It brings me regret to have to write this post.
Recently I had this exchange with @dantheman
I hope he is true to his word because what looks here like a small problem might well turn out to be a very large problem
I am now sure that two accounts have been running a fraudulent betting game.
The culprits are @thegame and @steembets.
I believe one other very well known account is involved.
Here's what has happened:
About 20 days ago the first @thegame betting posts went up. It was a nice idea. 2-1 odds on each game. The exact criteria were left somewhat vague but that didn't matter. It was a nice fun extra alongside @Steemsports.
Sadly I didn't win anything in the first bet, or the second, or the third, or the fourth, or the fifth.
Still... You can't win 'em all...
Losing 5 in a row. Odds of 32-1.
There were various slight problems such as the the poster not marking who the winner was but it didn't seem to matter.
So I bet on a sixth, a seventh.... you get the picture.
After 12 I still hadn't won. A 2048-1 chance. Very very unlikely.... But possible. I played another 9 times. I didn't win a thing. Now the odds are getting silly. Odds of 1048576 - 1.
Very very VERY unlikely. Those sort of chances mean a safe assumption that something is 'up'. And I knew something was definitely UP.
In all I played 25 times and never won anything.
Let's backtrack...
Here are concerns about payout voiced around the ninth game.
This was not addressed.
It was already apparent that the person posting these games was leaving varrious things deliberately vague. At the time I thought it just mild incompetence. As I will show later, I think this, and various other things like the use of fuzzy explanations was by design.
I also began to note that the poster was sometimes leaving single full stop comments. Though I can't prove it I suspect that he was leaving himself the option to come back later and edit these comments in.
By the tenth game I was getting a little frustrated... (remember odds of 1024-1 by now) and asked him to mark the winner.
Amusingly he marked the option I bet on as the winner. I'm certain I didn't receive payment.
By the next post another Steemian was complaining
Apparently the problem was now internet trouble. He couldn't pay out past winnings but he could keep posting games. This post also seems to have attracted 98 downvotes.
By the thirteenth game (8192-1 odds) it gets more interesting...
I'm starting to get angryat this point, as are other posters.
Note how here he leaves a full stop. This, I believe, is to be able to edit in an answer at a later date; something I suspect he did elsewhere.
Amusingly he marked this one (my bet) a winner again! Though he still didn't pay me.
I won the next one as well.
I wasn't paid
I won the one after that.
I wasn't paid and he didn't address my complaints.
He did point out what he felt was the flaw in logic in one of my arguments. However the payment criteria are vague so it's hard to know exactly what he's offering.
Up until this point I believe no winners had been marked. He then went back and marked a few of them.
I gave him a reminder here. Needless to say he ignored me.
This is actually the 15th non payout in a row.
Now some people giveup when faced with injustice.
I do not.
Especially when I've invested my time and energy in a platform in which I believe.
So perhaps you'll understand my blood beginning to boil at the following:
Here I'm fairly sure I linked two unpaid wins just to give an example.
I believe he changed the result on one of the links I provided. He ignored the other issues.
You'll have to judge for yourself here whether he's trying to taunt me. Bear in mind that he's too busy to answer my other posts
Here's the next interaction. Think he's bothered about resolving this?
By this point he had stopped marking winners again.
To confirm my suspicions I continued to bet and to inform other betters that not all winners were being paid. He continued to counter that he had paid A LOT of winners.
After a while I stopped complaining and started flagging.
And then suddenly we come to a post where we see it has all been a huge misunderstanding.
He claims it was a mistake in his script...
At this point I had bet in 25 games in a row. I had won none of them. I had voted at 100% until the last few games where it was clear he was not even attempting to be honest.
Another poster had lost 9 in a row. I suspect most people who hadn't been paid had given up.
There was a lot of support for @thegame's victim status, having put all the effort and energy into his lovely game, only for ungrateful people to get angry when he stole their money.
Here's my reply
More recently there was this
Note how @thegame tries to claim it was all a misunderstanding which he is now trying to resolve...
Now it's time to reveal something further.
Multiple people have told me this account is run by @virtualgrowth
Whilst @virtualgrowth was happy to talk to me on chat before I brought this up, once I asked him about this he went silent. He's often in chat yet ignores my private message requests for clarification.
Judging from the writing and posting style which are very similar, I believe this is true.
I then researched the payouts a little more. It seems that both @steembets and @thegame pay a fee to @virtualgrowth
This seems to be for a retweet by a twitter account. No one else is offered the option to retweet for money.
