Casino Software coding ideas

[jstrike]

But that isn't actually why I'm here.

I'm here 'cause in the last 3 years I've spent a huge, frankly ridiculous amount of time writing a piece of casino software. Some guys like to build cars, some guys like to skydive, some guys get to be David Duchovny; what can I say. I wanted to do it. Hopeless and impossible? Yes. Never stopped me before.

At first I thought I could sell it to Vegas somehow. That didn't so much pan. I kept working at it. I sweated on it day and night, every scrap of free time I had. I'm a freelance coder, so I have plenty of time off. Meanwhile, I left my home in the States for good and became sort of an international recluse.

So what started as a basement project, turned into a beta site with a hundred players and a bunch of freerolls a couple times a week. I kept improving it and fixed hundreds of bugs. All the guys knew each other somehow, friends of friends. It was a little private club and it was grand. Since no one was allowed to deposit, everbody won.

I ran it like that for a year, kept adding new games until I got it up to 20, and ended the testing. I ran out of money but found some lawyers to work on it for a piece of the future rake.

I'm a programmer, designer and jack of all trades, and I'm of the old school when it comes to anything vice related. I drink bourbon and I smoke like it's going out of style. I don't care for drugs or anything I can't see through in a glass. Grew up visiting my grandparents at the old Vegas Towers off Flamingo and spent a lot of time in my early years standing in the darker corners of the Hilton floor and watching my ma and grandma throw away their silver dollars. By the time I was five or six I knew when my mom was throwing out a card she should have held.

I'm not great with numbers; I failed pre-calculus, dropped out of school, quit my web job, and spent a few years waiting tables in New York and driving a taxi in LA. But somehow programs make sense to me, and what started as a hobby became an obsession. I always loved to gamble, but luckily I had the self-control to stop eventually. My dad always said I was a "born loser" -- said he'd never seen anyone as bad a gambler as me. But when my two hobbies, or obsessions, collided ...well, this project was born. And in two months, I'm gonna set it loose on the world.

It's not going to be like anything else out there. I'm not trying to be a billionaire; hell, I'd be happy to have it pay my rent. I don't want a million users, affiliates, or spammers. I want a small, tight club, word of mouth, not a ton of fish, just friends of friends. I might only open it on Thursdays. Who knows. Eventually it might be something.

Anyway, that's why I'm here. Because I've been reading the Meister for awhile and I've taken all his advice to heart, especially where it concerns doing right by the player and doing things in a way that are honorable and transparent. Trust is the biggest failure of most online casinos, and it's one place I'm really going to set myself apart. It's a point of honor for me. If I hit 1000 players and can't handle it myself, and can't hire anybody, I'm going to cap the signups.

I don't have the cash to license in Gibraltar, I'm going for Costa Rica and no license. I'm not going to accept any players from the US. I don't care if I make $10 a day, 'cause my own work is free and I'll run the phones until I've got enough to make more. I'm not going to give extravagant bonuses and then run some sleazy deal on them. I don't like slot machines, I only have one, and it's more of a brain teaser than a drool-box. What's more, I've got some games I'm starting that are mathematically very weird, and I've got no doubt some smart guy's going to come along and figure 'em and beat 'em, and I'm glad to pay him for his trouble. Maybe I'll bring him in on the project if he does. And I've got a lot of new ideas about how things should be run, because by and large, it's been my observation that online casinos couldn't care less about their players.

Anyway. I'm not posting a link to my site here and I'm not going to send it if you ask, 'til it's open, anyway. I'm doing this because as this project finally gets its legs I'm starting to have some ideas I just need to run by the experts, see what you guys like and what you don't. If you just want to laugh at my project, do me a favor and do what your ma told you, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say nothin'. If you have some ideas, like, you always wanted to see something but no one ever took your opinion about it, 'cause you're just some grumpy dude who thinks internet casinos suck, then by all means lay 'em on me. So far I've done 9/10ths of things my players have asked for, but I'm looking for fresh ideas.

Nice to make your acquaintance, and good luck to all.

JS.

 

[SlotMonster]

Wow, that's the best introduction I ever read at Casinomeister
Welcome to the forum, JS!
We will be more than happy to help you with new ideas, testing anf GAMBLING!

 

[LaurieJim]

Great intro JS, look forward to reading more of your posts, welcome to the forum

Laurie

 

[rockycatt]

welcome from boston even though you wont let me play

 

[vinylweatherman]

I'm going for Costa Rica and no license.

Appreciate your honesty

Many online casinos have "Licensed in Costa Rica" on their sites, and most of here (if not the "fish") know that there is no such thing as a GAMBLING license from Costa Rica. It IS cheap to operate from there, BUT because there is NO regulation, and NO means for players to raise a dispute through "the regulator", you really ARE relying 100% on building trust among players.

The MOST likely point of failure for your venture is for players to get lucky right at the start, and before you have managed to build your float. This could lead to you being unable to pay players, and this will ensure your reputation gets flushed down the toilet.

It is therefore important that you have the financial backing to deal with a "worst case scenario" soon after launch. You might want to look at insurance, rather than borrowing a large amount of "float" money. You could also bring in partners who will offer financial backing in exchange for a "piece of the action".

If you software can offer something NOT offered by the majority of the rest, you at least stand a chance.

Look at 3Dice, unique software developed by a small team, and slowly grown into a successful, and UNIQUE offering. Players can ONLY play 3Dice games at 3Dice. Your mathematical challenging "slot" would be similarly classed as "unique". The casinos $lotland and WinaDay offer unique, and sometimes "brain teasing", slot based games. Their latest at Winaday looks like it comes from the stable of 3Dice (Enzo - you have serious competition here )

Upon launch, offer a "free play" mode as well as "real" play. Don't ask for too much personal information for "free" mode. This will lower the barriers for those who are curious, but would NOT want to give out their personal information at this stage. Obviously, for "real" play, you MUST have detailed information from each player to protect yourself from fraud. Even without +EV bonuses, you can still fall victim to fraudsters registering accounts to "clean up" dirty money - in by one method, and out by another. This falls OUTSIDE your level of expertise, which you have said is programming. Your lawyer partners should be able to guide you though.

