Dao.Casino is a system of Ethereum smart contracts designed to remove the need to trust a third party in the context of gambling industry value chain, reduce a risk of fraud and allow new business models to evolve. The developers, players, referrers and bankroll backers all have a key part to play in this ecosystem. With Dao.Casino each agent in this ecosystem will be playing a fair game knowing exactly what are the incentives and risks to execute their particular role.
The world has many challenges, why did the team choose this particular one to solve?
Our team members were in the space of decentralised technology for a while, and when Ethereum came about many of us thought that gaming and gambling would be the industries that can benefit a lot from this technology.
Gaming and gambling are interesting because this sphere has a lot of users and a wide demographic of users. It is a huge market. The integrity of data and code that Ethereum offers can solve issues on two levels
- game level (provably fair gambling)
- business level (provably fair relationships between the stakeholders).
We think that gaming and gambling industry is a good match for popularising systems and protocols without centralised ownership.
We have to admit it also a lot of fun to work on games. On the serious side, gambling games need equally unpredictable PRNG, and the topic of randomness is attracting lots of very bright mad scientists. So when you work on PRNG methods you get to hang out with a lot of extremely bright people.
How widespread is fraud and abuse of trust in the gambling industry?
It is hard to estimate how widespread fraud really is. How would you prove it anyway?
Most serious online gambling businesses care about their reputation and care a lot about their business being fair. There is a whole industry of certification authorities around it: some voluntary certification, some by regulatory authorities. The thing is when you can write an application that runs exactly how it has been programmed it makes all these certification processes more efficient.
Some online casino operators say that the percentage of fraud is rather low, but that it spoils the reputation of the whole industry. That’s why online casino operators are primarily interested in blockchain tech – provably fair gambling. For us what is also interesting is removing a need to trust a third party in all gambling industry value chain, not just game outcomes.
Right now if you want to be a part of a referral program you really have to make sure you choose an online casino platform with a very good reputation. This creates stagnation. If you can participate in a referral program with a smaller gaming provider it just creates more dynamic market, more healthy competition.
The free market teaches us that competition is a good thing. Is this the case also in gambling?
Gambling and gaming industry is entertainment industry, so yes, when there is room for healthy competition game providers have to provide a better experience for the users.
But crypto economic systems are not just about competition, they are about commercial ecosystems. Not just competing but forming new consortia, new forms of cooperation. When consortia of smaller gambling platform operators can compete with the large established ones it is definitely a good thing for the industry. And look at the ecosystem in a broader sense than just gambling industry: with an automatic reward distribution system a game can be sending a percentage of the game revenue for charitable purpose for example.
The gambling industry is fast paced, flexible and always looking for new areas of development. Which parts of the gambling industry have reacted most favourable to the dao.casino project?
The gambling industry is not as fast paced and innovative as it could be. It is rather dominated by very large actors, and even though they do struggle to innovate, there is much more talent that can be leveraged by creating an ecosystem in which people and businesses don’t have to trust each other to cooperate.
The gambling license is a pivotal asset for any gambling operation. Is Dao.casino lobbying any particular jurisdictions to make such a platform a requirement by default?
First and foremost we need to focus on the system itself – make sure that it works fast and it does exactly what is intended. We have already implemented a PRNG method that is approaching industry standards in its speed while remaining serverless and decentralised, but we need to find and implement more methods for different games. Secondly, we need to make sure that the documentation is complete and that there are libraries and contract templates to work with, so that casino operators can pilot it. It is a long term project. When this is done, we are open to discussing further developments with regulatory bodies.
BET is the ERC20 coin that will be used to power Dao.casino, why was a new coin necessary?
There are several reasons why the system is better off running on a specialised token. Some are pretty trivial – some known attacks become less likely than if it would be using ether. Another reason is social – decentralised protocols like this one need a community of token holders who are interested in gambling industry, token distribution is not just about raising funds to continue research and development, it is about creating communities around a particular project or topic. That’s why some of the tokens go to the game devs who integrate their games with the system.
What is the contract HackDAO going to be used for?
HackDAO is a test game that was made by our team for fun, when we went to EDCON. It’s more of an insiders joke – history of The DAO in an indie game. We build games all the time, and test them. The reason for it is to create templates and examples of how different types of games can be integrated with PRNG, front end and how they would behave in a browser of on mobile. HackDAO we made for fun mainly, think of it as a folklore of some sort. It’s open source tho, you can do whatever they want with it.