Money is also transferred between the betting account and virtualgrowth
And here is this
https://steemit.com/steemit/@virtualgrowth/thegame-your-rules-our-rules-your-rewards-our-rewards-your-and-our-ways-to-share-steem
My concerns here are threefold
If virtualgrowth has run this game how far can he be trusted?
How many other accounts which impact the growth and development of Steemit does he control?
If we don't sort this out now it will only get worse.
Does the same person run other accounts that everyone is giving to?
I voiced this concern and look who answered
Is Steemit in for a nasty shock when multiple crowd funded projects turn out to be run fraudulently?
If you look at @virtualgrowth's account you can see that he is extremely experienced at internet betting games.
Do you think it likely this is all a big misunderstanding?
I have a solution.
I've spoken to an extremely grumpy and irascible internet detective called @Walden who has said he will do a forensic investigation of this matter.
He can check the blockchain and go over every transaction.
As this is his job he'll need to be paid.
Maybe we can fund this with a series of posts...
If I'm wrong I'll apologise
But I don't think I am.
This betting account run by a trusted member of Steemit will be found to be a scam.
Apologies for the clunky style throughout. This has taken me hours to write and now I've got to the end I'm tired and angry at having to deal with such nonsense on a platform I love.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I told the originator of gambling on the daily payout pool's funds that it was an awful idea.
This and other types of retardation that drain the pool are harmful to everyone. Also, I advocate that we only advertise use-cases that attract people who are of above-normal intelligence. It's not because "average" folk are necessarily bad-- it's an economic decision.
It's a pity because Steemsports seems well run but I tend to agree with you. It'll be a slippery slope.
One solution might be a self contained gambling tab with a stringent team of invigilators operating. Games could be randomly audited and receive honesty grades. Just an idea...
Yep, keeping the brains in and the stupids out is desirable but tricky to implement. I suspect there are ways but maybe that's a way off. The whales want 'bums on seats' at present.
There's a way:
It's a blockchain. What one person or organization doesn't offer doesn't affect what others can or cannot offer.
Quality according to whom? That's what voting is for.
Unfortunately you're saying exactly the same thing I am saying.
I disagree. There is nothing wrong with legitimate gambling. That is like saying we should ban shops because some of them might sell dodgy goods.
That is an outrageous thing to say. Getting conned is not a matter of intelligence.
Sports gambling is not known for attracting bright people. Bright people are known to stay away from such activities.
And-- do excuse me-- I don't think we should have a ban, and I didn't call for a ban. The community needs to excercise discretion.
....and if gambling on sports is what people want..... I guess once again I learn that I'm not like most people.
Like I said that is an outrageous claim to make. What evidence is this based on? Has someone been giving people IQ tests when they gamble?
That's fine. The only gambling I do is buying cryptocurrencies but people should have the choice to bet on sports if they want. It is no different from any other kind of gambling.
I assume you think they're not smart because they're doing something that causes them to lose money?
I don't see why this would carry over to @Steemsports and betting on Steemit, since with these you win and take no risk while you play.
A problem gambler isn't really that attracted to this, because there isn't any rush or real amount of money on the line.
The people who might join because of Steemsports are people who like ways to earn a tiny bit of money for no real effort, or who are into sports and think it's cool. Maybe you could make sweeping generalizations about those groups and their intelligence, but the typical junkie sports bettor isn't really even the demographic who gets pulled in.
By the by, it's possible to be an advantage sports bettor. The house is interested in dividing the action evenly and making money off of the juice. It's not inherently unbeatable like most games, it's more like trying to trade stocks profitably, if you have better information than the market you can win at it.
Point being just that it's really tough to make broad statements about everyone who does X activity, because there are a bunch of different reasons why people might do it, and for some it probably is a really high intelligence that gives them the illusion that they're smarter than the market price. If there's any subset of gamblers who "aren't bright", sports bettors are one of the last ones I'd pick. First would go to slot machine or state lottery players.
I totally agree with you.
I did a quick look at the blog of @thegame, and it doesn't look like there's been much post rewards to pay out. There was a little more in steembets, but still not a lot.
My issue is that they're not paying some people anything. Now it looks like some people are getting paid whether they win or lose. Surely that's not good?
Interesting, I brought this up in a recent post and the person that gets all the pay outs tried to say it was nothing.
check out my mass flaggot post a couple days ago. they are on it with a transfer history showing all the pay outs from those 2 accounts. they then take that steem power and flag people.
