In the first two parts of this series, we discussed the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada, a national Canadian Bitcoin organization “dedicated to raising awareness and adoption of bitcoin in Canada, to promoting Canadian participation in international bitcoin efforts and furthering study and research in bitcoin and other virtual currencies”, and Anthony Di Iorio’s own perspectives on why he set up the Alliance the way that he did and what he sees in the future of Bitcoin organization. Here, Anthony Di Iorio shares his views on a different area of interest in his Bitcoin life: the Bitcoin gambling scene.
Vitalik Buterin: So when did you first get involved in Bitcoin gambling?
Anthony Di Iorio: At the start of 2013, I was looking for a developer to start doing some projects, and on Reddit someone reached out and put a post saying “I’m a developer, I’m looking for someone with business ideas”. I responded, and in the next couple of days I flew to work with my developer and we worked together to hammer out SatoshiCircle. The idea for SatoshiCircle came out of the success with Satoshi Dice. Back then there was a limited number of games, there was Seals with Clubs, there was BitZeal, and our first concept was to come up with a graphical user interface for Satoshi Dice. In discussions with my developer it was decided that we would try to be different. We did not want to take on huge risks. When you’re setting up a site like that you draw in customers by having big payouts, but then you’re also taking on a huge risk having to cover what could potentially be big losses. We decided to cover the middle. We wanted to make sure that it was an easy-to-use game, we wanted to make sure that the graphical user interface was sharp-looking, we didn’t want logins, we wanted to have a secret URL system; we took what InstaWallet was trying to do, the same kind of concept, but we learned about some of the issues that they were having with some of the URLs getting out; they had issues with some of them on Google. We were very confident with our secret URL system, so we didn’t feel the need to have a login at all. You’re given a secret URL, you’re given a personal deposit address to play the game, there were graphics and a spinning wheel, there were also themedpenguins that appeared upon hitting certain results. We launched in March and it became one of the top Bitcoin gambling sites.
VB: What happened next?
ADI: I realized that I did not want to be an operator of a gaming site when my fous turned towards establishing the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada, so a couple months ago I sold the operation; I’m no longer involved with it whatsoever, and this has allowed me to focus on the Alliance full-time. I have done some talks to some organizations about Bitcoin and gambling; I still have some passion for Bitcoin and gambling and I believe it’s going to change the online gambling space. I had been asked to do talks at gaming conferences to talk about Bitcoin and gambling; however, I have decided to completely remove myself from that space and instead focus on talks and presentations centered around Bitcoin as a whole. I want to get better at talking about Bitcoin, dealing with people and discussing the benefits of Bitcoin; that’s where I focus my efforts. I took a month off in September, re-energized; now I’m pushing forward heavily with the Alliance and the Toronto Bitcoin community meetup group.
VB: What about Rushwallet, the online no-login instant Bitcoin wallet you were working on?
RushWallet, I’m still considering that. I still think there’s a need for an Instawallet system that’s clean, easy to use, no bells and whistles. If we could bring what we had with Satoshi Circle, we didn’t have one case of a URL getting compromised. The only time we had one issue was when some guy posted his secret URL on a forum; there’s nothing we can do about that. We had an excellent customer service record, nobody ever lost their account; we never had any issue. If we can iron out a few issues with RushWallet, I believe it can be a valuable service to the Bitcoin community.
VB: So what do you think will be the future of Bitcoin gambling?
ADI: It’s getting a little packed in the gambling space, it’s really blowing up right now. Every site right now has to be transparent. You have to announce your percentages, you also have to be provably fair, and people want instant play and instant deposits and withdrawals. There are some established [mainstream poker sites] that are saying that there is no way they will use the benefits of Bitcoin because of the regulation and licensing, but then you have other guys that are setting up sites in other countries, and they’re just going forward; I still think that Bitcoin offers many advantages. Just look at JustDice. Look at their payouts, they’re like a lottery. However, now you’re balancing this risk of holding onto all of this money, and that’s a huge risk; as an operator I would not want any type of risk like that.
But I do like the concept that JustDice came up with, it’s pretty revolutionary. The house edges are getting lower and lower, they started out with SatoshiDice at 1.9%, Satoshi Circle at 1.7%, JustDice with 1%, and they’re getting lower and lower still, and operators are going to have to figure out some kind of concept that would let the house edges get to zero. I believe eventually things will turn toward peer to peer betting; there was already Peerbet, a site offering a peer-to-peer betting system. So that’s where I see it going. When you’re competing on house edges it’s going to get smaller and smaller, and it will be up to the operator to develop new ground-breaking ideas or concepts that will allow them to get paid. Right now you have 1%, then someone is going to come up with something that’s 0.9%, then 0.8%, and then there’s a point where it’s at zero and there are other ways to get revenue.
See also: part 1 and part 2 of this series.
If you are interested in finding out more about the general topic of Bitcoin gambling, feel free to also read http://bitcoinmagazine.com/6091/the-bitcoin-gambling-diaspora/
