Topic: Need help with a card game I want to create. (Read 529 times)

I believe the recommendation to contact customer support of a leading casino was to gain research and information/knowledge. Not to find a dev.

Obviously, there is a lot more research to be done. However, there is no reason one cannot contact a leading casino to see if they would help a smaller website out. It probably won't happen, but with luck, it might.

In all honesty, I'd rather he contact a leading casino and do research into not only running a website, but a gambling business before actually hiring a developer for a large sum.

As a website developer, I find the clients who have a mindset as to what they want, and understand the product they are going to be running to be a lot more enjoyable and easier to work with than the ones who do not. A developer will spend more time explaining certain things about how the casino will work, and end up charging the client (in this case, OP) more money in the end.

Hey, new devs need to get their start somewhere. And if you have someone trusted making sure nothing is fishy, why not let a new dev work on it. Oh, another piece of free advice. NEVER let anyone tell you that you need to send them coins to "test" the system. There is something called the testnet which pretty much generates worthless test bitcoins for free so that developers can test their systems before actually using real BTC. DO NOT fall for that crap.

Another way you can make sure no one is scamming you is to have all your discussions about the project done on the public bitcoin forum or have all discussions forwarded to a dev with a good (and existent) reputation so that if the guy you get is, for example, claiming that they need BTC to test the system, you have someone to tell you that they should be using the testnet instead of real BTC. Another option if you are going to work with a dev who has no good or bad reputation, is to negotiate the terms of payment so that you don't have to pay them ANYTHING until the project is running properly, or it meets some kind of checkpoint.

In short, Paul is right for the most part but there are safe ways to use a newer dev without risking your coins if you are smart about it. If you know how to cover your a** in a business deal, you will be fine. If you don't know how to do that, find a good lawyer to write a legal contract so you can sue if someone tries to scam you. If they don't want to sign it, find someone else.

I'm sorry a lot of this advice is plain rubbish. I mean 'Call customer support', what are they supposed to do with you request to make a card game?

Here is my advice: Find a trusted developer with a good reputation *who has experience building sites with hosted wallets*. If you can't afford them, don't make the site, simple as that. Trying to do this on the cheap will lead to stolen coins and heartache.

Cheers, Paul.

Look for a developer with a high trust rating. If he is too expensive, get someone fresh and have the dev with the high trust rating look over the other dev's code just to make sure nothing is fishy. Don't get someone with a low trust rating... EVER! I would also be more likely to get a Java developer rather than a Javascript developer because Java is a little more secure (but then again maybe I am partial because I code Java). Also, get someone who have previous experience coding with BTC or at least an altcoin. There are many possible security attacks that can be avoided by someone with experience coding wallets. Also, get the source code encrypted so that even if someone can hack your website they can't change the source code. And just in case someone finds the password, set the site to email you any time the source code is changed. Make sure the dev also encrypts all the wallets so they can't be hacked into either. Or better yet use a wallet on your hard drive to store all the funds and have deposits forwarded to that wallet. Then have the dev program that wallet to listen for when a user withdraws funds and set it to send coins to that users address whenever a withdrawal is made.

Basically it would work like this.
User has a "proxy" wallet to send funds to.
The proxy wallet reads how much money they have sent and adds the funds to their account in an encrypted format.
The "proxy wallet" sends the funds to a wallet on your hard drive.
The wallet on your hard drive makes a backup of itself when new funds come in, guaranteeing that it can always be restored to the latest transaction.

Optionally, you can can save user account data on your hard drive (if you have the space) to ensure that you are safe even if someone hacks the web hosting server, there is a master backup that all the data is checked against before someone can withdraw coins.

When someone withdraws funds the funds go straight from your wallet to the wallet that the user specified (if it double checks and everything is legit).

When someone wins or loses funds it is added or subtracted to the funds in there account data (and optionally the backup master copy of their account data on your hard drive).

That would be how I would do it. If anyone has a better way to do, feel free to chime in.

Everything should be configurable.  So you dev, uat and prod will all have different private keys for the wallet.   Developers will build what you want.  I don't know you background, but you should start by righting out some requirements.  You need to articulate all your decisions.

You can start by writing them as minimal marketable features, or user stories.   The amount of effort you put into this will safe waste (dev time and cost) down the track.

http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/training/courses/effective-user-stories
http://www.agilemodeling.com/artifacts/userStory.htm

These should be writing in plain english (or whatever).  You should then peer review them with your trusted friends.  They don't need to be developers.

Hire a developer with a high trust rating.
Only keep required wallets with a small amount of funds during development. Great programmers may not even need the funds themselves.
You can even look into hiring another developer afterwards to audit the site. Obviously do not give them live code.

A lot of the issue with creating a website such as this is the trust you must place in other users.
Your best bet may to be find a partner with the skills you lack and try to use both of your skills together.

Would I just contact their customer support?

Why don't you contact some of the leading casinos? If you offer a bounty you might get some response.

I have a new card game I am wanting to create, but don't know where to start. I do not have any background in javascript or php or anything other than Html really. What should I look for when I am choosing a developer. I know that since I want this to be a gambling site I will need to find a trusted developer to code this project for me because it will have bitcoin wallets attached to it and I would not want them tampered with. Another thing I am unsure of is once the site has been created and ready for launch, what should I do about security. I know these may be dumb questions, but I don't know where to go to find the answers. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Bevo