Betting Games on Steemit Need Rules
Recently a number of betting games including sports, chess, cryptocurrency trends, etc. have populated Steemit with great participation. The community likes these activities and it has benefits for sharing the wealth to a broader audience. However, with any such game involving currency there are risks of fraud.
There have been accusations, concerns, and questions about fair play, proper payouts, and accuracy. Such situations, regardless if they are true or not, bring to light a potential weakness in our platform and community where people are or could be victimized. Here is an example of one such thread.
We all want our community to be strong, open, and healthy. If we are to allow such games-of-chance to occur, I believe it is in the best interest to make sure those who are administering the games are doing so in a fair and transparent way. This builds trust, reputation, and better experiences for users of Steemit.
Security against fraud
I know a bit about protection from fraud. If we, the Steemit community, want to minimize the risks, we have to look at our options. We can attempt to Prevent, Detect, and Prosecute fraudulent activities. Given our distributed platform, with strong anonymity, and direct transfer of immediate assets, it presents some challenges and opportunities. There are some technical and behavioral Prevention mechanisms we can evaluate. With the strong openness of the blockchain, we have excellent abilities to Detect fraud. However the ability to prosecute offenders and recover ill-gotten-gains they have reaped is much weaker. Transfers of assets are not revocable and the banning of accounts is somewhat meaningless as the person could just create a new account and start over.
What should we do?
I think this community should debate the different prevention options, which will take some time and consensus. More importantly, I think we can establish certain detective and deterrence standards NOW which will benefit both the community as well as the administrators of these games.
There are a number of creative and potentially effective preventative technical and behavioral controls which could improve the situation. Automated blockchain contracts, bonded 3rd party administrators, asset holding parties/trustee, vetted hosts, open source scripts to automatically dispense payouts, etc. are all interesting. The downside is prevention mechanisms do require consensus, resources, and oversight. It can be challenging but there are lots of opportunities we should explore. Alternatively, these may never really be resolved due to a lack of consensus and based upon our decentralized nature, unless the Dev’s step in with technical enforcement mechanisms. So I say, while we explore preventative controls, we act to immediately improve trust and accountability.
Recommendations for Transparency and Accountability
All games must be fair and transparent. We should immediately institute the following rules for all game administrators. This will allow for clarity to players and auditability for verification. Such actions build trust, reputation, and contribute to the brand value of the game and host, therefore benefit all legitimate actors.
Proposed Rules for games of chance on Steemit
- Instructions and requirements for playing the game must be stated in each game post. It must be clear to what are the options, criteria to determine winners, and when results will be posted.
- Administrative overhead costs and player payout percentages/amounts must be stated in the post. It is okay for the host to receive benefit, it just must be clear what that is ahead of time.
- Results of the game must be posted (as is specified by #1 rule above). The results will be a separate post from the host account and include the following:
- The outcome of the game. Ie. the wining condition, team, or event
- A list of player’s usernames of the winners
- The amount paid to the winners
- The date the winners will receive (transfer) their winnings - will show up in their account
- Total fees allocated to the game administrator (see #2 rule above)
- To offset the efforts necessary to publish the results post, it will be allowed that all upvote earnings for the "results post" itself should go to the game administrator (host). This will give an opportunity for players to directly contribute both upvote value and reputation gains to the host. It is also a forum to raise issues and challenge results.
- For any game of chance posted on Steemit, which does not follow these rules, members will provide a link to the rules to educate the host and allow them to withdraw/edit their game to show compliance before downvoting.
The "results post" directly contributes to the host’s honesty, credibility/reputation, and transparency. It allows for a quick audit by individuals or oversight communities to verify legitimacy and fairness.
For repeat offenders who choose to skirt the rules or not comply with fairness, the community should use the reputation tools and vocalize warnings to other members. This is intended to minimize the profits that fraudulent actors will gain. It will also open up opportunities for competition by a fair operator to gain community favor.
What does the community think?
When should such rules be enacted?
Would you support these controls?
Full disclosure: I participate in these games as well, but do not run or administer any of them. I have received payouts for guessing the correct future condition. (you can see if you go to my account - https://steemit.com/@mrosenquist/transfers )
Really, really "victimized". The stealing of cost of an upvote is victimizing people?
I talked about these games here and here
I'm up for full disclosure. It is a must, but remember most of these games are processed off blockchain. The first rule of blockchain is, if it isn't written to a block, it didn't happen.
