User opinions wanted: help decide the future of the wagering system

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Posted by TequilaMan2000

How about you make some of the more responsible team members "monitors" or "game mods" or something like that..?

They don't even have to be a forum mod. They can just be trusted to evaluate wager manipulation. Sort of like many sets of eyes watching the wagers of team members...

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i would even help with that if that was an issue.

maybe even have a section of the forum to post where you have edited the wagers of users stating to the other players who they are and to put their name out there as possible cheaters, people may be less likely to cheat if everyone knows.

The only way to make it completely uncheatable is a house backed odds wagering system. You could also include a parley calculator to make it more fun. Add the fact it takes sometime just trying people to wager with you , and it seems the onle sensible way IMO.

I voted to add a house wagering system. I like the way the current system works, even if i haven't had a chance to wager with it. However, there is a big potential for taking advantage and, even though it doesn't affect anything, there is a huge amount of work for the mods here to keep things straight. In fact, it's probably gonna be too much work, once the site increases as the site gets more popular and more users arrive. I have faith that they will make the right decision however, and i'll stick around through whatever they decide

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Posted by nellyhiphophead

i think you jsut got to make a rule with a big underdog you can't go lower then even.

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Perhaps make a rule that in any circumstance where ewhere 2/3 of site members have picked one fighter to win over the other that any wagers on that fight must be at least 2:1... any fights where one fighter is chosen over 80% of the time to win that the wager odds must be at least 4:1? This is kind of like enforcing some site-based odds on a fight while still leaving a pretty large amount of room for wager negotations?

In terms of policing wagers... we could perhaps make a new classification of site moderator just for the sole purpose of policing and enforcing all things pertaining to wagers and make new site rules relating to "don't make retarded wagers" (except in a more detailed and refined language). Maybe it would take a vote of 5 of these "police" to nullify a user's wager (although in theory this could wind up being abused as well).

Maybe the rule of "you cannot wage those in your household or in your fight camp" could be applied as well?

Just sort of talking out loud, tryng to find a happy medium that will keep things community oriented while still being fair... let me go get some more beers now to open up to more ideas

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Posted by Pyrenus

Why not require a unique IP and/or email with validation for each user account to cut down on people creating multiple accounts to place wagers against themselves?

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You can do this?

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Posted by DoTheMMAth

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Posted by nellyhiphophead

how many fake wagers hae you found and took back?? how bad is it?

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Without actually counting I'd say we've gotten 20-30 reports here from the "report suspected manipulation" button, a dozen site contacts on the subject, plus 9 others that I handled myself before the stats were event posted live on the site. Still havne't sorted through them all yet either and we're still getting more reports...

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Just wanted to add to this one, that quite a few of these are overlapping items... just want to paint as accurate a picture here as possible on things.

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Posted by Trapt1nw0nder

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Posted by Pyrenus

Why not require a unique IP and/or email with validation for each user account to cut down on people creating multiple accounts to place wagers against themselves?

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You can do this?

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See this post

Also just wanted to add the thanks and appreciation from the staff here for all the positive compliments that many have offered in this thread

Our end-goal is to make a fun game to play and a civil and mature community in which to enjoy and discuss what (we think) to be the most exciting and booming sport on the planet today. If you can think of something to make this game fun and this community be the place to be, we will make it happen.

A few ideas:

I like the "bounty" on finding rigged accounts. Make it something like $5-$10, and it won't be worth someone making two fake e-mails to make two fake accounts to make a foolish bet between the two fake accounts to report it to make $5.

I don't know much about programming, but would it help moderate if anytime a wager was made that was vastly different than the money line, that it sent the mods a message as being a possible violation? That way hunting for these things wouldn't be hard, as you'd have them all lined up as if they were violations.

A less popular, but more effective route would be to make the site a pay site and cost $1 to make an account. People would be less inclined to pay real money to cheat to win fake money.

You've also mentioned the props system you're working on. How about you make it so you can't wager against people unless you have a certain number of props? That way someone with a fake account would actually have to go into the forum, and not only post, but make intelligent conversation before being allowed to bet. That much work for fake money would definitely cut back on cheating.

Oh, and as for the house betting, I think that would be cool, but to keep people waging with each other, you could set it so you can only bet a certain amount with the house. Say you can only bet half your total money with the house, that way if people want to bet the other half, they need to fight people online to do it with.

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Posted by Svartorm

A few ideas:

I like the "bounty" on finding rigged accounts. Make it something like $5-$10, and it won't be worth someone making two fake e-mails to make two fake accounts to make a foolish bet between the two fake accounts to report it to make $5.

I don't know much about programming, but would it help moderate if anytime a wager was made that was vastly different than the money line, that it sent the mods a message as being a possible violation? That way hunting for these things wouldn't be hard, as you'd have them all lined up as if they were violations.

