A bet can either be accepted or rejected, how is it a legit action to accept and reject it at the same time?
Because betting late is scamming legit users. When a user DECIDE to bet late they RISK their BTC by betting late and essentially scamming the system when a bet resolution is clear. (screwing those who bet early with no knowledge of the bet outcome).
This policy was instituted because legit users were getting squeezed out of their winnings because of people like snackman. Bitbet.us took a hardline stance and publicly stated so. Should they spam each bettor with the FAQ before placing a bet? I dunno, I am not involved in any way (besides a user).
You can bet all day on bitbet.us safely. If you bet close to the closing date then you are taking EXTRA risk which is an EXTRA service rendered in terms of gambling.
Snackman's inability to:
1. Use bitcoin-qt or legit web-wallet to even receive a refund, IF BITBET wanted to. There is no way to refund as he did not do this. FAIL 1.
2. Read the FAQ FAIL 2.
3. Send a small amount first FAIL 3.
4. Admit his mistake of not reading the FAQ, accept his part in it, and request a refund based on his newbie dumb-ass status. Would this have worked to get a refund? We will never know now, will we? FAIL 4.
Running around fucking up based on assumptions of how a gambling site should behave is no way to keep your BTC.
It is, indeed, time to grow up. Is it time for Bitbet.us to change that policy? I don't know, but none of you have any fucking say in it. Lots of big players use BitBet correctly and safely, and the loss of users like snackman is actually a boon to the business. So, keep it up!
I understand your point, but rejecting the bet because of being late protects the user in the same way than this policy, doesn't it?
Also, if you find a bet you find interesting, but you have your btc on a site, is it such a crime to try to get in if you think the bet is still valid? Wouldn't you assume if you are too late that it will be refunded to you if the place is legit? One can probably think that he will be really late if he transfers the btc to his wallet and then to the site.
And he has no way on proving that he owns such address, but the support from the other site could easily state that he actually owns or not said address, probably they will be more eager to help given that they are the ones that sent the transaction without fees. Wouldn't that be sufficient to entitle him for a refund?
Yes, I would be fine with either policy. This is because I would never send anything to any site (much less $9,000) without reading the fine print. I don't sweat policies because I read them.
If I find a bet interesting, being a reasonable person, I would send from my blockchain.info hot wallet which contains very little BTC. Again, because I read the fine print and already know that shitty wallets can't get refunds -- because I ask questions when there is a gray area.
I would also look at the closing date and make sure I'm in at least a few days securely before bet closing, or I would not bet. So, no, I wouldn't assume anything, I have made such mistakes in the past and learned from them.
BetsOfBitcoin could not verify identity at all, afaik. How could they?
Thats the thing, some people take precautions, some not; some use protection, some end up with unexpected kids
Or more seriously, some people are adverse to risks, some love them...
Well when I said that of BoB I'm assuming that someone that runs the site has access to all the private keys of all the address and the database that states which address belongs to which user; and that such person is willing to do all the verification and sign a message with the involved address stating it belongs to person x and that it should be refunded to address z. Other than lack of willingness I don't see why it couldn't be done.
My guess because bets are anonymous. I haven't checked in a year or so but last time I was there you send to a BTC address and if you won, it was sent back. Never did I need to put in a piece of identifiable information.
I just checked, now you need a login. They could *probably* do this if they were so inclined. I'm just trying to figure out why they should when snackman was trying to scam all the legit bettors out of their winnings?
Thats the thing, how you know he was trying to scam the other bettors of their winnings and not trying to place a legit bet? Its a very thin line. I haven't actually check what he bet and at what time, but if the bet was still open at the time he initiated the transfer I don't see how he was doing this; and even if he did initiated the bet late, how do you know he was actually trying to scam and not making an honest mistake?
A good policy will only affect the scammers and not the honest people as well. From what I read here I have a very reasonable doubt he was actually trying to scam the bettors. If someone here can explain with details how he was trying to achieve this I might change my mind, but the system already rejects late bets, how is it that this late bet is different than the others? This is actually the fishy point that keeps bugging me.
Don't get me wrong, I never bet on the betting sites, mainly because I'm too paranoid and most of them look like they where not professionally done. I'm adverse to risks and I think that I'm not only risking in loosing the bet but in being scammed as well. Anyone could actually put up a decently looking betting site and wait for the fish to bet and take their money. I never actually checked them but I saw some fishy sites every now and then posted in the forum. If snackman was actually trying to scam the bettors I think it is bitbet's duty to show irrefutable proof of this; not only because it the right thing to do, but because I'm pretty sure it will affect their reputation if they don't. Right now if you google bitbet scam you will find 61600 results, which 3240 are posts from this forum. At the moment the amount of people adopting btc are comparable to the amount of people buying iphones (keiser's report), if this site wants to capture the emerging market, it should have clear, just and user friendly policies. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of newbie mistakes to be made on a lot of sites related to btc, and if the user actually made an honest mistake then the site is actually scamming the user. Investors of this site should actually be more worried about the site reputation than the measly 10 btc divided threw all of them. I don't actually get how come the support haven't tried to clear this up yet, my only clue is badly paid third party support...
This is at least my point of view, anyone is free to correct me if I'm wrong or to show proof the snackman was indeed trying to scam the rest of the bettors.