Dear RHavar,
Thanks so much for your big reply. It’s our great honor to talk with the code creator of Bustabit. Hats off to this great game which create a new level for gambling in blockchain world. We couldn’t be more welcome any player to share some insightful idea like you and such constructive discussion is definitely helping us to generate even better idea.
Since our analysis is based on the idea of a random seed. Here is our point.
1. There is no manipulation on our seed picking. We believe that “the longer the game runs, the less the statistical difference.” Here is our data, anyone can run a test on it.
https://github.com/BCSNProject/HashCheckhttps://bcsnproject.github.io/HashCheck/#/simpleChain A: seed=680597CDC84B239A1C0475C89E0CC5380B1DDF367772C8F3055742C6ACB2C3FF
Result: 4.63, 2.36, 1.22, 2.225, 2.56
Chain B: seed=6AA9D8D8BD428C4277F613E74AC1AAE2A81EAF7DAF24C4D459FA030AA63C03D5
Result: 1.04, 1.00, 1.07, 1.28, 1.02
Chain C: seed=60CC3C97D3C80396437AF43F3AAC84A460EF2EBA88E79C2D4AC1218DD1923002
Result: 1.76, 2.43, 15.27, 3.55, 1.09
Now from this, we can *clearly* see that B would be the best for the house. Of course the longer the game runs, the less the statistical differences are -- but for the few *years* of games, the house edge can easily have been manipulated to 2x what they should be. The cheating can easily be done with an algorithm:
As a developer, I feel necessary to share my view and doubts with you and about how we started this journey.
When we found out about Bustabit, we were wondering did they use any seed choice in version 1.0? We don’t think so, and that’s why we didn’t choose seed manipulation. You may wonder why, haha. To be honest, our seed was based on some randomly-generated memory words for ETH wallet because we were not sure how to do the seed choice favorable to the house. Were we dumb then? And like what I said, it has been almost a year since our foundation, and we haven’t changed our seed once.
There were some challenges for sure. Our experience of 500 ETH lost in one day really raised doubts about whether any player knew about the seed choice. But:
a. We didn’t refuse any withdrawal.
b. We didn’t change our seed.
c. Never try to cover the loss with seed manipulation.
d. The player continued to play with his strategy and lost 400 ETH back.
Although we didn’t change our seed, we have started to think about why this could happen? We spend a lot of time making a data comparison between BG.Game and Bustabit, to figure out why our high x probability is higher than Bustabit with greater seed activity.
Anyone can do that from the following link:
https://github.com/BCSNProject/HashCheckWe even doubted that they do the seed manipulation but we couldn’t convince ourselves how and why.
Then we reach a conclusion and also brought us back to your advice. Will that make any difference if to use an additional seed.
“The best solution is to do what bustabit has done, use a *future* bitcoin-block hash as an additional seed (after committing to a single chain). This makes it impossible for you to run the "brute force" attack to pick a seed that is favorable to the house.”
We don’t believe that additional seed will affect the result to the player in the long term
Chain A
Seed 680597CDC84B239A1C0475C89E0CC5380B1DDF367772C8F3055742C6ACB2C3FF
Result 1.25, 1.79, 2.05, 1.26, 4.66
Additional 1 ecca5ad2314b272c0870c5f350b999c4080b703093789c8e6c4d4150aaa03a01
Result 1.85, 2.12, 6.33, 12.02, 1.14
Additional2 182ef24a825bdd37d6d2976ccfbf5b5e58238ba04a6b53434043acfb34fb517a
Result 1.04, 3.09, 4.84, 6.08, 1.03
Chain B
Seed 6AA9D8D8BD428C4277F613E74AC1AAE2A81EAF7DAF24C4D459FA030AA63C03D5
Result 8.06, 17.61, 6.96, 1.14, 1.13
Additional 1 ecca5ad2314b272c0870c5f350b999c4080b703093789c8e6c4d4150aaa03a01
Result 1.37, 13.65, 2.49, 3.87, 1
Additional 2 182ef24a825bdd37d6d2976ccfbf5b5e58238ba04a6b53434043acfb34fb517a
Result 1.15, 5.5, 2.79, 2.28, 4.77
Chain C
Seed 60CC3C97D3C80396437AF43F3AAC84A460EF2EBA88E79C2D4AC1218DD1923002
Result 1.01, 8.28, 2.79, 5.13, 1.12
Additional1 ecca5ad2314b272c0870c5f350b999c4080b703093789c8e6c4d4150aaa03a01
Result 4.38, 1.89, 2.54, 2.01, 1.5
Additional 2 182ef24a825bdd37d6d2976ccfbf5b5e58238ba04a6b53434043acfb34fb517a
Result 8.91, 1.57, 1.21, 1.74, 1.72
1. From this, we agree that with an additional seed, the original seed has no impact on the result.
2. Additional seed may also cause the condition favorable to the house like Chain C additional 2.
3. The longer the game runs, the less the statistical difference.
But will additional seed helps solve the problem? Why do some platforms need seed manipulation? Because they need the game favorable to the house. What if additional seed just created a result with low x like Chain C additional 2? How can we make sure it won't?
So to sum up, we don’t think the additional seed is the solution and we are not and will be never use seed manipulation. Only math analysis and data comparison can tell you whether you are using a good one. Not saying we are 100% right, corrections are welcomed.We are trying our best to help players increasing their experience, such as referral, investment, refund. Reputation and services are both important if we don’t want to be just a “few years” game. We are far from perfect yet but we have great model to learn from, like Bustabit.
We are all growing through open discussion and continuous improvement. Thanks again for all who contributes your idea.