Start out allowing players from countries where there are no legal issues surrounding online gambling. You have already decided that the USA is a "no-go" for you, but there are other countries with similar problems, such as Israel, Turkey, South Africa, and even some German provinces.

The UK is one of very few countries where where online gambling has been made SPECIFICALLY legal, but because you are based in Costa Rica, you may NOT advertise in the UK through UK based media. Internet and "word of mouth" is fine, and there would be no issue for a UK player playing, as it is STILL legal for us to do so, no matter where you are based.


Remember, there are MANY failures, as well as success stories. Even GOOD software has failed because it has not been able to generate enough income, or has been let down by poor operators.

Hype - good software, let down by poor operators, who all went bust.
Wizard Gaming - just couldn't make money from the product, so are now selling it at a fraction of the development costs.

Rival - good software, shocking business model + poorly backed operators.

Top Game - overall crap. Mundane software and poor operators.

ALL offer the "standard" set of casino games, but if you are developing your own, and have "failed pre-calculus", you could be setting yourself up for failure. This will happen if you release a game that, with a perfect strategy, has an RTP of over 100%. Advantage players will be "all over it", and you will be "taken to the cleaners". You could also be hit hard and fast if the "exploit" ends up on one of the bigger advantage player forums, leaving you no time to react by pulling the game, or recalculating the pay tables.

It is best to get it "right first time", because changing games AFTER release makes players suspicious of your intentions.

 

[jstrike]

Wow. Well thank you guys for the positive response, and Mr. Weatherman that's an incredible rundown that addresses almost all of the serious issues I'm grappling with since I stopped coding and started actually...being a businessman. It's pretty late (I'm in Europe now) and I'm not going to be able to answer all of these things tonight. But I will say this:

*I'm not kidding anybody about licensing, and have no desire to take my players for fools by claiming something that isn't absolutely true. They'll have to take it on its merits, and I understand that means never letting a player down.

*The software is very unique -- yeah, maybe to a fault. e.g. no one knows what'll happen with more than 100 players online at the same time, or how many one server can really hold. So starting slow is part of the plan.

*I'm never putting it into the hands of operators. I don't trust other people not to ruin it. I've read a lot about how a founder shouldn't be a structural part of the organization in startups, but I don't buy it.

*My starting overhead is about $600/mo., which I can afford out of my earnings and a loan I took out. Every game on the site works in play or real mode, exactly the same. Because I'm bootstrapping this, the limits are very low. I'm starting it with $5 being the highest bet on any table game, until I build a fund. At that rate, I think I can catch a serious problem in time and afford to take care of it.

*While I did fail pre-calc, I'm pretty fair at writing simulations. There are definitely a couple games on the site which could work out to be +EV for players if they teamed up and played perfectly. I'm going to watch those carefully. I'm totally opposed to banning bots (actually, I wrote a few to get the poker tables started -- labeled as such, and based on the personalities of my beta guys), but if someone totally kicks my ass at one of the new games, bot or no, the game might be pulled, but he'll be paid. As long as there was no cheating or collusion, which I wrote some serious analytics to look for. But if he fairly kicks my ass for a million dollars on a $5 table, I pretty much deserve to be strung up; he can take over the business, and I'll go back to driving a cab.

*I'm also blocking Costa Rica, Israel, France, Italy, China, every country of the former USSR, and every country with a Muslim majority, since the religion prohibits it and you don't want to get on the wrong side of those people.

*I'm not going to verify players when they withdraw. I'm going to make them verify by video-chatting with a casino host up front, before they make their first deposit. This is just one area I think needs to be improved upon. I'm planning to use the whole Israeli El-Al method of figuring out if someone's legit, you know, eyeball to eyeball. I'll have them hold up two pieces of photo ID to the camera, and snapshot them for the records. Since I'm not licensed and the only reason to do this really is to protect myself from fraud, I figure I have a better chance if I can look someone in the eye and ask a few questions. Once they pass the interview, they can deposit and play for real, and withdraw any way they want to without having to go through some crazy process. Better to do it up front.

*Insurance -- Good idea, and I'm going to look into it. I have no idea who offers that kind of thing. Doubt I could interest Lloyds.

 

[Mouche12]

Sounds good JS, I am from the Netherlands and I'd love to give your casino a try...

 

[secret2]

Well...

..you had me at ,'Hello'.

You remind me of a Private Eye, in the smoky triangle of tobacco smoke in a lounge bar, playing Poker...or in a backroom of a lounge. LOL!

I wish you well. It's always a breath of fresh air to read such honesty and integrity.



Gosh, for some reason I want to turn on the telly and watch a 'Black and white' oldie. :notworthy


But that's just me.

I will give it a try, too!

 

[jod5413]

Wow, JR! Welcome!

Quite a task you have set for yourself. It is interesting to read your thoughts on how you will run this casino of yours. The only problem I see is you not respecting slots players.

I don't like slot machines, I only have one, and it's more of a brain teaser than a "drool-box".

Slots players are the bread and butter that keep a casino going, IMO. A lot of them like table games and video poker, too. We do love our slots. But, to each his own.

Good Luck to you!

 

[Nifty29]

If you want to run a successful online casino, you have to provide a good selection of high quality slots.

As you said, there may be the odd pro who can beat your table/unique games, but everyone will lose on slots in the medium to long term and you would be throwing away a huge potential revenue stream. Nobody can beat the slots...anybody that says they can is playing with themselves.

I agree with Vinyl (and I'm going to do it in less than 759 words ) in regards to having a generous float when starting up. The ability to pay winners quickly and without fuss is what all new operators are judged on, along with game selection and quality.

One post here about being screwed around with payments and it's all downhill from there, as many ex-operators can attest to.

