So I'd say with a high level of confidence the "gambling players" are better off, even though significantly less wager volume is returned.
So I have an inherent debate disadvantage here because you have complete information and I have incomplete information. You can look up all of the stats, both global and individual, and see exactly how the edge/bonus had affected the ecosystem. The fact that you haven't done that could be an indicator that I'm correct, but I think it's likely that you don't want to go through the hassle just to have a friendly debate about a fraction of a percent.
Which is obviously fair.
And I agree with you that there is a subset of "gambling players" that ARE better off. The ones that bet a ton and waited for high multipliers were paying 1% house edge + near 1% bonus for a total of 1.x% loss per bet. Now they only lose 1% per bet.
There are obviously players like me who are worse off. I was winning nearly .5% per bet after the house edge and am now losing 1% per bet.
Everyone else, though, is in the murky middle. How much house edge were they paying? I can't find the house edge chart for v1, but I recall it didn't get to 1% til the higher multipliers. So the average gambler wasn't paying near 1% house edge. The average gambler also wasn't losing near 1% to the bonus system because of the inherent nature of the game...a lot of the time you win a % of the bonus just by luck. So even someone who was making a lot of losing bets, and not paying attention to the bonus, could have been better off under the old system.
Also, as I mentioned before, even if it's a breakeven situation, you've got a ton of money that WAS going back to the players that is now going to the house. While that's obviously good for the house short term, it may be bad for the house long term.
What do you mean by this? Were you ever able to open multiple chat windows?
I probably misspoke. I should have said multiple...tabs? When you opened a new room (for example, "spam"), you could access the other room(s) you were in by clicking the flag on the right side of the chat window. And you could see how many unread comments there were in each room.
However; in its previous form it was pretty unfair to casual gamblers (the vast majority who just totally ignored it, and got taken advantage of)
Personally, I think that's a little disingenuous. First off, you're talking about something you created! Secondly, you could say that about anything. "Oh, the cash out system is unfair because if people don't know they can cash out before it reaches their pre-set multiplier they might miss out on taking profits" "Oh, the hosue edge is unfair because it said "Razor thin 0-1%" and unless you actually read the explanation you could think that EVERY bet was 0%". Lastly, assuming that people are going to gamble with their money and not read about what's going on is thinking pretty lowly of your user base. Especially when there's a giant "bonus" column for everyone to see. While I'm positive there were people who just wanted to click buttons and buy you cars, I think that saying the majority got taken advantage of is incorrect. You can say that they ignored it, and that might be true, but if they were getting "taken advantage of" by the bonus system (which, again, was something that you made), you'd have to say that these same people were and are being taken advantage of by the house edge.
Which obviously I don't think is true.
it should be added as an additional game play mode
I agree, and I thought that you had made a new mode with a giant bonus % for v2. Why not bust that bad boy out and see how it runs?
And before you say "Because I sold the site", I don't think anyone believes that you actually sold the site. Personally I think you sold a small % to someone to run the site for you so that you could cash out and not have to have the constant stress. Which, obviously, is super smart and something I would have done a long time ago. It just doesn't make sense that you would sell the site to someone who had the money to buy the site (FMV would be north of 5000
BTC) yet wouldn't/couldn't self-bankroll the site. Paying all that money just to give up so much profit is illogical.