A less popular, but more effective route would be to make the site a pay site and cost $1 to make an account. People would be less inclined to pay real money to cheat to win fake money.

You've also mentioned the props system you're working on. How about you make it so you can't wager against people unless you have a certain number of props? That way someone with a fake account would actually have to go into the forum, and not only post, but make intelligent conversation before being allowed to bet. That much work for fake money would definitely cut back on cheating.

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These are good ideas, thank you for sharing.

Re the "pay site" idea: lots of folks don't mind paying to use a site, but we are hesitant to charge anyone to play here as we know this will cut down on the overall usage and "viral" growth of the site. Additionally, charging $1 doesn't help the site pay the bills much either, as I know from business experience that the credit card processing house will charge up to $.30 a transaction + a % of the transaction cost.

The props system sounds good and would encourage users to post on the forums and add to the overall community and knowledge base here, but some folks just like to lurk. Personally, I have an account on 4 other MMA forums that I read and follow when I have the time, but none of these accounts has over 100 posts on it. From the vantage of an honest, site-supporting lurker, this would hurt.

A user-policed system may be the answer... but the power of numbers is something to be feared. What if we made a rule so that it takes 10 "flaggings" of a wager to automatically delete it from the field of play... we have large groups of friends with common interests here on the site. I'm not saying that any of our camps would band together to put the smack down on the wagers of a player from a rival camp... but stranger things have happened!

This all may be a headache for us now as we've done only 1 event so far in "beta" stage... but once we figure out a good system of things, put it into play, work out the bugs, and get into it then we'll be golden

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Posted by DoTheMMAth

The props system sounds good and would encourage users to post on the forums and add to the overall community and knowledge base here, but some folks just like to lurk. Personally, I have an account on 4 other MMA forums that I read and follow when I have the time, but none of these accounts has over 100 posts on it. From the vantage of an honest, site-supporting lurker, this would hurt.

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You could make it so if you don't have props, you can still bet against the house though. That way you're not screwed if you just don't like to talk, but would be better served finding wagers in the forums.

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Posted by DoTheMMAth
Perhaps make a rule that in any circumstance where ewhere 2/3 of site members have picked one fighter to win over the other that any wagers on that fight must be at least 2:1... any fights where one fighter is chosen over 80% of the time to win that the wager odds must be at least 4:1? This is kind of like enforcing some site-based odds on a fight while still leaving a pretty large amount of room for wager negotations?

In terms of policing wagers... we could perhaps make a new classification of site moderator just for the sole purpose of policing and enforcing all things pertaining to wagers and make new site rules relating to "don't make retarded wagers" (except in a more detailed and refined language). Maybe it would take a vote of 5 of these "police" to nullify a user's wager (although in theory this could wind up being abused as well).

Maybe the rule of "you cannot wage those in your household or in your fight camp" could be applied as well?

Just sort of talking out loud, tryng to find a happy medium that will keep things community oriented while still being fair... let me go get some more beers now to open up to more ideas

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You still got to give alot of room on the wagering so you will get alot more wagers i think. maybe more like if one fighter is over 80% thenyou got to go 2:1. someone that ppl on here pick %80 to win can still be better then a 4:1 underdog in reallife

i liek the idea of letting us as member pay you guys back with helping you out with this fo what you guys have gave us with this web sight. plus with us helping you policing helpsus by not letting ppl get up in te ranks with fake wagers.

i don't like the no wagers within a camp cause i have my friends in my camp and it makes it more fun if you know who your wagering it with and same goes with room mates with the inside a household. like we only wager with each other on fight that we didn't pick the same guy to win

i think the easy way out but might make it harder for new ppl is to give ppl $50 when they sign up then it wo'nt be worth it to start a new accont just to make
$50. i think it would take away from new ppl coming cause they are so far back in cash up what will $500 be after a season or two. just don't make house wagering casue it wil take away from how much ppl and on the forums and on the websight finding wagers.

I would love if the site were odds based. I understand it for the most part but a heavy explanation would have to be put up as a reference guide.

some sort of odds based betting system would be best, but Id rather not have a rigid moneyline, if that makes any sense?

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Posted by nellyhiphophead

if you make it "Add an odds-powered house wagering system, but leave the current system in place as it i" then every one will just bet with the house. why not you might ask cause if your wagering anoter person one will get better odds then the house gives and the other would get worse so who ever is getting the worse then the house would just go and make a bet with the house t get the bette odds.

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Actually, the house usually takes a cut on your money. So betting against other guys would still give you an advantage with the odds.

For example, If a fight is:

+130
-110

You could decide to bet at 120 for 100 and both guys would be winners.

My vote goes to option #5.