Learn from the mistakes of others - that is the key.

 

[jstrike]

I didn't mean to come off like I was defaming slot players. I come from a long line of them. One of my uncles was even a slots manager at Caesar's back in the 70s. Although he used to say the only guys who ever win at the casino are the guys who walk in, put it all down on one blackjack hand, and walk out.

I just don't get slots these days. To me, the new ones are too complicated. You look at it and read the instructions and you just can't tell what the odds are...I have a hard time with most of them even figuring out what a winning combination is going to be or how it's gonna pay, and what triggers the bonuses. I feel like a lot of them are all flash to dazzle you, and if they're rigged you'd have a hard time even figuring out how let alone proving it. Part of my design is to make it easy for the player to determine the odds and for anyone to prove clearly that the slots are fair. That's the approach I'm taking to everything with this project. That's also why I made all the tables multiplayer, even roulette and craps.

I do plan on adding more slots, eventually... I made a code template that'll let me do just about any combination of things you could want. I'd like to hear more about what slot players are looking for these days in a new machine. The one I do have, it's pretty simple on the surface. Just three reels with fruits, and three paylines across, paid only on combinations that run right to left, just like the old nickel bandits. The trick to it is, though, that you can change the number of fruits (2-10), the number of reels (3-8), the weight of each fruit on each reel separately, and the contrast on the pay table between every spin if you want to. The best combinations pay out close to 98%. You can weight it for big long-shot wins, (big being like $100 on a 5¢ slot), or lots of small hits, or for the best overall EV. Or just play the classic version at around 95%. I figure the uniqueness of that is enough to get me started.

Now, I could take any of those combinations and make a six-reel slot with dozens of paylines, wilds, bonuses rounds, coin flips and unicorns running around...I mean anything, really...but I don't know what people want in that regard 'cause this originally started more as a poker and tables project than anything else. So if there's someone out there with a great idea for a machine they'd like to see in action, give me a holler. I'm open.

As far as limits and a float, I'd be curious to hear if people would be turned off by a new casino only having 25¢ to $5 blackjack and $.05/$.25 slots at the beginning. I think that's what it's going to have to start at, until the float is bigger. I'll freely admit I'm starting this with about $5,000 in house funds, and some of that's going to go to freerolls and guarantees and things...and whatever happens the policy is always going to remain that I'll hold 150% of cash in the system for instant payouts at all times, even if that means I have to take out another loan, and I'll only start figuring gross gaming revenue after that. A man can't buy his honor, and I'd rather spend the rest of my life broke and in debt than not be able to pay a player. But I'm hoping it doesn't come to that. So I'm putting the emphasis on poker to start with, and I might even have to turn off the other games at the beginning if it starts looking too risky. But I'm wondering if there's a market for low-stakes stuff like that.

Anyway, thanks again for the positive comments and suggestions. I can't wait to hear more.

 

[Jasminebed]

I appreciate your upfrontness too, but I agree with jod about slots being bread and butter. Table games might pay back higher percentage wise, which is why a slot stable is a wise investment.

I think you might want to rethink your licencing as well. Kahnawake has made great strides in its respectability, and fees are much lower than the EEU jurisdictions. It is not necessary to run your support out of the same location.

If you want to take a good look at a small independent casino that has made a loyal following, starting small and remaining smallish, 3Dice is a great model.

And remember, free advice is worth what you paid for it, but never refuse it. I have a motto that if three people you trust give you the same advice, you should seriously consider it.

Welcome to CM.

 

[davey]

How long before you're up and running?

Hi Mate
How long do you recon before you're up and running? Will you have roulette and if so what will the min bet be? If it's one cent and you allow Australians, you've won me for sure.
Good luck mate
Davey

 

[jstrike]

Davey,

I'm tentatively planning on launching it in early January, but I'm still dealing with lawyers, banks, weeding out legitimate e-wallets from bad ones, credit card processing...all the headaches I never thought about when I started this trip. We'll happily accept players from the land of Oz.

We're opening with American roulette. At your request, I'm going to make 5¢ - $5 tables available that will take a 1¢ bet on numbers. All the tables are multiplayer (4 spots per roulette wheel) so the action is automatic when there's more than one player, giving everybody time to place their bets. It's therefore not as rapid as a lot of online roulette. It gets only about half again as many spins per hour as a wheel in a real casino. On the plus side, you can sit at six tables at once, if you've got a big enough screen.

Nice to hear you'd like to give it a shot!

 

[aceking123]

We're opening with American roulette. At your request, I'm going to make 5¢ - $5 tables available that will take a 1¢ bet on numbers. All the tables are multiplayer (4 spots per roulette wheel) so the action is automatic when there's more than one player, giving everybody time to place their bets. It's therefore not as rapid as a lot of online roulette. It gets only about half again as many spins per hour as a wheel in a real casino. On the plus side, you can sit at six tables at once, if you've got a big enough screen.

hi strike . would it not be far better to use european roulette than usa ? im thinking most players do prefer european roulette as the odds are better . also when you say max dollar bet of $5 am i right in thinking this is the max straight up single bet you can do on a single number meaning $5 = $175 payout stake remains ? or is the max over the whole table ?

 

[jstrike]

hi strike . would it not be far better to use european roulette than usa ? im thinking most players do prefer european roulette as the odds are better . also when you say max dollar bet of $5 am i right in thinking this is the max straight up single bet you can do on a single number meaning $5 = $175 payout stake remains ? or is the max over the whole table ?

Hi Mr. Jones. I'm definitely going to build a European roulette version after we launch, but animating the Roulette wheel and board was one of the most time-intensive parts of any game on the site. It's done in 3d. And I have to put all my energy into improving the existing games so close to launch... it'll have to wait 'til we're making a little money and I can afford to hire some other programmers. Hope that won't put too many players off.