What is the date of the ICO?
Token distribution starts on the 29th of June, shortly after the MVP is released.
What will be the price of 1 BET?
Up to date information is always here.
https://github.com/DaoCasino/Whitepaper/edit/master/Crowdfunding%20and%20Token%20
Distribution
Ether to BET rate will change throughout the campaign. First-day contributors will get more tokens per ether.
Will you implement any mechanism to have the ICO distributed to a wide audience as possible?
A percentage of the tokens is reserved for game developers and early contributors. 74% of tokens will be distributed through a public crowdfunding campaign. It will be a standard crowdfunding contract with no bells and whistles.
What are Bankroll backers?
Bankroll Backing, as the new feature is titled, is introduced in the wake of DAO.Casino’s motto: to enable a sustainable model which benefits all the parties involved in the online gambling working model. This system is supported by, what DAO.Casino refers as, Bankroll Backers. Any participant holding DAO.Casino’s native token BET can take up the role of a Bankroll Backer; s/he will only require to install bankroll app and commit their tokens in a game
This system is supported by, what DAO.Casino refers as, Bankroll Backers. Any participant holding DAO.Casino’s native token BET can take up the role of a Bankroll Backer; s/he will only require to install bankroll app and commit their tokens in a game contract and receive rewards.
In modern gambling industry, this role is taken on by casino operators. While this practice requires game developers to put unquestionable trust on their casino managers, it also makes them dependable on them. Operators have an unquestionable influence on the game developer, who can not bring his game to the market without the participation of the casino, no matter how good it is.
DAO.Casino protocol’s Bankroll Backing System allows solves this problem. Anyway, the casino operator can retain this function, becoming a bankroll backer for their own games.
Bankroll Backers will be able to evaluate games in a market environment to understand what kind of reward they will be able to count on and make a choice in favour of the best of the games. In this case, “bad” games do not even reach the player. In fact, the bankroll sponsor conducts the first audit of the game. Naturally, he takes risks – the game justifies itself or not, but in the market conditions, it works best.
After the game has received the required amount BET`s, the bankroll sponsor will automatically receive a reward (part of the player’s loss), which is pre-programmed in the game contract code.
In what cryptocurrencies will the BankRolling system accept?
All our smart contracts, including Bankroll Backer contract, working with our token BET.
What will be the interface used to BankRolling? At the moment, our team has developed an Bankroll backer application using the Electron.js framework. https://github.com/DaoCasino/BankRollerApp/releases
How can Bankroll backers be able to diversify across different games?
BET holders are free to use their tokens to back any game of their choice. DAO.Casino in-house games are only intended for testing and as templates, to show how the system would work. Same applies to the test platform. First games will be developed and deployed with partner platform operators, after they are security audited they will be available for the bankroll backers and for the players. More games integrate with the system more bankroll backers would be able to diversify. It is likely that some games can introduce limits to bankrolls for security reasons.
Will there be a minimum amount required to be able to be a bankroll backer?
It depends on the games. Bankroll must cover the largest possible loss of casino.
Is it possible to know at this stage what is the potential ROI for being a bankroll backer?
No. Whatever the bankroll backer’s reward can be depends on the game – how popular it is and also on the agreement with the game provider and other stakeholders. Remember, it is an ecosystem without centralised control, so what games are popular and what games will attract more players will be decided by the market.
It is also a bankroll backer’s skill to discover and support a game that is worth it.
First of all all participants, such as game dev, casino operator, bankroll backer, should agree among themselves on the distribution of income from the game and determine the percentage of income paid to the referrer. The agreements can also be concluded with the help of market relations. I can give an example. 3 game developers offer 3 same-type games, but with different profit distribution. First one keep himself 50% of game profit (player`s loss), and this does not suit the other parties. Second suggestion is: 30% for game dev, 50% for Bankroll Backer, 10% and 10% for Casino and Referrer system, than it`s also not the best investment, because such games are unlikely to find players. And the last one: 15/20/30/35. It will be the best choice. And different games have different House Edge (casino advantage). The more House edge is, the more players in the game and less profit from it. Bankroll backer should decide, what is better. Anyway All % will be chosen best in market conditions.
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We thank the Dao.casino team for the interview
