noose, have you ever had the opportunity to work directly with a gaming commission ?

If so, which one(s)

You are troll posting again.

Blockchain technology is an accounting ledger on steroids. It also for provably fair RNG's and immutable publicly auditable gameplay. This is the mandate of any commission you cite. You aren't taking time to understand what we are talking about.

dude, I've tried to help you. but you seem to be more interested in pontificating about things you no nothing or very little about and and areas you have no direct working experience

Do you think its odd that you are speaking to someone that has direct working experience introducing new gaming technology to many gaming commissions (NGCB for one), and yet YOU are telling ME how they work, or how they should work, how you want them to work, or how you wished they work.

Seems odd to me.

I tried to suggest to you earlier to push ahead with the protocol and not worry about regulatory for the time being. But if you want to keep going down that road.... might start by filling out this application, and get all the people working on your protocol to please do the same, then submit with $40,000 check per person, then wait 18 months.

http://www.gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=2476

The document you linked to is not relevant to a shuffling and dealing protocol. It is to be filled out by the operators.

I think PTLou and Noose should simply drop the adversarial regulatory discussion at this point.

Lou gave some good advice about developing the product without looking to fit it under one or more or any particular regulatory structure.

OTOH, I do believe that some non-US regulators would be receptive to a pitch for a blockchain-based , truly provably-fair gaming operation. Had lunch with one today ......... the irony is that many ICOs with "gaming" pitches are handicapping themselves and bottom-line feature a money-grab, develop (1) later, (2) maybe, or (3) likely never, approach.

There are a couple that are moving well in the direction of licensed gaming, they haven't garnered much attention publicly because they are good at what they do in crypto.

Ok.

We might agree then, if the magical software is perfectly provably random and secure etc. that EVENTUALLY regulators will favor it. PTLou says 5 10 years maybe never. Let's consider we are at that time. Then we can move beyond that. To me, it was insight to realize the protocol should be built to most perfectly comply with the most broad amount of the largest most significant bodies. That should be the mandate of the developers of it and PTLou made me realize the strength of that consideration. The parts that are controversial or don't comply should not be baked into the core.

Well under 5 years, in my view.

Unregulated industry development years are now like dog years on steroids.

I was searching legal databases online 40 years ago;

20 years ago, online casino gambling was popping up;

online poker began in earnest less than 15 years ago;

and it grew from 300 players single-tabling limit cash games in less than 3 years after that;

SatoshiDICE popularized provably-fair blockchain-powered gambling about 5 years ago ....

Four years ago, numerous gaming regulators began looking at how to license blockchain gambling....

If you build it and there is public demand, someone will agree to regulate it for you.

As for specific development or regulatory path advice, that is not free.

Right. Now we might get it down substantially from 5, if its purposefully built to facilitate compliance out of the box.

This the key, the project would be "seeking legal advice", to help translate existing regulations and code into smart contract language (which itself was first designed and described as a legalese implementation of software language). So there is a potential cost there.

Indirectly though its a net gain, if it could be produced, because there is the savings for the industry of each new competitor having an out of the box complaint shuffling/dealing protocol. Then the parts that aren't part of the protocol (ie they are too custom) can be dealt with separately.

So in a sense its a small project, some might suggest it needs funding. But incentive might be a more general word. It would be a valued endeavour I think and its quite doable. Sounds magical but we didn't have the software or development model necessary until bitcoin and ethereum.

I'm curious about this magical software you speak of so often. It seems it would solve problems that for the most part haven't been an issue (RNG, poker software hacks, etc.), and can do nothing, of course, to solve the ones that are (collusion, bots). Perhaps it provides a way to reduce those issues, but it can't solve them.

Do you have a different take on this? Because a lot of your optimism around this technology seems to be based on security, and I don't know that this is as big a step up as you seem to feel it is, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding.

Edit to add: Seeing the Stars hacking thread on the front page reminds me that is the one issue I had forgotten about that *may* be a software security problem.

Yup you nailed it. This a separation of duties which is a function of security. http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Course...nofduties.html

So layer 1 in a sense takes the security of the rng from the rest of the operator duties. We can consider coinpoker and virtue poker. Then you have different solutions and operators for different problems of security. That is what Josem refers to as layered solutions. The "software" isn't hackable at the "protocol layer" and is publicly auditable and audited by any security experts so it is conjecturally secure but also practically.