About the bets, I'm figuring it out right now, but it seems to me that a 1¢ table would have a (100x) $1 maximum on inside bets, and outside bets would be between 5¢ and $5. We have no 5¢ chip, so the base price of an outside bet would be 10¢ in that case. That's a wider range than I'd give to most other tables...I'm open to extending the minimum by 10x on that one. Usually a $1-$50 table would have a $10 maximum on inside bets and a $5 minimum on outside bets. But this is all still being worked out, we haven't launched yet, so any of what I'm telling you here could change for better or worse.

There are definitely no whole table maximums on any of the games, and there won't be any.

 

[Gabriel_LCP]

Hey great intro! I am the affiliate manager for Live Casino Partners and we are based here in Costa Rica! Anything you need just let us know!

 

[aceking123]

hi again , just another point for when you get time or chance maybe on your 3 d roulette how about tier bets etc etc neighbours bets ????

 

[jstrike]

Mr. Jones, I'm glad to say we've all neighbor bets, 3, 4, 5 and 6 spot bets, at the same minimum. Also, you can see the other players bets at the table in realtime. There's not an automatic way to place a tier or snake bet, but before the wheel spins, chips can be dragged around on the table, put on top of other bets and combined, removed, etc. in a very easy manner, and shift-clicking an existing bet allows you to drag the value up or down by an increment of whatever chip you have selected in the chip palette. So it's quick and easy to place any combination you like. The software doesn't currently offer automatic re-placement or letting bets ride, but I'm looking at adding those features to all the games possibly before launch.

The software can't allow bets called while the wheel is spinning, because the RNG decides the number at the start of the visual spin sequence for the player, and delivers it to the player then, so that the actual spin the player sees just tries to get the physics to look right based on the predetermined random number. If you have a slow computer, the wheel can be jumpy because of the 3d involved, but the ball knows where it's going to end up. Since the user's software receives the number at the time the spin starts, we can't accept any more bets after that, or hackers could just read the number and bet it

 

[davey]

Not yankee roulette please mate!

Hi again JStrike
I was getting so excited I fed my chooks twice yesterday but you've lost me now, or at least until you get the Eurpean roulette going. As we all know two zeros actually doubles the house advantage and us punters need all the help we can get.
Perhaps you could try what Bet Voyager do with their American Roulette. They have 38 numbers but they pay 37/1 on any straight up win. They operate with no house edge on any form of roulette and I love it.
You could perhaps pay 36/1 which would be better than the normal 35/1.
I desperately need a backup in case the even money betting send Bet Vogager broke.
Cheers
Davey

 

[jstrike]

Y'know Davey, that's a good idea. 36:1 on straight up bets, 18:1 on neighbors, 9:1 on corners. I'm gonna do it. Can't really offer 37:1 as I am going into business to make a profit. But if that's what it takes to make us competitive with the sites that have European tables, then I think we've gotta go for it.

 

[davey]

No worries mate

Yea that will definitely get you more business as you could advertise the bonus pay. I'm amost certain there are only Bet Voyager and Bet Fair who actually have the 'no zero' roulette, otherwise you would be on par with the all the other casino's European Roulette and well ahead as far as their American roulette is concerned. Incidently Bet Fair don't accept Aussies or Americans so they're no good to me.
I have a million other ideas on roulette as setting up a casino was and idea of mine also but I figure at 58 I have left my run a bit late.
Cheers
Davo

 

[jstrike]

Whoooops. Sorry, Davey. This is a case of me being comically bad at math. I woke up this morning and smacked myself on the head.

What would have to be offered would be 36 to 1 on spots, 17.49 to 1 on neighbors, and 8.24 to 1 on corners, to keep the overall house edge at between 1.75% and 2.63% on inside bets. So denominations would come into play. If you bet 1¢ on a straight spot you'd get 37¢ back on a win. But if you bet 1¢ on a neighbor you'd get back 17¢. You'd have to bet 2¢ to get 37¢ back on a neighbor bet. Likewise on a corner, you'd only get 9 back on 1¢ or 18 back on 2¢, but you'd get 28 back on 3¢ and 37¢ back on 4¢.

Actually, a 3¢ corner bet would be the best bet on the table.

It's got to be this way, because the way I wrote it originally I realized gives the player up to a 5.26% edge over the house in some cases.

Also. I didn't realize Betfair doesn't take Australian players. I know lots of online casinos still do... I'm obviously going to have to have the lawyers check all this out. Australia was not on our blacklist, and hopefully it won't have to be.

 

[SlotMonster]

Just noticed you are not accepting players from ex-USSR countries

Why?

 

[jstrike]

Just noticed you are not accepting players from ex-USSR countries

Why?

I should have cleared that up. We won't allow players from Russia because of the ban there, and also all of the -stans are out. The EU countries, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia will probably be allowed, but I don't know how much traffic we can get there because we don't have anything in those languages. Eventually, I would like to allow the Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia and Georgia, but we may not open there at first. Because of the language barrier, it might be very difficult for us to do business there as a small casino. We're also worried that it's a very high risk area for sophisticated payment scams, chargebacks, hackers, etc., which could drive us out of business before we get off the ground. I'm also worried that those areas are already "taken" and I don't want any problems. Just the cost of protecting ourselves there is more than we will probably make in the first year in the rest of the world.

It's unfortunate. Two of my grandparents are from Belarus and the Ukraine, although I don't speak the language, they spoke fluent Russian and White Russian. They left in 1917. I know a lot of Russians, Ukrainians and Armenians in Los Angeles who are good people and love to gamble. But I also drove a taxi in that city, and know enough of the modern dark side to make me very careful -- especially about stepping into anyone's territory.

I hope that explains it. Maybe if / when we have enough cash to protect ourselves, we can open up to the region.

 

[Pulver]

Welcome to the forum and good luck with your plans, I will be checking out your project for sure.

 

[3Dice]

jstrike's recipy for player disaster ?

goodie goodie.

You just made me spit out my coffee. Let me try to say this in the nicest possible way. You clearly have absolutely no idea what you are talking about - or what you are doing. There are things wrong with just about everything you've suggested and its not just math knowledge you are lacking.

