Consider the recently closed
Litecoin to rise above .04 BTC before 2014 bet.
Two months ago, when the bet was started, the prevailing opinion was that this will not happen. As a result, at the time the bet was closed yesterday, the BTC odds were 10:1 against. Nevertheless, LTC did indeed cross 0.04 BTC.
This means everyone on the Yes side made out like bandits. The people that bet earlier (and so took more of the risk) got more than the people that bet later, as is normal. On average they made back their stake 10x, such as the guy that bet
11-09-13 00:07 Yes 91`376 0.02000000 12Fsb 0.20383547 1BJuF
That's a 0.20383547 return on a 0.02 stake.
A
lot of people bet very late, in fact after the event had happened. Over 4 BTC in refunded bets all made
after LTC was trading for more than 0.04 BTC mean that in the case BitBet allowed these, the people who actually took the risk, like the earlier guy, would have been denied most of their rightful gains. This is why BitBet actively discourages such behavior, and I would like to remind all the people that feel the itch to try and
steal other people's rightful gains
like this guy did that the risks are likely not worth the reward.
But leaving this aside for a moment, consider the one guy that bet the earliest:
01-09-13 02:34 Yes 99`990 0.04000000 12b2G 0.44236893 1ELbJ
Lucky bastard. How did he manage to bet so early? Well, as per
BitBet FAQ,
Your bet being funded means that BitBet will split a total pool of 0.1 BTC (or more) between the two sides of your proposed bet. Your own address will be linked to the smaller amount. This way you can earn BTC by proposing interesting, worthwhile new bets.
BitBet entered two bets when the bet was accepted:
01-09-13 02:34 Yes 99`990 0.04000000 12b2G 0.44236893 1ELbJ
01-09-13 02:34 No 99`990 0.06000000 12B1Y 0.00000000 1F5xm
Both of these, totaling 0.1 BTC, are paid for by BitBet; this is the meaning of the "house bets made:" line in their
monthly reports.
As per the FAQ, the lower amount (in this case the 0.04 BTC bet on Yes) is allocated to the proposer of the bet (which is why you are asked to specify a Bitcoin address when you create a BitBet bet).
This means that the one person that proposed this bet got, for his trouble of coming up with it, 0.442346894 BTC. That's correct: BitBet can easily be a +EV proposition, if you know what you're doing.
It doesn't end there: you can also obtain BTC from BitBet through using Bitcoin's
first ever affiliate program, also discussed
in the FAQ. This is why when I link to BitBet here I use my reflink. So far BitBet has paid > 3 BTC in referral fees, for instance.
This is not even covering the "being a shareholder" part, where you get paid for doing nothing at all, or the "arbitrage bets" part, which is probably quite lucrative for the well capitalized, clever individual - a discussion which however is out of place in this venue.
So there you have it. As far as Bitcoins go, there's gambling and then there's gambling.
