I went to play at steemloto and for now, my review is that it's a "little to scammy for my taste and probably I'll not be playing anytime soon"
Yesterday a new Steem app was announced called "SteemLoto", and today I when to test it out and played with 15$ that got me 1500 tickets. And it happened what I knew it would happen, and here's my report on this experiment.
The Pros:
- It's a nice website (in beta), and the overall experience is good.
- The transaction (deposit / payout) are very quick (almost instant).
- It shows some information regarding who's playing, when and how much tickets they've bought
- The creator and developers are "public" regarding steemit username.
(Created By: @heimindanger / @blueorgy // Idea By @drinkzya)
The Cons:
- The game creator and developers openly claim that the game IN NOT Provably fair
and that it's the exact opposite. It's "Unprovably Unfair"
If you don't know, here's the definition of "Provably Fair"
In online gambling provably fair describes an algorithm which can be analyzed and verified for fairness on the part of the service operator.[1] Provably fair algorithms are often used in the operation of an online casino.
In a provably fair gambling system, a player places bets on games offered by the service operator. The service operator will publish a method for verifying each transaction in the game. This is usually by using open source algorithms for random seed generation, hashing, and for the random number generator.[2] Once a game has been played, the player can use these algorithms to test the game's response to his in-game decisions and evaluate the outcome by only using the published algorithms, the seeds, hashes, and the events which transpired during the game.
The benefit of a provably fair system is that third-party verification and auditing is usually unnecessary. Its major flaw is that it is susceptible to unscrupulous players or competitors who can claim that the service operator cheats. It could also potentially expose the operator to hacking attempts if there are undisclosed security flaws in the open source software.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And regarding "The creators of this lottery will never play in it.". To that, I say that you can't claim it and wait for the world to believe in it?
- Again no way to verify results leads to questions regarding how the winner is picked. For example, I was waiting for the results to came and I was taking screenshots and when the counter reached Zero the winner wasn't even on the list of players. (ok it may have some problems regarding the page refresh, I can dig that...).
- I checked to check if the player made any deposits, and yes he had done one deposit seconds before the game ended:
https://steemit.com/@ekitcho
https://steemit.com/@steemloto
Doing some math, he bought 7500 tickets with 75$. The total in the pot was 403$ so he had an 18.6% chance of winning, nice odds but even so, quite intriguing being the last deposit and being the winner...
Conclusion
In order to gain credibility and transparency, steemloto has to implement a Provably Fair system! It's not an option nowadays, it's a mandatory requisite if you're doing anything related to gambling or betting.
On steemloto, every game result must be verifiable or else no one really knows what is happening behind doors.
More problematic is not having any kind of tool to confirm how the winner was picked. Basically, steemloto is asking to all their players to believe in their word, to believe that they will never do anything shady or illegal. This could make sense 10 years or more ago, but now we're in cryptography age and these tools exist exactly to bring trust in the ecosystem.
How do we know that the result isn't fixed to give the final prize to a dummy account that has been created and it's impossible to link to anyone in the steemloto project? It's very easy to create dummy accounts and guess what, those dummy accounts will win the lotto and everyone will lose money except the house!
Until you have a fully transparent system with verifiable results, your project can and will be pointed out as a possible scam. Notice that I'm not claiming that "THIS IS A SCAM!", but I know I'm totally free to claim anything regarding this project because, there's not one simple evidence that can assure any player that the game isn't being rigged.... and I give the benefit of the doubt, maybe the creator and the two developers are honest people and don't want to scam anyone, but guys, until you can prove you're not cheating you'll have a lot of post's like this coming.
Sincere Advice
A Provably Fair system brings Transparency, and that builds Trust. Trust will make the project grow to reach the desired Success!
Disclaimer: My goal with this review, is not to bash and flame the project or its creators, I'm trying to point out necessities that this project has and trying to make a constructive critique. I hope you can read this and think twice about the strategy and what will make it or break it.
Disclaimer2: I posted about this even before the results at least on 2 different post's and I always said openly that I was playing with 15$ to test it out. I knew that those 15 would be VERY PROBABLY be lost, and I did what you always should do if you're going to play at steemloto, "NEVER BET MORE THAN YOU'RE WILLING TO LOSE!"
my 2 steamdollars & over n out
Very well said! You nailed it!
