Did you play ‘Penny up the Wall’ as a kid at school? You basically stood about 3 metres away from a wall with a friend and throw a coin at the wall. Whoever got their coin closest to the wall won both coins.
I used to play it when the teachers weren’t looking in the playground. After numerous games, I somethings lost all of my lunch money and sometimes doubled it
I’ve been thinking about making a game in Unity where players can fund their accounts with PayPal and play online. The winner gets 95% of the total back and can withdraw the money back to their PayPal accounts at anytime.
The trouble is, it would cost me about 1.5 mill to get a gambling license :shock:
Now if the 5% went to charity I could make the game. I’m assuming that it would be pretty easy to write. I’m going to make the game and I’ll post it here so you can play with fake funds. Maybe you can beta test it for me and give me feedback.
Would you be tempted to play the real thing? If so, how much would you dare to gamble? The result would be instant
I don’t know how your game mechanics would look like, but if its some simple movement with the mouse you could easily write a bot which always make a perfect throw. So no, I would not bet a single penny in such a game.
You could also become a master at a simple game like that with a bit of practice, just from “muscle memory”, so no, I wouldn’t play it either apart from doing it to rip-off people and make a fortune. You’d need a better game design than this, and you would want to be monstrously careful about creating a game that involves gambling for real money. I’m pretty sure that Paypal wouldn’t want anything to do with this.
This type of game would attract nothing but kids and hackers, and kids can’t gamble legally. Adults would probably prefer to throw away all their money at dubious Russian online casinos, from my experience.
You would not want to implement a game like this in .NET, as the client could be easily decompiled and tampered with. You would need a lot of experience with secure network programming before even thinking about it.
However, if you do create this then please let me know about it… I promise I won’t cheat.
You won’t have to virtually throw a coin in the game. The interface will be really simple so it would make a great phone app too. The program will simply choose True or False instantly. You’ll get an instant notification in your account including an email stating Win or Lose.
There would be a forum so players can openly discuss their experiences. That way everyone would know its legit, genuine and not another scam.
You can either start a game with say, £100 which would leave £100 worth of slots available for other players. Other players can bid as little as £1 on that game and still get a 95% win when the slots are filled. The player that started the £100 game will get the same odds. Games can start with as little as £1.
Personally, I would rather spend £10 on this game with a 50-50 chance of doubling my monies, than blowing it on a national lottery that has a 14 mill to1 chance of winning the jackpot. By playing the national lottery, your just funding one lucky winner and have zero chance.
It wouldn’t work in .NET but the beta will be for getting feedback on the aesthetics.
Will they play against other players or themselves?
Also, what’s the point if it’s simply 50/50 true or false?
And if I get 95% back if I win, but lose 100% when I lose then it’s not in reality 50/50 is it? It would be the same as a loan where you don’t get any money, but still pay 5% interest. Not something I willingly spend my money on.
But if you can muster up some good graphics etc. then by all means give it a go. There’s enough stupid people in the world to make a profit from any idea if you just reach them.
I think you might be underestimating the intelligence of the general public (I never thought I’d say that) if you expect people to bet real money on what is essentially a virtual heads/tails coin flip. This is not a game, in my opinion, and 50/50 odds are quite clearly not going to work for either you or the players. The only winner here would be whatever online banking system would agree to be involved with this kind of thing, as they would be raking in a percentage while you and the players saw no profits.
About the simplest gambling game that you could get away with would be something like a fruit machine or a simple card game like blackjack, and in that case you’re already beaten by the tens of thousands of “professional” and “regulated” (haha) online casinos. I think you will run into so many legal, technical and networking issues here that you should do some more research before getting carried away with the idea and seeing dollar signs flash before your eyes. Most credit card companies have banned transactions to online gambling sites, and I’m pretty sure Paypal will just laugh at you. Online gambling is banned in most countries, so you’re going to have to resort to some shady (and expensive) hosting system in the middle of nowhere or do it yourself and risk serious fines from either the country you host in or from the country the players are in, should something go wrong and a player complains.
99% of the work involved in something like this is in creating a secure infrastructure and server-side management for payment, then jumping through legal hoops and paying for some kind of gambling license to avoid prison and/or a huge fine. The game client itself is nothing, and could be spewed out in an afternoon. Making it secure, having all the logic take place server-side, and finding somewhere legal to host this kind of thing is a much bigger issue.
They used to call that pitching pennies, I first would not bet real money probably no matter how little, I also would not find it very entertaining. What about playing for points, like those game that require you to buy tokens of some sort, $0.99 gets you 100 points or something, then the winners would not pay any more and the losers would buy more points. Since you are not really trading them in for anything, its not gambling.
You’ll play against other players. If you bid £10 and win you would get your £10 back plus £9.50 so £19.50 total. You’ll get a screen where you could choose which charity gets the 50p. Its lunacy really
I can see certain people playing it on occasion for a personal dare with money they can lose. Their the only people I would want playing the game. What if a really desperate person with serious financial problems bid their collateral and lost it? It would be dangerous in the wrong hands.
Roulette, is at best a 50/50 chance. Actually its less because of the 00 slot. The pretty wheel and orbiting ball makes it seem otherwise, but in the background it is essentially coin flip as well.
For the love of god, don’t let the client make this choice. If you do go ahead with this, have the client just get the response from your server. Not sure if I’m just telling you what you already know, just thought it might be good to point out incase you hadn’t thought about it And you might want to get a lawyer to look over this idea if you are serious - the restrictions on storing money type data are pretty intense ( dependant on where you are ). Also get yourself a decent server admin, the last thing you want is to get hacked and a ’ if player_name == ‘evil_hacker’ then set_winner = ‘evil_hacker’ ’ line inserted somewhere important
Also, if you are giving the house percentage to charity to avoid gambling stuff ( shaky ground prehaps? maybe I am being too negative ), how are you planning to make money from it? Or is the just a charity app? If so thats pretty noble of you
Never played this as a kid, but now I have heard of it, might try it with a few friends next time we get together rl Good luck with it!
Yes, “at best” being the important thing. The game design he’s suggesting is 50% every time. The number one rule of gambling is that the odds always favour the house, otherwise why would they bother. There’s exceptions, probably, like if they’re going to be making money from things like crazily expensive drinks or entrance fees, but if the house and players have even odds, the only person who’s going to benefit is the payment gateway taking a cut of all this money flowing through. Also the government, I assume, from taxes or however that works.
I was trying to point out the many reasons why this is a horrible, horrible idea in a polite way. You need to get advice on things like this from a clued-up legal expert, not a forum. I can guess (with higher than 50% odds) on what that legal expert would say to you.
I’m sorry, no interest, and I do gamble on occasion. When I drop a stack of chips in Vegas at a Hold 'Em table, dollars on a dinner table, or pennies online my goal is to spend some time with acquaintances, enjoy an interesting locale, or win money and prizes via skill. A coin toss game doesn’t involve skill and a website can’t compare to the Bellagio for ambience, so I just don’t see it working for me.
