Ultimate Edgeless FAQ
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Hi folks, we have received many questions from the community over the past 2 months. We decided to compile ALL of your questions and concerns into one, ultimate FAQ, which is also like a mini-whitepaper. Here you can find pretty much everything what you need to know about Edgeless.
- Casino structure and business model
- Casino Marketing
- Technological questions related to the project
- Legalities
- Team
- Crowdsale structure
- Token value/ liquidity
1. Casino structure and games. Business model.
How your casino is different from all other casinos? Why is it special?
First, randomness generation is guided by an Ethereum Smart Contract. It gives absolute transparency for a casino. Casinos can’t cheat without being spotted on the blockchain. Now all fiat/bitcoin casinos can easily cheat against own players without being spotted. And that’s a HUGE problem for a whole gambling industry. Especially casinos which are NOT CHEATING. Because they can’t prove their transparency too. “Bad lemons ruin all lemons” and prevents industry from having better gambling products.
Secondly we are offering 0% house edge conditions for luck+skill games such as Black Jack. That will be lowest house edge (price for the gambling experience) in the entire gambling market. We can offer such, because blockchain casino operational costs are much lower than traditional casinos.
How are you going to profit with a 0% house edge? Is it even possible?
There’s a catch, it’s 0% house edge ONLY on games of luck+skill such as Black Jack. These games involve decision making for a player and requires certain amount of knowledge to be played well. However an average player does not play a perfect strategy, they make mistakes/ bad decisions. Casino will profit from player’s mistakes.
An example can be taken, player hits a card with 20. That’s a terrible mistake and decision is EV = negative
More detailed explanation: Article pure luck vs luck+skill games, Article, how 0% house edge casino can be profitable
Taking a data from other Black Jack tables, players mistakes are equivalent to 0.83% house edge. That means it’s the same as playing pure luck dice on 0.83% house edge. Data source: https://wizardofodds.com/image/ask-the-wizard/how-poor-are-bj-players.pdf
What games are you going to provide in 2017?
0% house edge Black Jack
0% house edge Lunar Poker/ Russian Poker
Dice ( with an edge)
Sports Betting (it’s more like a p2p platform. We will have 4% — 5% wig/ rake)
Isn’t Edgeless name misleading if you will have some games with an edge?
Technically 2/3 of our games against the house are edgeless. Also for for these games we will put way much higher marketing priority.
How are you going to manage casino bankroll and make sure it’s safe?
20% of all raised money will go to casino bankroll. Part of that will be stored in a ‘cold storage’, other part in a smart contract. Casino will have strict betting limits (minimum bet/ maximum bet) which are calculated using the Kelly Criterion. Right now we can’t say precise betting limits, it all depends on a size of the bankroll. Technically the larger bankroll casino has, the larger betting limits it can afford to offer.
More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion
Will it be a browser based casino?
Yes, it’s a browser based casino.
2. Casino Marketing
Who is your target market?
2017 — we will focus on delivering fully functioning games catered to crypto gamblers.
2018 — we will put our focus on attracting as many gamblers as possible who are used to playing with fiat currencies
Fiat gambler market is much higher than crypto gambling. It’s also good for all blockchain infrastructure. Our blockchain world will attract more people.
How are you going to attract fiat gamblers/ make them purchase cryptocurrency?
In order to attract a fiat gambler we need to:
1) spread the message: 0% house edge casino, fully transparent casino already exists! (through gambling community forums, reddit groups, gambling media portals and other gambling related channels.) Since our casino is the only one in a market which offers these conditions, we expect that gamblers will catch our message easily.They already have a lot of frustration with casino transparency, delayed withdrawals and many more issues related to a casino industry)
2) help people to purchase a cryptocurrency (ETH in our case). We will release a lot of tutorials and make sure that they rank high and search engines, gambling community websites. Secondly process is extremely similar to registration process on fiat casino.
Online fiat casino registration process: you register your account, verify it sending your ID, deposit fiat currency, currency appears on your casino’s account.
Purchase crypto process: you register on exchange or services such as cashilia. Verify your account sending your ID, deposit/ send fiat currency, crypto appears on your crypto wallet.