Let me illustrate one point. A 5k float and an American roulette that pays 36 to 1 on spots with a maximum bet of $5 ? .. recipe for disaster ..

I've wrote a quick simulation for you (you're real good at those - so feel free to verify) ..

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

. (runs a lot faster in google chrome). The difficult part is never writing the simulation - it is figuring out which simulation to write. This one calculates the odds you'll go bust on your first 50 players (depo 100, betting 5 on spots) with a 5k float. (odd first player wins over 5100 plus odd second player wins over 5200 etc .. )

That's over 20% (after 200k simulations).

That's a 1 in 5 chance you wont be able to pay in just the first 50 players.

It's also not taking into account transaction costs, server costs, staff, contingency, bonuses, the works.

I can think of a dozen of other reasons of why you'll go bust faster than the speed of light. You're so far out of your league its not even funny anymore. You wont often find me making predictions but here we go. I predict disappointment. For both you and your players.

Honestly, for 5k, you'll have a hard time finding someone that is actually capable of calculating the amount of float you need..

Unless you find proper funding - the only sensible advice is to stop.

Enzo

 

[davey]

Mate Here come's the negativety

Took longer than I thought for the negativety to arrive mate but there you go. Don't know how enzo knows all your financials - maybe he's with the tax office. You're a smart bloke and been around long enough to know what type of float you will need and I am sure you would have enough financial backers to cover the inevitable bad days.
Everyone knows fair dinkum casinos pay out around 97% so I would imagine all your planning would revolve around this fact.
Anyway mate go for your dreams and don't listen to the knockers and I hope you make a million or two... but don't forget to come back here and let us help you count it. (in front of enzo)
Best of luck
Davey

 

[Nifty29]

Sorry, but enzo is right.

A $5k float? You may as well send a $100 to the first 50 signups and pack it in.

I also believe he is doing JS a favor........ but, you know what they say about a fool and his money.

Personally, I hope he succeeds. It ain't gonna happen this way though.

 

[jstrike]

Yyyeah.

Hi Enzo. I've heard good things about you and about 3Dice, from everyone here. And yes, I'll admit I'm out of my depth, but that's not unusual for me. I take projects first and learn as I go along, and work at it until I get it right. For instance, the first time I ever contracted to write a piece of hotel management and reservations software, I was just a web designer. Didn't even know mySQL. I had to learn as I went, going back and rewriting earlier parts as I learned more later on. It took me almost nine months. But that software, which is about 100,000 lines of code, has been running with no crashes, no bugs, 24 hours a day in six locations with around sixty employees using it, for the last four years. This casino software is about 4x bigger and I've been working on it for three years. There's no way I'm going to let a little thing like being under-financed stop me from finding a way to make it work.

One little note about your test -- The roulette tables will have $1 max on inside bets to start, and a $5 max on outside bets. That, at least, gives me a 0% probability of going bust in the first 50 players, according to your sim, with a $5k float. (with 100 players, yes).

The initial float is $5k. There's a crisis option for another $5-10k. And that amount is separate from marketing, servers, legal and everything else, so let me clear that up. That's after all is said and done. All the house games are going to start with very low stakes. Like 5¢ slots with a max $100 jackpot. And if we find ourselves in danger early on, we'll let our players know that the house can't take further bets on those tables at the moment, and we'll go back to only poker and board games until we build up. Initially, this was conceived as a poker and parimutuel game club with no house games; those are secondary to the project and were added later. It would be nice to have them, but if they start to put too much strain on us, we'll have to turn them off before we get to a critical level, and build a bigger float. I think players will understand that. This is new software, a new site, and the first players will necessarily be early adopters looking for a boutique, small, social game experience.

I don't really expect to launch with 50 roulette players, either. I've launched sites for plenty of other people before. It ain't easy to get an audience these days, without media coverage, without huge marketing funds. I expect we'll probably pick up a couple new depositing players a day, at first. The whole plan is to grow sloowwwly. I'd like to reach 1,000 poker players by 6 months after launch. That would cover costs and pay for a couple of part time staff, and increase the float so we could start increasing some of the stakes. Before that, almost all of my marketing efforts are going to be toward building up specific poker tournaments, as opposed to promoting house games or trying to build a house around the clock, which is impossible without a foothold.

Don't worry man. We're not going to put you guys out of business. I think our game model is substantially different, unique in its own way, and will appeal to different players than yours. I know you're not really worried about it, you think I'm a damn fool and you're entitled to your opinion. I want you to know I have the greatest respect for you and your team. And I appreciate you taking the time to write that sim and respond with a thorough opinion.

 

[jstrike]

By the way. I noticed one little thing wrong with your sim, Enzo... shouldn't:

if (Math.random() < odd) bal+=pay*bet

read:

if (Math.random() < odd) {bal+=pay*bet} else {floatbal+=bet;}

? We're bootstrapping this. I never said the float was going to stay at $5k. It's just starting there.

 

[3Dice]

By the way. I noticed one little thing wrong with your sim, Enzo... shouldn't:

if (Math.random() < odd) bal+=pay*bet

read:

if (Math.random() < odd) {bal+=pay*bet} else {floatbal+=bet;}

? We're bootstrapping this. I never said the float was going to stay at $5k. It's just starting there.

nope it shouldn't read that. every run the sim stores how much it goes over the initial float in this line :

ret[ Math.floor((bal - floatbal - startbalance) / startbalance)] = 1;

so if ret is [1,1,1,0,0,...]
if means this run went over 5100, 5200 and 5300.

the final odd is then calculated as the odd to go over 5100 + the odd to go over 5200 + the odd to go over 5300 etc .. this is also clearly printed in the listing if you run the simulation.

So the simulation assumes a float of 5100 for the first player, 5200 for the second player etc .. (i.e. if it doesn't bust you, you use the full deposit to increase your float).

Enzo.

