That credit system sounds complicated to me, I don't quite understand.
Maybe I was also thinking it too complicated way... and word 'credit' don't fit very well on this. Also, remember that you already have better deposit/withdrawl system than any other site.. so sticking with it is definitely not a bad idea. But even then one should be at least thinking of improvements.
1) The requirement (wish) would be a possibility for a player to be able to play with ones own wallet.
2) How could this be done? Simpliest way would be that a player could withdrawal automatically (almost instantly) the same sum he just deposited. If the player wins in the long run, she/he needs a manual withdrawal to get out the winnings.
Of course, current system is simple and effective, so any change to make it more complicated also includes a risk. Do not fix something that works ;-).
Not having instant withdrawals protects users and the site. If you give someone else your credentials you are playing with fire and we can't make any promises, but we do help when the situation is clear and we can. Delayed and manually checked withdrawals have saved several players a substantial amount. In almost two years of manual checking we've never found anything like magic chips being withdrawn, but I still think it is very much worth it not to have anything going out without a real brain approving it.
Thats very true.
We are probably going to stick with all manual, it may get faster than our current 12 hours max time though. It was really nice when we could (in the sense that we took a risk and got away with it) accept zero confirm deposits. I'd like to bring that back in a limited capacity. Probably it would be set up where each individual account has a limit for what will be credited immediately. It would need to be clear that 0-conf transactions are not deposits, they just trigger a loan that will be paid back automatically when a confirmation comes in. Seals would have to specifically have funds for this purpose. We can't put chips in play that don't have corresponding bitcoins backing them up. And we can't use 0-confs to pay winners, so they don't count. (I'm aware that you can send 0-confs, it just isn't right to pay winners with them).
Personally, 0-conf is nice, but 1 confirmation really is not a big deal for me. However, I understand it is for some short-tempered players :-D. Actually, I prefer more 1 conf for the security.
I really like your principle to back up everythink with real bitcoins.
I have thought a lot about a panic switch distribution. I'm reluctant for a few reasons. Even those who understand that they should use an address that they will own 'forever' might stick something in there that they control now, lose control at some point and not think to update. It's also hard to foresee every complication and there is no practicing for this. Also, all funds ought not be one button click away from distributed so it doesn't really work in most panic situations. An orderly shutdown of play and deposits etc, would be required first in addition to moving the funds to a position where they can be sent.
In an emergency it might take longer without a system like this in place, but I'm confident that whenever we'd be able to execute a panic button successfully we'd also be able to do a slower shutdown successfully.
Yes, there are a lot of things to consider not to make a panic button cause more problems than benefit.
Maybe the most important thing would be to make such protections that a possible attacker finds it useless even to try to attack the site. Ie, if possible, no unencrypted wallets (with manual withdrawal, this should be possible?), and/or some switch that sends all the money to an offline wallet if someone even tries to hack the system. BTC sites are hacked, because hackers see they can steal BTC. If there are no BTC to steal, there will be a lot less hackers (well, with poker sites there could also be some other motives).
Of course, it is also important to have direct actions to protect the system, but my opinion is that this comes second. First one is to make it clear to possible hackers that even if they success, they are doing it for nothing.