So gamblers are pretty much used to this kind of a process. Crypto currency is extremely similar to online casino chips/ fiat.
bottom line: it would not be hard for gamblers to purchase a crypto.
3) Gamblers play on your casino using ETH!
Some global forces which make everything easier: more and more people are getting familiar with a crypto world, therefore it’s getting easier and easier to attract wider audiences who know how to use crypto.
What’s your long term business monetization strategy?
Attract a lot of gamblers, promoting 0% house edge games. (these games will cover casino marketing/ operation costs too).
Make profit/ monetise from traditional games such as Sports Betting/ Dice. Because part of the people who gave for 0% house edge will definitely try traditional games too (in marketing terms it can be called “an up-sell”)
3. Technological questions related to a casino
What Ethereum Smart Contracts do in your casino?
They guide all financial transactions/ bets automatically. Once a player bets, neither the casino nor hackers can interfere (unless contract is written in a terrible way). Bets and payouts are processed real time. The casino can’t steal player’s money or delay payouts on purpose. Which is also another decent problem solved in a gambling industry.
Secondly smart contracts guide a randomness generation mechanism. In this way casino cannot influence randomness without being spotted on a Blockchain — it solves casino transparency/ cheating problem.
How is your randomness is generated?
It takes 2 seeds (hashed string of numbers) and blends it into a random number which defines an outcome. 1 seed is provided by a player, other seed is provided by a casino. Casino provides own seed ALWAYS FIRST. Main idea is that even if the casino rigs the formula/ own seed, casino still does not know what seed player will provide. Therefore it can’t influence the final outcome. Hashed seeds are tied to a bet and bets are tied to a smart contract. After the game players can find all information on a blockchain, making sure that it was fully transparent. Also due to a nature of the smart contract, player’s can be sure that information on a blockchain is correct. “Blockchain never lies”
How is it different from current bitcoin casino randomness generation?
Bitcoin casinos cannot define hashed seeds order which are sent to a randomness generation formula. And they can easily influence it. Let’s say a player provided hashed seed X. As a casino I already know the player’s seed, and since I know the randomness generation formula, I can generate 1000 on casino’s side and pick 1 which wins a game.
In our casino, the smart contract is tied to a hashed seed. We can’t influence an order.
But that means that players always need to submit their seed?
Not necessarily. We will allow random.org as an option to submit their seed for them. Also players will be able to use bots for themselves to submit own seeds if they do not trust random.org
Ethereum randomness generation is pretty slow (2 mins takes to decide an outcome). How are you solving that?
Our casino concept uses a hybrid of centralised system and decentralised system. In this way we can generate randomness inside our serves (centralised system) and make sure that smart contracts track/ record/ upload data in a blockchain (decentralised system). In this case blockchain becomes like an eye on our centralised system. In these conditions we can’t trick this eye and it will ALWAYS represent what actually happened with a game. In this case we can have a transparent casino which can generate randomness really fast.
Are you always going to stick with this randomness generation mechanism?
No. If the Ethereum blockchain’s speed becomes significantly improved, we will improve our randomness generation too. And that’s really probable, because Ethereum is getting better every day.
How are you going to prevent from bots playing on your casino?
Every transaction costs a gas price (gas price is still unknown for our casino, it really depends on a smart contract structure and there are plenty ways to optimise a gas price). That means bots will need to pay gas price too. In this scenario, even playing 0% house edge, expected value is negative due to gas costs. That means bots do not have an incentive to play on 0% house edge games because it still costs. And over a long run they cannot win anything, even with a perfect strategy game.
But players will need to pay gas too?
Yes, however Black Jack game is not dice. It takes 10–20 seconds for 1 match. An average players way much lower amount of matches than potential bot. Therefore gas will not be a big deal for the player.
4. Legal crowdsale and casino questions
Will there be any countries who will not be able to participate in a crowdsale?
Yes, USA. Due to an unclear regulatory environment for crowdsales.
Since a cryptocurrency is fully anonymous, what measures will you take?
We will be blocking USA IP addresses on our website
Will your casino be available online in all countries?
