has just a little over 550 daily active users. It's been two weeks since they launched and they have already earned over 250000 EOS or over 1 million dollars in revenue.
Earning over 1 million in such a short period with only 500+ daily active users make it look suspicious. At the time of writing this post, it had 560 active users.
If you monitor the EOSbet site for a while, you will see a lot of users betting multiple times. Some example users who are betting really really lot:
https://bloks.io/account/chainhustler
https://bloks.io/account/g44dcnrrhege
https://bloks.io/account/marekvrba111
https://bloks.io/account/shisandashao
https://bloks.io/account/youmuchen123
https://bloks.io/account/yoooondaewon
https://bloks.io/account/gi2dmnzuhege
https://bloks.io/account/woshilucifer
These are just a few accounts. Based on my observation, it seems a lot of users are sending huge number of small bets like the ones I linked above. I can think of three reasons why this is happening:
They are gamblers or are addicted and are doing it on their own free will.
These are accounts of the core team of EOSbet. They are running bots that are doing this to stress test the network and earn the BET token.
They are geniuses who are deliberately doing this and setting a very high dice number of 90 - 95. The reason for doing this is to get their hands on free BET tokens. (You get 1 BET for wagering 5 EOS)
I have strong suspicions that reason 2 is happening a lot. EOSBet team recently announced that
Our bettor rewards program was extremely popular, so we plan to keep it going. For each 5 EOS wagered you’ll receive 1 BET token. We’ll likely roll out an even more favorable ratio for during our official launch and promotional campaigns. Please visit our Telegram for the most up-to-date information on our bonuses.
So, if they themselves are wagering using bots with a high dice number, they will be able to get lot of BET tokens to their poket while making it look like it is going to the pocket of the community. Even if this isn't an official policy of the core team, some team members might do this anonymously.
Even if they are gaming their own system, it doesn't make them scammers or less legit because they are giving other users the opportunity to game it as well. But it sure doesn't sound that ethical to manipulate bet volume and transactions.
Now, let's move on to see who is behind this game. According to their own official site:
Who is the team?
Due to the uncertainties and constantly evolving legal/regulatory environment facing both online gambling and cryptocurrencies, the team has opted to remain semi-private for the time being. This is particularly important as we have team members operating in multiple jurisdictions with differing regulatory climates.
Source: https://www.eosbet.io
This is the biggest concern about this game. Even if they scammed people, nobody would be able to sue them cause you can't sue people you don't know. This is a red flag behaviour.
The other red flag is that the site is not open source. If you click the fairness link in the dice site you will see the following message:
But what is this "novel randomness generation technique"? How do we know that it is novel and fair?
The answer is that we need to examine the source code of the entire site, the contract and all other relevant code. If the DApp is open source, we can verify its fairness. But this DApp is not open source.
These two red flags don't make it a scam nor legit. They are warning signs that it could be a scam. Its current status is uncertain. I wouldn't use it nor invest in BET considering these warning signs.
If you disagree with any of my assertions, please let me know in the comments. Also, what I have wrote till now are my personal opinions and not investment advice.