 

[jstrike]

Okay. I misunderstood what your simulation was doing. I usually think recursively, this is kind of an inversion of how I solve things. But I think I understand it now.

Tell me if I'm wrong about this. You're allowing that the odds of a single player going $100 over the float from a $100 starting balance, are the same as the odds of two players going over the float by a cent from the same start. Another way of saying it is that you're looking at how many times a single player would go over by $100, $200 and so on up to going over by $5000, the assumed total of starting balances plus the original float. And yet another way of saying it would be to say that one player could re-deposit 50 times and overrun the existing float, including his deposits N% of the time. Right...?

I have two things to say about this. The first is that, with an 80% probability of not busting, and higher if we restrict it to $1 tables, plus the parimutuel games kicking in rake as we go along, it's a bet I have to take. My alternative is spending the rest of my life in a fluorescent office space.

The other thing is, none of this is happening all at the same time. This is a process. No one player is going to take the float, because we'll have to close the game at some point before that and explain our situation to the player, cash them out and ask that they understand we're a small house and can't take bets beyond a certain point. By not being recursive, your sim doesn't provide for the fact that by the 50th player's 1000th spin, we'll have been in business for six months, and have enough money to bank the bet.

Sure. We could get wiped out right out of the box. My answer to that is, better to give away $5k and have tried. I'd rather give $5k to a bum in the street who promised me a rainbow than keep grinding out apps for other people for the rest of my life. So if that answers anyone's question about whether I'm an idiot, yeah, I guess I am. Life's too fucking short. I put thousands of hours into this thing, I saved my nickels and dimes. If it lasts two days and I give away $5k, well, fine. Take my money. To me, running this thing for two days is better than a vacation to the Bahamas.

 

[Pulver]

Good luck, but I would seriously try to get some backers... If your software turns out to be good, I am sure there are people willing to invest in the project. I don't think anyone would play in a casino where they know funds are scary low, and at a place where you don't have the chance to hit "the big one", let alone get paid if you do.

Anyways, I admire your courage and your fighting spirit.

 

[Jasminebed]

Players definitely lose confidence in casinos that they perceive to be underfunded.

There may be a middle ground between never doing it and doing it right now, allowing you to find additional funding, or save further to increase your float.

 

[jstrike]

I hear that, Jasmine. I think starting heavy on poker and board games is my best option. This whole conversation is making me reconsider opening table games at all before I've got the funds... but if I do, it'll be good odds, but really cheap stakes only. And the watchword is, paid the same day, always. I mean, maybe there's not much of a crowd for $1 blackjack, but I'm only going to bank what I can afford. As long as it's understood that no payout is ever late, and I'd close down the site before I let that happen, I'm hoping I can build a little cult following. That's all I ever really wanted out of life anyway.

I'm not saying I'm not doing this for money, because obviously I like money. But if I were to consider all my options and the ways I could use my skills, and weight that against the odds of success, this wouldn't even make the top ten things I could be spending three years of my life on. So somehow it's either a ...I don't want to say like a kamikaze death dive, although according to Enzo maybe that's what it is... it's just being what I am. And perceptions can be what they're gonna be, as long as everybody gets paid at the end of the day, and there's nothing to pitch a bitch about. I'm not actually giving up my day job, in case anyone here's afraid for my sanity. This is just...my ultimate garage project. Which I hope people will take for what it is. Personally, I'd rather play cards in the garage of a guy I knew, than on a site owned by a billionaire with a private jet somewhere. That ain't the sales pitch, but maybe it should be.

 

[asianeyes]

Hi, Jstrike. I think you have some positive ideas and i believe you will make the players your #1 priority.

P.S. I like the sales pitch.

 

[pevangel]

Hi jstrike, Welcome to Casinomeister forum and I think you will do great, I am anxious as everyone else to see the final product.


pevangel

 

[Simmo!]

Sounds like an interesting project. For the record and feedback though I would need to see it licenced in a pucker jurisdiction and be transparent in info/funding were I to play.

GL though

Simmo!

 

[jstrike]

Thanks, Simmo.
I've actually been in touch with the Curacao people, and if all goes well I want to have it licensed and moved over there within a year or so...as soon as I can afford to do it. Right now, their licensing and bandwidth costs would eat my budget for breakfast. But I recognize the value in it. 'Til then, I'm just going to make as much information public as I can, and be extremely transparent to make up for not having a government officially behind me. I also want to invite some world class gaming analysts to come over and try it out, if they're willing to give it an independent look see for a reasonable price. Haven't contacted the Wizard yet, I hear he's pretty hard to get. But I've been in touch with a respected guy who does a lot of similar work on new table games.
I realize it's a handicap not being licensed, so it's a top priority. I figure it will double how far my marketing money goes, when I have that seal of approval. First I have to actually get this monster running and making some money though. It's kinda like building an airplane out of spare parts and then trying to get it certified. Basically I know it can fly if I'm flying it, and I'm going to add passengers one at a time and watch and see what happens, and fix what needs to be fixed. And once it flies, I know I can get it certified. But there's a lot to be done between here and there.

 

[Brooklyn]

Welcome to the forum jstrike, I wish you the best of luck!

 

[The Dude]

Welcome to the forum jstrike

Btw - I'm renaming and moving this thread to the Online Casino section since it'll probably get more exposure/responses over there.

Cheers!

Bryan

 

[StaceyLee]

Oh geez, it's late and I'm tired and I am gonna get my arse kicked for this post but here goes and I will eat my humble pie in due course.

Jstrike you are good, you are very, very good. But sorry I'm with Enzo on this one! "Web Designer" etc, etc. You are out to make a quick buck, actually a retirement buck, which is a lot of money in one foul swoop and granted, if in truth this has been a 3 year project then it's well worth it. It has taken 3 years of playing with other revenue internet projects and major research in this industry to capitalize.

