-snip-I personally don't consider any kind of Ponzi to be scammy unless they are selling it as guaranteed profit. Most of them promise to return X% profit within Y time because the are great at trading / mining / whatever. If they make it clear that you only get paid if enough people join after you, then that turns it into a game where everyone knows the risks, and I don't see anything wrong with that. This game has a FAQ:
3. So, what is the catch ?
A: Every single investment will expire after 120 hour. Hence every player needs to have more players investing after him before the investment expire. The best way to do this is to spread the word about
www.CrazyPonzi.com to as many bitcoiners as possible using your referral link shown in the dashboard.
I think that's good enough. The English could be improved, and I'd like to see it explicitly state that you either get paid out in full or not at all. At first I was thinking I'd get whatever was in the bankroll when my bet expired, up to the full 140% but apparently that isn't the case. But that's a nit pick.
I have updated the FAQ...
[ Edit: it seems to me that making bets all-or-nothing just encourages people to place a long series of minimum bets instead of a single large bet, because then they can get paid out partially. You should pay out whatever is in the bankroll when a bet expires to simplify things. ]
That can not be done. Because, that way new users will be deprived to get paid by the bankroll. The main attraction of this game is that, unlike a classical Ponzi, new users may also get paid by old users. If I break that, it would be no different than other Ponzi games. But, interestingly, you'd find whoever has tried to take over the board by a series of small bets have ultimately lost out.
I'd prefer a little more transparency in this game. Maybe show the bankroll after each "paid" status as well as the number of the bet which enabled that older bet to be paid out. Players have to decide whether they trust the operator not to run with their coins, just as they do with any other gambling game (provably fair or not). Probably fairness makes cheating detectable, but can't prevent it happening.
I was trying to show the bankroll, but it seems this is not possible in the way the game is designed. I have not stored bankroll anywhere. I just dynamically calculate it by subtracting 'Total Paid' from 'Total Invested' and keep comparing it with pending balance. So finding old bankrolls is very difficult. But, in case someone has any doubt, he can take a snapshot of the board before he places bet and then find the bankroll against which his bet status changed to paid/expired by the following forumula...
previous bankroll + total invested after his bet and before the status change - total paid after his bet and before the status change
tldr: IMHO this isn't a scam (it's just a gambling game with a whopping 10% house edge and in which the operator can potentially cheat by betting against himself).
Thanks for the vouch. I dont know if Vod will be satisfied with all these explanations and changes made.
For dice sites, bet gets placed every second. Here the life of a bet is 120 hour. So, naturally % of commission needs to be higher to make the project viable.