Fucked up!
great post, resteeming and upvoting.
https://steemit.com/flaggot/@skeptic/mass-flaggot-post
second person on the list.
Hmmmmmmm. Curiouser and curiouser. Something does seem to be up. Great post btw though its a bit dense. I'll need to read it a few times to take it all in.
thats whack!! i saw that when u wrote it.
Shits crazy.
Always going to be scammers when money is involved.
What is the backlash is my question?
can just make new accounts in like 5 min.
Arguing with the regressive left. Perhaps the biggest waste of time known to man.
I muted this game a few days ago, but every time I played I won, even if I made the wrong bet, it seems only users who have allot of steem power can win, so those users keep upvoting
Or they understand that you have an audience and wants to curry favor / avoid any negative feedback from you...
It's beginning to seem more and more fishy...
I have not looked very closely at this matter, as of yet, but i will say this as someone who spent over 10 years int he gambling industry.
Downvoting nik's comments so that they cannot be seen makes you look guilty as hell.
I have upvoted all of the comments that you hid, and i will be monitoring niks account to make sure more are not hid.
I don't believe in threatening downvote retaliation, but in my mind hiding these comments is proof that you are running a dishonest gammbling game, and i will be sending 80K steem power worth of downvotes your eay every time you attempt to post one if you continue to do it.
Gambling is in its infancy here. I don't know where its going (if anywhere) but if legitimate concerns about the fairness of the game are supressed by the operators, its going to end really really badly.
Appreciated. Thank you.
I am interested in the audit findings. Everything is on the blockchain. Instead of speculation, I will withhold my opinion until definitive evidence is presented.
The social question I pose to the group is this:
Do we institute a requirement for an independent 3rd party (holding org, trustee, or bonded administrator) to manage these games? How about mandating a digital contract, like Ethereum (or Steem perhaps), which runs the scripts and automatically dispenses payouts?
Recommendation
In the meantime, while we debate (as we should), how about for all such games of chance, we require the administrators to post the results which must include:
Your recommendations are sound. I agree with them.
And whilst I agree that it's polite and civilised to withold judgement on something, I lost 25 games in a row. I as ignored and then mocked for complaining. Others experienced the same thing. And it looks like more well known users were paid whether they lost or not.
This isn't a mistake.
These accounts are run by @virtualgrowth and he is guilty as hell.
I posted Betting Games on Steemit Need Rules https://steemit.com/steemsports/@mrosenquist/betting-games-on-steemit-need-rules
Let me know what you think!
I understand your frustration and totally respect the fact you are bringing this up in a community conversation (and providing evidence)! From a principle perspective, I just always revert back to innocent-until-proven-guilty (one of the more important foundations of the U.S. legal system). A proper audit will bring out all the facts, minus emotions. That is best for all.
I think we will get to the bottom of this. Hopefully soon!
The more I think of the possibility of future potential exploitation with these types of activities, the more I think my recommendations will help promote a strong moral code and weed out potential fraudsters. We are very short on punishment options as a deterrent, therefore we must focus on prevention and rapid detection. I was thinking of drafting up a full blog on this, with my recommendations above.
this is exactly the type of crap that is making steemit appear to be a scammy site. These gambling operations are a really bad idea. This type of stuff will just continue to reemerge if the culture is not changed.
I think STEEM-powered gambling could have quite a bright future, but I'd rather see it on a separate interface. I don't think Steemit.com's design is very well suited for it.
if place turns into gambling, then I'm out of here really fast. That will only bring a new level of shittiness to here.
I see nothing good in gambling except addiction. As an ex-addict, I would say that it does nothing to move humanity forward, therefore I think it should go.
You're trying to throw out the baby with the bath water here. People not doing what they say they're going to do is bad whether it's gambling or anything else. If there's an argument against gambling on Steemit it's not because one account happened to be a scam.
"This stuff will continue to reemerge" is a pretty big assumption, and this guy here didn't even make all that much from it, and it teaches people to be more careful and is harder to pull off next time someone tries.
Edit to add: I haven't myself looked at this closely enough to have an opinion whether he's scamming. Not relevant to my comment here but I just want to be clear that I'm not accusing him of a scam, I don't actually know.
Strange I had noticed anecdotally that @thegame paid out more consistently than @steemsports. I wasn't really tracking it but I was getting paid out by @thegame enough to notice and play again.
Interesting. I've yet to see one complaint about Steemsports yet this game has many. What did you think of my evidence?