It is the best of both worlds, and also doesn't requires that much policing, you just need to ensure all bets are within the + and - ok boundaries. If not, it really doesn't make sense for someone to bet at +300 on Sanchez when the house offers +900.

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Posted by nellyhiphophead

i think the easy way out but might make it harder for new ppl is to give ppl $50 when they sign up then it wo'nt be worth it to start a new accont just to make
$50. i think it would take away from new ppl coming cause they are so far back in cash up what will $500 be after a season or two. just don't make house wagering casue it wil take away from how much ppl and on the forums and on the websight finding wagers.

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The more I think about it this sounds good... from the eyes of a scammer, what point would there be in making a duplicate account if all there was to gain was $50? Then this leads to the question, what do we do with all the current users? Are they "grandfathered" into the new system where they get to keep their initial amounts? Would we be having a nearly identicaly convo a few months down the line if folks made multiple accounts and played the game via duplicate user ID's in order to make accounts for the sake of Barry Bonds style juicing? I know as a mod I'm supposed to have the answers here... but really this whole site is aimed at being a community-powered effort to build what the fans want

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Posted by DoTheMMAth

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Posted by nellyhiphophead

i think the easy way out but might make it harder for new ppl is to give ppl $50 when they sign up then it wo'nt be worth it to start a new accont just to make
$50. i think it would take away from new ppl coming cause they are so far back in cash up what will $500 be after a season or two. just don't make house wagering casue it wil take away from how much ppl and on the forums and on the websight finding wagers.

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The more I think about it this sounds good... from the eyes of a scammer, what point would there be in making a duplicate account if all there was to gain was $50? Then this leads to the question, what do we do with all the current users? Are they "grandfathered" into the new system where they get to keep their initial amounts? Would we be having a nearly identicaly convo a few months down the line if folks made multiple accounts and played the game via duplicate user ID's in order to make accounts for the sake of Barry Bonds style juicing? I know as a mod I'm supposed to have the answers here... but really this whole site is aimed at being a community-powered effort to build what the fans want

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i know the more i think about it i think its the best and easy way of fixing it. it would become alot of work to get $50 from a new account and i don't think pp; will do it much as the longer we go on the less $50 will be worht much at all after a season or so. let the seanson go on and let us all keep our cash we got. and let new players in as they join. no matter what you do they will be behind alot of ppl no matter if you give them 500 to start with or 50. this way thats the only thing you got to repogram is how much you get to join and not the whole program of the wagering what i'm sure would be alot more hard work and maybe cost more too. lets keep this fantasy how it is. it's one of a kind and i like it that way. plus bring back being able to buy $ it will makes cash for you guys plus let ppl that join late and want to start with more then $50 to be able to buy some.

There will always be cheaters. But who are they cheating, only themselves.

I will bet with my mates and meet new people and bet with them. the thrill for me is, do I win the bet, was my opinion better than my opponents.

So if some dick wants to use their static ip address or multiple accounts, to make false bets with themselves to make large kitties, what will they gain.

I think a community will be created here, it is a good site and well thought out. I know that our fight camp is mainly consisting of 9 guys from another site. I for one am spending a lot of time here now and so are they.

So leave things as they are, I won't be affected by some guy with an enormous kitty. He will be the loser because he/she is not part of the community, they are just basically masturbating with money, by betting with themselves.

I would like to see the option to get another 1000$ back if you **** up but decrease it to 500$ and you can only get it like ones every 3/4 month.

I think a good step in preventing this would be to post names of suspected users and the reason they are suspected. I know this wouldn't prevent them from juicing themselves up with multiple accounts but because this game is all about the community you've created it would be a nice red flag for everyone to know. If nobody will bet with you that takes a ton away from this game and a lot of the fun.

well if you bring the money option back than u should only be able to buy the money if your bankroll reaches a certain low like around $100 so you cant just pad your stats it you reach a high bankroll.

Really like the bounty idea BTW.

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Posted by unchillphil

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Posted by nellyhiphophead

if you make it "Add an odds-powered house wagering system, but leave the current system in place as it i" then every one will just bet with the house. why not you might ask cause if your wagering anoter person one will get better odds then the house gives and the other would get worse so who ever is getting the worse then the house would just go and make a bet with the house t get the bette odds.

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Actually, the house usually takes a cut on your money. So betting against other guys would still give you an advantage with the odds.

For example, If a fight is:

+130
-110

You could decide to bet at 120 for 100 and both guys would be winners.

My vote goes to option #5.

ya but isn't much room to moce around with you won't be out there looking for the best wagers you can find.

It is the best of both worlds, and also doesn't requires that much policing, you just need to ensure all bets are within the + and - ok boundaries. If not, it really doesn't make sense for someone to bet at +300 on Sanchez when the house offers +900.

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