They made a very good work but I agree that the project will die soon if they don't give the needed evidence of fairness !
Regardless, gambling + steemit are meant to be....
https://steemit.com/gambling/@thedashguy/steemit-gambling-the-perfect-relationship
I left a comment on that post earlier, and I notice you've edited the main post and props to that, but now you've added the definition of provably fair and the game IS NOT, now it's even more misleading.
So why continue to say in the post that it is? You should revise that paragraph and make it accurate before payout blocks the edit. (but that is just me that I tend to be a perfectionist).
You should stop being less anal, but done. I deleted it lol.
But just to be clear, you seem to be on some sort of vendetta against these guys for some odd reason and I don't think it's rigged in any way or form...
Then I advise you to read again my post and you'll understand that my post is to create awareness of FLAWS this project has. I believe that the creators of this project will try to implement a provably fair system.
Yesterday I talked personally with one of the developers on #steemloto at .chat and it was a wealthy talk about the project and how to make it better (again, read the post).
So that "vendetta" you talk about makes no sense. If it wanted to do a post to Destroy and flame this project I could do that, but I didn't because as I've stated, I'm just giving my feedback as a player and as a person that knows how online gambling works on bitcoin websites. Maybe you haven't ever spent a satoshi on online gambling and you don't have full grasp what security and verifiable systems are.
Hope I made everything clear regarding you insinuations.
Cheers
Regarding "You should stop being less anal, but done. I deleted it lol." I'll just say to you and maybe you'll think about this: You're posting WRONG and MISLEADIN information. Remember that once the payout occours, it will be saved for ever. Now if you want to be related to an author that publishes post witn innacurate information and worse, leaving that information knowing it's wrong. So may advice is, right what you know and when you know what you're talking about. This particular project deals with money and betting, it's very important to have all facts straigh.
well i have won the first jackpot. and i can tell you in dont know these guys doing that thing.
so i will keep playing , its a lot fun !
Sound like interesting lotto game , hopefully they will launch in official site fair one pretty soon . Gonna try out that lotto after fair gaming post out
for now and as it is on the rules:
How can we really sure the creator won't play the game or the creator friends family won't play the game ,sound fishy .
Nice post bruno! as someone who does a fair share of online gambling, I only use sites that have provably fair. I would 100% agree with your assessment.
I feel like Homer Simpson... Steem, Lotto, Beer, HMMMMM
I do agree with your post very well explained and detailed.
Of course it cant be verified till its provable fair. but none the less its fun. and I can see the last deposit before the timer hits would win, not going to say that's what they are doing but I have experienced the exact same thing.
Time will tell but like in my post about it this can easily go to 50K and that's going to be something big!
I've tried the 10 minute version out a few times (and won). I would slightly disagree with the "scammy" slant that you are presenting, although I do agree 100% that it would be made a ton better by upgrading to a 'provably fair' system. It is a new thing, and I suspect they were probably waiting to see if it even caught on before spending significant effort to build a 'provably fair' system. Thanks for bringing attention to this and recommending how to make it better.
I think this app is adding huge value to the community. There is not much that can be done with SBD at the moment other than holding, or cashing out. This lotto now gives value to the SBD that you have, even if it is just a few cents that you made off a post :)
If you want to have some fun with Cypto gaming try this site, ive been playing since the site has opened and it run by very reputable guys https://cryptocollider.com check me out on the the leader board..Merlinscat
I think the guys who created this are genuine but you are right these days you have to show yourself to be whiter than white, particularly when it comes to crypto.
To many people anything crypto related is a scam until proven otherwise.
I'm sure these guys are working on sorting this out and we should definitely commend them for trying new things and creating new utility in the Steem ecosystem.
I was careful to point out that and not starting to point fingers saying SCAMMER SCAMMER, it's not that I would like or doing. As I said, this post has the objective to bring awareness and more information about the game.
If people like to know the rules, they should know in full extent what those rules are. A lot of user may not stop and think, or may not even know about the provably fair concept. With this post the people / players will have a little more information before making their own rightful decision to play it or not.