Then you have security for things like "identity" and "bots" which virtue poker and coinpoker are already thinking about. From a player view it only matters if the profitability goes up.. There can still be "front end" security issues with operators uniqure software, but overall the security of the decentralized environment is stronger because its based on a shared ultra-secure core.

again, you are showing a lack of understanding on how this stuff works. I cannot submit a piece of gaming software to NGCB, where a major component is open source and I don't own it and/or didnt write it, unless the people who did write it and do own also get personal and company licenses, so yeah... form is very relevant.

This assumes they even had a standard to test it against, which in case of p2p based blockchain, crypto , interactive gaming software... they do not. Nor I have heard anything about them even considering it at this time,

above notwithstanding agree on both statements above.

no more regulatory debate from me (unless thenoose states again that P2P Operator can launch today and comply in any major regulated market, which I hope he now understands they cannot)

You certainly know alot more than me or anyone else in thread about interactive regulators around the world. I would concur though that US regulators or probably not going to lead the way here.

also really agree with bolded.

yup, so you have the protocol and we have the assumption it has been certified by some big commissions and is in use by an operator. Another operator can use the exact same protocol with no changes, and then there is costs saved on all sides. It's provably the same protocol because you can do that with the cryptography. Commision is happy, they still get some fees but they don't have to 're-check' the software, its identical and provably so.

I noticed your response your Nooseknot below and I just think hes trolling the thread


His odd responses to me made me look through his recent posts , confirmed troll

You are double posting calling me a troll. You suggest using a blockchain to store the data:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=122
That's not what a blockchain is for:

A blockchain – originally block chain – is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography.

Source : wiki

Anybody home McFly?

Yup thats a great analogy they use to explain what a blockchain is. You still don't store the hand histories or other logs on the blockchain:
You are mistaken.

You are being very ignorant and derailing 2 threads right now with your misunderstanding. Read the bold in the quote.

Maybe the topic his died down or maybe we just need to move on.

Recapping and relating a couple of these recent projects... (my general understanding of them, could need correction)....


Coinpoker uses inputs from each player and an input from its own server. These are combined to be the RNG seed and it is verifiable after the fact that the shuffle was created based on these inputs. The shuffle is verifiably secure but at the expense of creating the possibility for a back door super user account.

Virtue poker uses a justice/jury system. Justices are assigned to the table and they hold all of the players private keys which ensures that the hand can be validated after the fact (this also provides dropout tolerance et). Then the games are as secure as the justice pool is trustworthy. There is a higher centralized security team that runs the justice pool as I understand and the project uses a 3rd party ID solution (which stops the jury pool from being sybil attacked).

I think this is what makes this dialogue important in tandem with these new emerging models. The only way to mitigate 'bots', especially if the players don't have access to the internals of the poker site model/infrastructure, is a profitability standard. The players can't really know whether there are bots or not and how well the problem of cheating is being policed. But for most players the real complaint about cheating is that the profitability of the game is "unfair".

This seems in contrast to Coinpoker's model, which has the same theme as AmayaStars, "Profitable poker isn't fun":

interesting.

First, I'd like to understand if in fact a decentralized model can better detect bots. If so, cliff notes please at the tech level.

If I understand some of your posts on this , you are suggesting that bots really dont matter, but the economics of the profitability of the game is all that matters.

If so, what does that have to do with decentral model or not. Dont game economic matters have more to do with game type, rake, player mix, etc etc. vs decentral vs central architecture?

It gives the players more access to the data and incentivizes operators to police the games rather than to manage the PR of the problem.

This is arguable depending on how we view the player archetypes. The operators recently have argued that profitability isn't important and that "fun" is most important for the majority of the players. But I think it could be argued these would be less knowledgeable players (whether recreational or not etc.). We might at least say over time as players get "better" profitability would be more important even for "noobs".

Its all very interconnected and relevant. A site is going to rake the players as high as they possibly can that nets the most amount of profit. With a de facto monopoly this would be higher than in a free market. With competition there is the want to actually serve the customers and so if the player base learns to demand a profitable game especially as a response to "botting" and "collusion" problems then the decentralized architecture provides the structure to alter "game type, rake, player mix, etc." to serve this demand.

On the whole, from the player's perspective, it's more rational to worry about profitability than bots or cheating. Who would be upset about playing a bot or a cheater in which one is extremely profitable against regardless of the unfairness of play?

you mean for the new wave of sites that choose to share hand histories? dont many sites now share hand histories?

.