Did you check the minimum vote requirement for the game.
It was 50% before and is now 100% (to the best of my knowledge).
If you were upvoting at less than the required amount, you wouldn't "win" even if you guessed correctly.
Also look at my other criticisms. The whole thing was deliberately vague and 'wooly'. We still don't know who was awarded which wins and when pressed he keeps pretending he doesn't know what multiple people have requested:
A full accounting for all his payouts.
Sorry to say this but you're factually incorrect. There was no minimum vote amount declared in these rules. However after weeks of complaining and being ignored I began to flag these bets. At that point he made a post in which he claimed it was all a big mistake because a program he had written had not picked up votes of less than 50% (some of mine had been 10%).
From this he has started telling everybody that 50% was the rules all along. It was not.
This, however is a side issue. The real issue is the large amount of irregularities with his behaviour, dishonest payouts, various proxy accounts he seems to use as sock puppets and the lack of any discipline in this important past of Steemit.
look at my mass flaggot post recently I show the payout history to the person that's getting it all.
https://steemit.com/flaggot/@skeptic/mass-flaggot-post
I play steem sports regularly and sometimes i win, sometimes I don't I have never once actually checked online to see if it won or not. Didn't really matter as t was free rewards.
BUT
I now feel cheated and I don't approve of people scamming us.
If there are betting accounts that are found to be cheating the system I recommend and system wide flag attack on those accounts.!!
Because this particular type of hustle is what's going to ruin the value of the Steemit Currency.
I've never had a problem with steemsports personally, mainly because they see to do everything quite openly. However these two accounts are run very murkily. If they're not paying properly they're stealing.
i agree. I was never interested in the over under games. So i don't think i played. maybe i did and forgot about it.
Im gonna edit that in my post a bit
Re: "ALERT - Betting account run by a trusted member of Steemit found to be a scam"
Where is the simple proof of misunderstanding? Please provide forward moving solutions instead of negative accusations.
Please read my entire post properly. I've tried for weeks to get you to behave reasonably.
No amount of 'faux' earnest concern can hide that you have been running this and probably other accounts dishonestly with no real attempt to remedy people's complaints.
And now he wants to be a witness, if people don't pay attention what little there is left of Steemit will be pissed away...
Thanks for pointing this out, he has several accounts and from what I can tell for no good reason. If separate accounts are needed then why not disclose they are all @virtualgroth accounts ?
I had noticed discrepancies because I have a curation trail, sometimes some would be paid and others not, never all like it should have been. Many times none were paid but I didn't investigate to see if my vote in fact lost, I just quit playing...
Yeah, people need to pay attention for sure...
Thanks @nikflossus
My pleasure. I want this platform to be well and honestly run. More and more people are mentioning irregularities with this.
Do you have a link to a post where he talks about becoming a witness?
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@voteinterestpool/vip-witness-update
Hmmmm That does seem to have his style. Do you just suspect or actually know it's him?
@the.masses: Don't hide behind an anonymous account if you're making accusations and presenting "evidence". Flagged (might even be my first).
This is some fantastic detective work, @nikflossus. Rubbish like this is why reputation scores are so important.
The idea that they're paying out to dolphins/whales to keep their rep up is genius. In time, the trustworthy players will be the only ones left standing.
There'll always be new bottom feeders trying it on, but posts like this alert the community to the issues.
Give it a year, and stuff like this will be up there with emails from Nigerian Princes.
Yep, this is why we need to stamp on this straight away. Hopefully some of the biggers fishes will get involved...
I checked a couple of your votes and noticed that you were voting at 1% voting power. Not sure, but I think I read somewhere that the script they're using has a 50% minimum threshold. Although, if that's the case, they should include that requirement in the main body of their posts.
Update: I just checked the most recent posts at @steembets and @thegame, and they both say: "Rules: Vote (100%+) on the main post and vote on only one of the up or down comments." Do you have any examples where you voted with 100% of voting power and didn't get paid?
Update 2: Regardless of whether there was a miscommunication with regards to the rules on voting percentages, I still think it would be a good idea for someone to act as an independent auditor for these games.. I also commented as such on @mrosenquist's post: Betting Games on Steemit Need Rules
re update 1. They only added this recently, basically after everyone got tired of trying to get answers and instead started flagging the games.
I don't know how I feel about this post, you are saying he is guilty before he is PROVEN guilty... People make mistakes, to use the word SCAM without any evidence isn't cool.
