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Comment by AlexandrB | Hacker News Reader

Draconian laws? Gambling is nearly the definition of market failure. The information imbalance between online casino and players is absolute. Without regulation there would be no way to even know if the odds online casinos are giving you for a given game are true. You could be playing a game you think is 49/51, but actually getting 40/60 or 30/70 odds. You have to trust the casino to perform RNG in a fair and unbiased way.

The same applies to gambling marketing. Do you know if Twitch streamers are using their own money or playing with "house money"? Do you know if the casino is giving Twitch streamers more favourable odds to make the service look better?

Edit:

> Crypto casinos can also be "provably fair" to win trust from people when they have no track record.

Do such casinos currently exist, or is this a hypothetical? AFAIK currently existing crypto casinos are opaque.

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Yeah, I posted my comment and realized I had blanked on one of the more unique aspects of digital gambling.

Provably fair is standard in the popular casinos. Any casino that lets you give them a "client seed" is doing this. Example: https://stake.com/provably-fair/overview and https://www.bustabit.com/help/provable-fairness

Doesn't this address part of your main argument?

Gambling is a market failure - classic case of human emotions getting tricked into irrational decisions. However:

- If you keep track of the wins and losses you'd figure it out fairly quickly - a 30/70 game doesn't play like a 49-51.

- Why would the casino lie? Someone who is going to take a 49/51 bet may as well take a 30/70 bet, if they already understand odds they understand that they're paying the casino money for their time.

How is gambling any more irrational than any other form of entertainment? Sure, some people are addicted, and that's irrational, but others are paying less than they would to have an alternate form of entertainment.

Because the main goal isn't entertainment.

I think by "draconian laws," they mean that, for example, attempting to gamble on the internet in my state is a felony. I could potentially be imprisoned for up to ten years, treated the same as if I'd committed residential burglary.

provably fair bitcoin casinos have been a thing for more than a decade now.

"Satoshi Dice" was probably the biggest one, back in the day. Looks like it's still running

>The information imbalance between online casino and players is absolute. Without regulation there would be no way to even know if the odds online casinos are giving you for a given game are true.

Also absolute: you being unable to comprehend OP’s comment about what “provably fair” means.

The original comment I replied to was simply:

> Well, it's obvious why. Crypto is much simpler than interacting with dollars, and it's easier to bypass gambling laws, many of which are quite draconian, when you're not interacting with dollars.

It has since been edited with no notice.

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