The " fun vs profit" motivation for players came up repeatedly after the AmayaStars SNE theft and VIP changes. This is purely a marketing question and has nothing to do with technology.


There is perhaps a leak in your logic.

If the question is about competition, your statement above assumes that p2p vs server is a dependent variable. Its provably independent.

Surely, competitive landscape in online poker could be changed amongst only server based operators.

Could p2p and the protocol change the competitive landscape more and in different ways? Sure, it could or maybe it couldn't, dunno. but so could many many other things.

You would agree that the new tech is certainly not the ONLY way to change the landscape? I would argue its not even the best .

My assumption is that there is data pokerstars has that would be valuable to the players. This is why the players sign nda's at the meetings.

The marketing is a spin on "we are sucking the game drier" and without reasonable competition (or if there is a great barrier to the player liquidity) they can do this with impunity. Technology breaks the de facto monopoly and we are clearly seeing this happen today.

It is always technology that breaks through these deadlocks. I'm not convinced you understand the technology well enough, it takes time. What other way would you suggest is best? The industry went stagnant because regulations and payment processor restrictions held up poker stars and divided the players pools. We are watching this change rapidly because of this tech boom.

I might understand it better than you assert. please reference the hauntingly similar writing style between my posts on 2+2 and This


If the variables/constraints were time and money and we are solving for compeititve market , I'd say affecting changes in laws and regs would optimize over decentral path. Another one would be to work with lower share player in legacy space to help them understand how these changes in how they view game profitabilty could optimize their profit as well.

bringing forth the fully decentralized model and the benefit of increased competition will take exactly 7 oodles of time and 14 oodles money.

If one were solely focused on unleashing more competition I would attack it a law and regulatory level. My guess is that would require fewer oodles vis a vis the decentralized path.

Maybe it can be attacked on both fronts in a coordinated way, dunno. again just depends on how much time and how much money one has.

Typically it is tech that forces the laws to evolve. We saw this with the telegraph and telephone etc and what evolved to be the wire act:

And with the internet and the advancement of payment processing technology:

It's quite natural to think that p2p tech that is emerging will force regulators to "update". But you still have this weird stigma where you think the technology would be unwanted by the regulators. It actually makes their job easier and more effective if done right. They are auditors and this technology is super ledger technology, it plays right in their hands if you want it to.

Bitcoin is the same way, it used to be touted as anonymous but its really a great source for analytics so depending on how its used it could be an incredible auditing tool that could allow for BETTER transparency. Most bitcoiners don't like that talk.

long post for me below, but lots to unpack and I think were are getting to the crux of a very important fork for you.

The stigma was simply me trying to set your expectations and help you look at it more realistically , as you started from the assertion that decentralized would work fine as is, right now with current regs. I believe you now see that is not the case. I also believe what you say that there are elements of decentralized model beneficial to regulators.

I was waiting to tell you the good news until you got over that first hurdle.

There are gaming LAWS, which are impossible or near impossible to change.

Then there are gaming REGULATIONS set forth to enact and monitor the Gaming Laws. This is what Regulators do. They change and update regulations all the time and never have to talk to a senator, a governor, a house rep or ever see the School House Rock bit on how a Bill becomes Law (before your time google it)

They just unilaterally change the reg. Its their charter.

This is what Gzesch has already referred to several times. Somewhere in the world there are likely regulators that would at least listen to these arguments if presented in language they understood. If they agreed, it would be within their power to quickly change the regs. There is always a domino effect on gaming expansion and new technology. Once one body adopts it, others are more likely to do the same.

Any company that already had that newly approved tech solution would have a huge advantage in the market. Assuming those changes were inherently better from a competitive strategies Michael Porter standpoint.

But now we are guardrailing back and forth..... go forward in regualted... go forward in unreguatled, and back in forth.

If the goal is JUST to get the protocol in the market then clearly best path is unregulated.

If your primary goal is to use the protocol to usher in more competition , then clearly best path is regulated.



OT I guess you didnt believe I had anything to do with the original whitepaper. You did notice the exact same writing style, right?

Yes thats all perfectly agreeable and a helpful way to put it. Like I said before I think we hashed out the hidden component is to develop the core to attempt to meet the regulations as much as possible so as little evolution of regulation (or law) is needed.

And they are adjusting and learning about the tech because we have sites like coinpoker, virture, acebusters etc. with their own legal teams that are no doubt in talks with different bodies.

Gzesh has been doing "talks" on the subject for years



That interview is 3 or so years ago so I think regulators are fairly aware of these changes already.