Yes, besides USA. Due to unfriendly online gambling laws. We will block US IP addresses.
Where you are going to register a casino?
The casino will be registered in Curacao. These days there are many casinos registered there due to casino friendly laws, including Satoshi Dice.
More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cura%C3%A7ao
5. Team
Where are you based at?
Lithuania and Germany
What’s a structure of the team?
Ignas Mangevicius — Co-founder, CTO
Tomas Lukosaitis — Co-founder, Operations and Marketing
Tomas Draksas — Co-founder, Professional gambler
Dipl.-Ing. Julia Altenried — Smart Contract and Dapp Developers
Dipl.-Ing. Stefan Höller — Smart Contract and Dapp Developers
Advisors:
Paolo Rebuffo — Edgeless Project advisor, Blockchain Investor and Analyst
Ransu Salovaara — Edgeless Project advisor, CEO of Revoltura.com and TokenMarket
Do you have any already working ethereum/ smart contract based gambling projects?
Yes, etherslots.win
6. Crowdsale structure and investor protection
What’s a type of a crowdsale?
It’s an Ethereum based crowdsale. Process is automatically guided by a smart contract.
Escrow?
Escrow is automatic, provided by an ethereum smart contract.
Token protocol?
ERC20
What’s a structure of a crowdsale?
Total tokens issues: 500 000 000 (100%)
Tokens for sale: 440 000 000 (88%) which is 370 000 ETH — 440 000 ETH
Tokens for dev. team 50 000 000 (10%)
Tokens for partners: 10 000 000 (2%)
Minimum goal: 50 000 000 EDG sold (42 000–50 000 ETH)
Hey, but isnt it way too much money you are trying to raise for a casino development?
We are raising money NOT ONLY for a casino code development. Actually development costs are only 1/3 of all budget. We are raising money as a casino start-up which can properly function for upcoming 1–2 years and rapidly scale a business, making sure it captures a decent amount of casino market share. In this way we can build something tangible/ sustainable and bring value back to all of our stakeholders.
Is there any investor protection?
- If minimum goal is not reached, ETH is returned to investors.
- Unsold tokens are automatically burned.
- Dev. team’s tokens are automatically locked for 12 month.
- Payouts to partners are distributed through time by an escrow
When does the crowdsale start? How long will it last?
Power Hour starts on the 28th of February at 3 GTM. The crowdsale will last for 3 weeks and finish on March 21th.
Crowdsale Bonus Structure
Power hour (28th February 2017, 3:00 pm GMT — 28th February 2017, 4:00 pm GMT)1ETH = 1200 EDG
1 week (28th February 2017, 4pm GMT — 7th March 2017, 4pm GMT):1ETH = 1100 EDG
2 week (7th March 2017, 4pm GMT — 14th March 2017, 4pm GMT ):1ETH = 1050 EDG
3 week (14th March 2017, 4pm GMT — 21th March 2017, 4pm GMT):1ETH = 1000 EDG
7. Token value and liquidity
What is the value for EDG token for holders/ investors? Why we should invest?
Token is backed by a lottery game with a monthly prize pool of 40% casino profits. (60% of profits are left to dev. team)
Isnt 60% profits too much for a dev. team? They already get money from a crowdsale.
Crowdsale funds will be mainly used for a start-up development/ scaling. Dev. team would not get paid much from a crowdsale. Team expects to scale a business and get paid later on once these 60% will start to be significant.
Why you cannot have profit sharing/ dividend sharing token like other projects?
These tokens create more legal and IT troubles. Also they have way much LOWER chance of getting listed on large exchanges.
Will EDG tokens appear on exchange?
It will be on Liqui if a crowdsale is successful (we do not have an official agreement from Liqui)
It will be on a Token Market exchange once they launch their exchange in Q3 (we have an agreement)
How about really large exchanges such as Poloniex?
We carefully designed a business model and token structure to fit all Poloniex requirements. If a crowdsale if successful, we will fill Poloniex application form. Additional our advisor has connections in Poloniex. Additionally, after the crowdsale we will ask to fill anonymous Poloniex ERC20 token registration form. (we do not have an official agreement from Poloniex)