You found the niche - what is the weak spot in this industry! Player dissatisfaction because of low returns and suspicion about being given a fair go!!! Okay, so how can one capitalize on that! Umm....make an offer too good to refuse by marketing the weak spot. So lets say you get just 10% of THIS forum to "give it a go" that's, (sorry forgive my ignorance but let's just look at the most viewers on-line stats of about 10,000) - so 10% of 10,000 get warm and fuzzy with you and deposit, say $100, to "give it a go" coz you reak of a guy that is "true blue" and you deserve a "fair go mate" just like the the rest of us - that's a deposit into your casino of $100,000 .... mmm that's a tidy sum just from here! And all you have to back this up is 5K. Your quote:

"Sure. We could get wiped out right out of the box. My answer to that is, better to give away $5k and have tried. I'd rather give $5k to a bum in the street who promised me a rainbow than keep grinding out apps for other people for the rest of my life. So if that answers anyone's question about whether I'm an idiot, yeah, I guess I am. Life's too fucking short. I put thousands of hours into this thing, I saved my nickels and dimes. If it lasts two days and I give away $5k, well, fine. Take my money. To me, running this thing for two days is better than a vacation to the Bahamas. "

"Life's too fucking short" is very professional and I'm sure mate that you'll be running this thing for less than 48 hours and vacationing in the Bahamas while you concoct your next internet marketing scam!

Sure for the first X amount of hours before the shit hits the fan you can make a few payouts using your 5K, then cry "broke", which you have done as a possibility in a few of your posts, and walk away with a cool $95,000 just from this site! And the worst that's happened to you is you're out of business and ended up in the rogue pit, which you knew was gonna happen anyway. And yay you're happy with that coz you planned it every step of the way - hell I'd go into the rogue pit if it meant I was paid to do it!

I don't have time to pick this to pieces to justify my argument here, but briefly you quote:

"No one player is going to take the float, because we'll have to close the game at some point before that and explain our situation to the player, cash them out and ask that they understand we're a small house and can't take bets beyond a certain point."

So I guess it's just bad luck for the lucky winner who has to wait to see if your "true blueness" is gonna pull through, while in the meantime you walk away. Many of your players are gonna "jag" a winning streak early in the piece, be it martingale or some other betting strategy that's gonna lose money for them in the long run - how you gonna hold off the early winning streaks and keep a reputation. But, I think you know all this - you've done your research buddy and you know what to say.

Verification also seems to be a bit of a bitch in the forum and you nicely soothe that one over by saying you will, what, personality check everyone by visually looking at their photo's. You must have a lot of people working for you, coz I can't see how you are going to have the time to personality check 10,000 people in a day - so how are they all going to be paid with a 5K business float?

You quote that you have legal advisers but a big question over this is found in your quote:

"'Til then, I'm just going to make as much information public as I can, and be extremely transparent to make up for not having a government officially behind me. I also want to invite some world class gaming analysts to come over and try it out, if they're willing to give it an independent look see for a reasonable price. Haven't contacted the Wizard yet, I hear he's pretty hard to get. But I've been in touch with a respected guy who does a lot of similar work on new table games."

Nice, very nice, mention the Wizard, without verification from the Wizard, then quickly back it up with your "respected guy", which implies that "your unkown guy is as reputable as the wizard". Come on! Oh, sorry yes, you are also very skilled at marketing hypnosis and the wonderful power of suggestive marketing.

Your marketing strategy here is "honesty"! I hope, in the name of sincerity that you cut the mustard, but sorry, you can count me out!

Sorry members, I know this is rushed, messy and needed a lot more structure and back-up. But, what the hell, honesty is a virtue and if in the long run this proves itself then I will join the ranks. But as much as I am a player, I am continuing to play 5 months later "having made one initial deposit, (which was withdrawn once doubled) and a few $K withdrawals since being made from my winning bankroll" - because I always protect my bankroll along the way.

In other words JStrike I made your 5K in a couple of months with $1 bets, how many losers do you need before you gonna please me?????

Cheers
StaceyLee

 

[jstrike]

First of all, like you said, three years and endless amounts of research that take up all my free time, night times and weekends, isn't what I'd call a "quick buck". I mean, I don't even expect to see a profit from this business for the first year. I'd say what I'm doing is the total opposite of a quick buck. It's the hardest project I could imagine doing. It takes all my time, all my thought when I'm not working my day job, to handle everything from programming to filing patents to graphics, marketing, and that's not even including running the beta tests and tournaments, and taking the feedback from players and rewriting over and over again, or the dent it's putting in me to spend another $10k right now on servers and lawyers out of my own pocket. I've got a compulsive personality. I put it into this.

And I don't know what's wrong with me trying to make money off of my hard work.

About three years ago, I finished a big programming project that paid me around $70k over six months. The owners then cashed it out for about 5x that, based on hype. Their buyers then went out of business because there was no revenue model, like a lot of hyped up websites. I sat down and I wrote a list of what I could do with my skills, for myself, that would make me the most money in the long run. And starting a casino was at the top, but it was also the hardest and the riskiest. I fell in love with the idea anyway, and I started writing code, and just kept plugging away at it.

I want to be clear I'm not trying to make false claims here, I'm not saying I'm offering better odds, hell, a lot of my odds will probably be marginally worse than bigger casinos because my profit margin will be slim at first. The niche that I see is that people are unsatisfied with a lot of the big casinos for a whole bunch of other reasons. And there's room for a small house that grows slowly, focuses on doing a few games well, and has a personal relationship with its players. So much of the software out there is terrible too, and the casinos have no incentive to reinvent the wheel. Well, I have incentive. And that's how progress gets made. That's capitalism.

And of course I'd like people from this site to give it a try once I get it started, that ain't a big secret. I don't see why that's a crime. I'm not coming on here with some piece of existing software and making a bunch of claims that I'm gonna run a fairer, friendlier site with better odds than the next guy. I'm on here to ask for advice on something I've built from scratch, that I'm still making changes to, so that before I start, hopefully I've taken all the good advice I can here so I can deliver a site that people would want to play at. If big casino reps got on here and asked all the time, "what would you like to see us improve on," and then actually took that advice and spent the next three days rewriting their software, maybe there wouldn't be so many unhappy players out there, and there wouldn't be a niche for me.