Don't you think the market has enough power to regulate these games on it's own?
Why don't you create your own game? Out-compete your competition.
Yes, it is. Because its taking something of value through deception.
But your point, that its not a significant victimization has merit.
Here's the problem though. Of all the gambling sites that have stolen huge amounts of money (and there are a lot) none of these thefts or abuses has started out big. They accrue with time. The FTP reserve deficit started out at a few percentage points, used to fund some advertising. Then it grew with the company.
The guy who can steal a vote today can steal a dollar tomorrow, and 10 dollars next month, and 100 dollars next week.
I think it could be written to the blockchain (and i agree with you that it ought to be)
Being a victim is really in the eye of the beholder. I am not judging.
I am a big fan of disclosure and transparency. I like the "trust but verify" mentality
Running games is not really an interest of mine. But I think you have a point, that others could create a game and follow these rules. I bet they would be competitive. I would vote for them.
Perhaps the devs could introduce a "reply to all commenters" function that a post creator could use to inform commenters on a post of a post modification/update. The "reply" comment would only be one entry on the original post, but all commenters on the post would be notified.
In this case, the separate post that you suggest could be a comment on the original post.
This is interesting as I am running a contest currently, and have been considering HOW to inform everybody involved of the results w/o a separate comment to each one.
Well I like the separate post idea if the script could auto-capture the names and provide them in list format on the 'reply post' itself. As it is a separate post, the host/admin of the game would get all the upvote-value of that post to keep for themselves, while increasing trust and transparency.
So I, for example, would upvote the original game post (per the rules) then would look for the 'reply post' to see if I won, how many others did, etc. And then upvote the 'reply post' as well as a tip for the game admin. A way of saying thanks. I don't think everyone would, but some will.
That makes sense
This post has been ranked within the top 50 most undervalued posts in the first half of Dec 14. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $7.22 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
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Some entrepreneur could launch a bot project to automate the auditing in order to provide independent verification. If the bot published its findings in steemit posts, I'm sure that both players and the pages that host the games would upvote them, since it would provide the trust that both parties need.
Great idea!
Why meddle in other people's posts or games.
Not meddling, just sharing my thoughts and recommendations in an open community, with the intention of making Steemit a better place.
Keep in mind, I am not putting anyone down, makings specific accusations against a particular person, or being derogatory. I am just adding my 2 cents in a constructive way to a situation which could get worse, to the detriment of Steemit.
Maybe meddling isn't the correct term I'm looking for. I guess the better question is how do you regulate people's games and why would you want to? If there are ways for the software to do it built in, that's fine. As of now, if there is any cheating you can easily downvote the post. I guess what i mean is, if you begin to over-regulate posts now, where do we end up? If it's cooked into the software and you have consensus, it's one thing. Downvoting is already a way to make life hard for bad actors. I guess what I mean is what other mechanisms do you think can be used to regulate other's posts. And we have to be careful here, you don't want this to turn into FB or Twitter where everything is controlled.
How would the community know if cheating is occurring? Without transparency, it is near impossible for an independent audit to determine if the host is taking advantage of people and the system. Sheer speculation without unbiased facts, causes more drama.
I am not recommending regulations, as that requires an authoritative body to enact and enforce. I am talking about a community standard of expectation, which we do all the time in Steemit. For example, plagiarism is frowned upon by the Steemit community, even though the tool allows it. We have created a community standard and even developed tools and behaviors which detects and enforces this expectation. Why not the same for these games where the host is stating it will be fair to all players, which is an underlying premise for people to play/vote?
In fact, it would be my hope that game admins would see these recommendations as a positive thing and an opportunity for more gains while improving the trust and satisfaction of their clients.
I am interested to see which ones voluntarily implement these actions. It would be a sign of goodwill and trust.
As the host of this #chessmatch, I'm losing, and am on the cusp of shelling out over $200. I'm actually looking forward to demonstrating my trustworthiness to the community.
It gives me scope to try new ideas, with a ready store of goodwill. (I'm keeping the same in SP, so this is still the most I'll ever be paid for a chess match, even assuming I lose).
The guys starting a new account, then building up enough rep to have people trust them with wasted upvotes, are like guys who go wading around in wishing wells, fishing out spare change.
If that's the full scope of their ambition, they're missing the point of this platform.