I have listened to @virtualgrowth speak on beyond bitcoin hangouts, from what I could tell he uses the same payout script as steemsports, requiring a 100% vote on the post, then a 100% vote on the comment (I think order is important as well) for it to work... You can't vote on other comments in the post, you can't change your vote or it doesn't work.
This isn't explained by @virtualgrowth or @steemsports... They may not even be aware of it.
I'm saying in my opinion I'm sure he's guilty and I think anyone who reads this is likely to agree.
You're factually incorrect about the script. Look at the yields on the main post and then at the yields for the comments. Totally different...
His excuse holds no water when all the irregularities and non payments are taken in to account. Please don't waste my time with the idea that this was somehow a mistake on the part of @virtualgrowth. It's beyond obvious that this is a long running scam.
You have a lot to do with him. What's your connection to the @virtualgrowth account?
Guilty isn't an opinion...
For one to become guilty they must be put on trial, you are acting as the "prosecution" therefore you can not be the "judge" or "jury" and find him guilty. You need to select your role in this as you can not play them all...
I chose the roll of jury, and am wishing to see any facts instead of assumptions.
Don't you dare try and lump me in with this... I always pay, I don't run a game I offer payment for resteems and a profit sharing and reward program hosted on bitshares... The one time I was late I paid double for the trouble.
I also pay even when the payments go far beyond any income from the post!
There is no legal system here. There are only people, some of them intelligent, looking at evidence. I think he's guilty. That's my bottom line.
I'm aware of what you do. I never accused you of not paying. I merely asked your connection to an accout which I suspect runs multiple small scams all over the place.
Here's why?
In the last 5 hours he's sent your account 300 Steem...
You got a dog in this fight?
He purchased 300 TASKMANAGER via the steemit 1:1 special offer and from what I could see made a decent amount on the BTS market...
I just want facts, and think you MAY be jumping to conclusions
IF you are right, then you are right... I just feel assumptions are being made... I hate assumptions. You are presenting your findings like you have already paid the internet detective and reviewed his findings and I don't like this sort of behaviour.
If this was happening to me... I would be kinda peeved...
If you'd been robbed of earnings and forced to spend your time and brain power to resolve an injustice to yourself and other users you'd be more than peeved.
Perhaps you view him more favourably though. He's just invested heavily in your new cryto currency and his other proxies seem to be very supportive of your posts.
Your logos are quite similar too aren't they?
Our logos are similar?
What assumption can you then infer, based upon both of our uses of the steemit blues?
This only proves my point.
This will be the last I am speaking on the subject. Get your facts, then get them straight, then inform the community...
Steemit doesn't need scammers, but steemit doesn't need witch hunts either.
People are allowed to accuse anyone of anything they like. This is an internet forum, not a courtroom.
look at @stephen-somers bank history.
and @steemprentice
Looks like steemprentice is also linked to @virtualgrowth. Same owner?
Good job. Very well documented and your points are valid. I love open-source adjudication and I look forward to the rebuttal.
Thanks. Pretty sure a forensic investigation of the blockchain will reveal some shady goings on....
This post has been ranked within the top 50 most undervalued posts in the first half of Dec 13. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $8.92 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Dec 13 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
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Thanks for highlighting this issue. I'm sure we can come up with enough to investigate this further. A few whale votes should do the trick. I would hope they would take an interest in this. I have resteemed to help.
Thank you. I agree the big boys should be interested but nothing so far...
thx for the information
No probs. I hate this kind of sneakyness.
Good job. We need these kinds of posts and more investigation On a regular basis to most accounts especially betting accounts.
Resteemed for exposure and support.
Mmmm Interesting, I await further investigation, at first when I saw posts about this I did not have all the information to make the judgment that I did. I do completely believe in transparency. All investigation should be encouraged by all to create a more open community and business model.
I like how you ended your post with the possibility of you being wrong. Makes this post and all that you said more reputable.
thank you for putting in the time to do this research for the steemit community!
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Please stop the cheating. As a newbie this is discouraging and will make us leave and tell others that steemit is a con game. It's frustrating enough not to know how this system works.
i'm not a betting man. i don't begrudge others their fun, though, as long as it is honest. i do hope this is resolved. if my vote, puny as it is, can be of help somewhere, please let me know. thanks for looking out.
Thanks for you input. my motivation is to see things run properly. Sadly there's now a lot of disinformation being thrown around. Hopefully we'll get to the bottom of this, though I suspect the person responsible is involved in a lot of other murky stuff...