Anyway, you wanna knock me for trying to build something so I can get out of my 9 to 5 once and for all? I mean, why should anybody take a risk and sacrifice their time and energy trying to do anything great, if there's no pot of gold out there at the end of it.

 

[jstrike]

I'm sorry, only the first couple paragraphs of your post had shown up before I responded. I just read the rest.

All I can say is hooey. I'm starting small -- I mean, I'm taking MAX a couple hundred signups in the first couple days no matter how many people want to sign on. I doubt if I'll even get that many. 10,000 deposits?! Are you nuts? This is only going to grow as fast as I think is responsible, and when I can afford to grow it right. I'm NOT just trying to run a casino, I'm also trying to build a reputation for my software which is worth more than any one casino would ever be. And much, much, much more than a hit and run scam would be. And forget about the damage to my reputation.

You got me all wrong. I'm sorry you're bitter and angry and are so ready to assume that I'm a liar, but you've got no right to accuse me of things when you have no idea who I am, what I've done or how much of my own reputation is going on the line with this project. I don't want you at my damn website and I wouldn't take your money if you were throwing it at me. How dare you accuse me of spending three years of my life cooking up a scam.

And I DID try to contact the Wizard and he didn't get back to me, but I had a player who knows him, and gambles with him sometimes, and who does similar work, testing my site for awhile. I didn't try to lie about any of that. I won't name him because he's not part of the project and he hasn't done a full analysis yet and I'm not going to use him as proof of anything.

Look, in the end, you'll see that it's not a scam, and you'll see who I am, and that I have a lot more to lose by trying to cheat people than I could ever gain from that. Until then, this is a bunch of unfounded accusations that I don't think I did anything to deserve.

 

[jstrike]

Hey and ALSO, saying I could run out of float and have to stop some games for awhile is NOT the same as walking off with anybody's money. That's where you really go off the rails. Alright. You think I'm some lousy scumbag. Sour grapes is all I hear. Enough. I don't even want to hear any more of this. I gotta go have a drink and cool off.

 

[rockycatt]

well jstrike you seem to have a passion to give the casino thing a go

i like the idea of new blood entering the game as did 3 dice a few years back and they got raked over ,but proved to be a asset to the gaming community

you remind me of them because your propriety owned soft ware

the players today are way smarter than in the past and will reward you
if what you say is true /and destroy you if you aren't honest

that being said im a optimist the glass is always half full
caveat here is only one sentence for a thief the rogue pit

i hope you turn out a good product , R C

 

[rockycatt]

Hey and ALSO, saying I could run out of float and have to stop some games for awhile is NOT the same as walking off with anybody's money. That's where you really go off the rails. Alright. You think I'm some lousy scumbag. Sour grapes is all I hear. Enough. I don't even want to hear any more of this. I gotta go have a drink and cool off.

jstrike i hope that you dont have to run for a drink every time some one with literary skills shoots at you
being a casino owner that wont shine in front of your workers or players
i hope you have the stamina for this type of endeavor

 

[jstrike]

Nope. Just needed a minute to get some fresh air and cool down. Stacy's attack was well written, but totally unnecessary and vicious. I don't think anything I've said or done here should have called my basic motivations and my integrity into question to the degree that someone's gonna call me a thief before I've even started my site. Hell. If I wanted to steal a bunch of money, Stacey, why would I go around telling people I'm starting this site on a $5k float, with $1 roulette? Or you think that's all part of my evil plan somehow, too?

I know there's some people who just want to rake you over the coals no matter what, and that's fine, that's why I needed to cool my jets a minute out there. Stacey, instead of thinking, "if this guy's the sneakiest, evillest guy ever, what would he do," and then applying your smarts to imagining what the worst possible thing I could do would be, and then accusing me of planning it, maybe you could give me the benefit of the doubt for a bit. I don't even have a site yet. I'm asking people here what they'd like to see in a new piece of casino software, while it's still being revised. ok...?

edit: By the way, rockycat...I did have a drink. I don't know if you caught this thread when it started in the Introduction section, but the name of it was, "I'm JS and I'm an alcoholic". I'm not proud, or ashamed. Just about a 4 on a scale from 1 to 10.

 

[StaceyLee]

JStrike enjoy your drink, but do it for pleasure! I'm actually chuffed that I could be responsible for driving someone to drink, when in fact on occasion I have been the victim of someone driving me to have a drink.

As for "lousy scumbag" - cmon JStrike you are trying to market yourself for what may well be legit reasons, which means you want people to "give their money to you". How the hell are you gonna protect your "reputation", (need to know exactly what that is, by the way), when you cannot professionally engage in a conversation with a potential client that is doing what a majority of people do before purchasing a product, i.e.test drive it, challenge it, ask about warranty, etc, etc, etc.

Is this the type of response that I, (sorry not I, but your future clients, as you have banned me before you've opened your doors), are to expect when they have a problem. Is this your way of resolving disputes?

I'm actually a nice, honest person too, but are you going to believe that just because I tell you so. Why don't you give me your 5K, I will double it for you in 2 months, (while you work on the logistics of your venture), and then give it back. Having then proved myself to you maybe I will be privileged to be accepted into your "club of honesty".

Don't get me wrong - read into this what you want - But I would love nothing more than a world where one doesn't have to take off the "rose coloured glasses". So I am, believe it or not, quite in favour of the type of business you purport and do actually wish you well, if there is no "scumbag" hidden agenda.

But as warm, fuzzy and attractive as your ideals sound, you didn't sell me. No loss to you, of course, as I am merely one in a million. Perhaps you could prepare yourself in future for those disguised "devils advocates" - for how we react in life is often very determinable on what happens next!

Cheers
StaceyLee