Dear People of Skyblock Economy,

we are experiencing troubling times. In the past weeks there have been dramas over gambling with a new tool that is different than normal raffle, gambling places with droppers on the islands we used to know.

A player managed to develop an alt, which is able to receive funds between 1 and 1 Million skybucks and which will then decide with a 45% Chance of winning, if the paid fund will be paid back double.

Why is this tool so successful?

Low entry barrier

With an entry fee as low as 1 (”one”) Skybuck you can play with any possible income. With just bidding a little and low risk of total loss you will get used to the tool, since its just “a little playing”. Losses will not be memorized but wins will cause a sensation even though they are not much and the losses will be forgotten even though they were little but statistically would be more than the wins. You are getting to like it and are prone willing to bid more sometime later.

High Availability

We love to experiment with something that seems to be unattended. We can just play as much as we want, almost anytime we want, with no human being seeming to control or limit us to the game or judging us. Its a secret between the bot and you. The only limit is your balance.

Instant wins

The prices seem clear: doubling! The chances are close to even, but in the long term the bank will always win. In comparison to drop lottery, there will be no items dropped out that you have to cash in after. No fiddling around with useless stuff. All we want is cash. I know it, you want cash and you think of strategies.

Why are Gambling Bots a danger?

You try to dig up alternative facts

A few days gambling a little with the CoinFlipAI you wake up and suddenly have a plan how you can trick the AI and winn all the money: just bid and double the payment until you win. Congratulations! You are not the first one to do this. You just discovered the Martingale Strategy. And you are about to lose all your money! Even though chances of losing could add up to as low as 1%, your wins will be just as high as the first bid. Adding up your bettings along the line you can lose all your wealth when hitting that 1%, and it will be happening. This didnt work and will never work. People claim even the gambling industry supports these strategies as they are making you forget the risks and make you prone to lose all your moneys.

There will be Drama on Eco

As we say on eco: A day without drama on eco is no day at all. You wont believe how many people are screaming and be pissed off when they lose all their funds. The community is tired of explaining the people how dangerous it is yet they ignore it and scream at us either way. We even tried reverse psychology, but it all doesnt work. We dont want drama on eco anymore.

You will lose all your money

Ok, I should have said that earlier, its obvious. I lost 2 million skybucks. I know 4 other players who lost all their cash. CoinFlipAI managed to obtain more than 10 Million skybucks of lost hopes. There will be no chance of that money ever be paid out like in a big Jackpot. Congratulations!

We cannot guarantuee the authenticity of the code behind the bot

Even though my experience is, that the odds are truthful: this bot is privately hosted. A single person knows the code and has the control. He does not belong to staff. He is not getting audited. You will never be able to claim a fraud case or prove that something is odd. If I would develop that thing, I sure would have an algorithm that encourages people with low fees and make high entries always lose. And be honest: If you would be able to develope such a bot, wouldn’t you try to give yourself an advantage too?

This is a family friendly server

The headline above is a line I hear very often and that we try to live up every single day (at least we try hard, believe me). In all developed countries children are not allowed to buy a lottery ticket. They need to be at least 18 years old. If theres a lottery in my village, children can only buy one ticket while the elderly buy them in bulks. This serveris housing many young people who are still learning and not always able to see the risk in gambling. Imagine they earned their cash hard, having a good time: will we destroy their ambitions and many people at a young age are unable to control feelings of loss. It’s even worse since we are online and have no ability to check up on young people who experienced losses like parents irl could do.

What do you want, Offline?!?!

I cannot enforce a change, but I would like to address two parties and ask them the following questions. Pls dont hesitate to copy those questions and answer them below in this thread:

Dear ~Sky~ ,

1. How do you feel about people and especially young players losing all their hard saved money
2. Do you think there should be more warnings about the risk to become bankrupt?
3. Dou you think there should be a lower maximum fee being able to pay like 5k or 10k skybucks?
4. How much money have you earned so far with CoinFlipAI
5. Would you offer Staff to make the source code of the plugin open source
6. Why do you think does staff not offer a similar gambling service as yours? Should they introduce a similar service?
7. Is CoinFlipAI a temporary social experiment? Do you plan on shutting CoinFlipAI down in the future?

Dear Staff and especially Noobcrew:

1. Can a family friendly server go together with gambling bots that could result in instant losses of the whole balance?
2. Do you plan on enforcing strict limitations on gambling bots such as spending limits or even a total ban of such bots?
3. Why isn’t the raffle called a lottery? Why does it have a limit of 5 tickets per player?
4. Do you think that we need new minimum age limits for this erver if gambling will persist?
5. Is Mojang/Microsoft strict with servers that offer gambling?

Anyone else please provide your thoughts. I would love to hear your side of the story.

 

Im not reading all that bud

But I guess we could flip a coin or something to decide if we should allow it or not

 

Because Minecraft law enforcement said lottery bad, raffle ok.

 

In my personal opinion, while gambling bots are a hazard to other players balances, its their choice at the end of the day whether they voluntarily, of their own free will, choose to gamble away their money in a game of RNG, where they believe they can win big, and keep on winning, without doing any 'real work'. While I support the idea of a gambling bot, the actual practice of one which is involved in luck over skill seems... questionable at best, at least to me.

Personally, if I were going to gamble, I'd rather it be in a game of skill over luck, not the other way around. Like a PVP arena, in which one player monitors 2 others going in, in a fair fight, with established rules. At least if I were to lose in that, I wouldn't curse the RNG from the bot, or the algorithm of which that bot was coded on, but rather, my own personal skills, or lack thereof. But I say that if this is what it takes to give people, especially kids who believe they can simply cruise through life without really working a day in their life, or earning money through hard work, determination, and (when required), getting help from others, then I'm all for this in this instance. But if its simply designed to get the user of the bot richer, simply because they want more money (which seems highly unlikely at best, and at worst...well, let's just say what I want to call this would likely get me banned on here, without a second thought), then I think that seems irreprehensible; very, very, bad.

As I said; while I like the idea of a gambling bot, I don't support the practice of one, unless its to teach those players a very harsh lesson in reality; fools and their money are soon parted. And if you intend to simply cruise through life, thinking you don't have to lift a finger, then you're not only wrong in your thinking, but you won't last long in the real world, where people could either help, or harm you, based solely on your actions you take. That's just my 2 cents on this, and that's where I stand. Whether you agree with me or not, I won't mind either way. Provided your opinion is worded respectfully, of course

 

How do you feel about people and especially young players losing all their hard saved money
Happy that I have earned an extra quick buck.

Do you think there should be more warnings about the risk to become bankrupt?
You don't really need to be a genius to figure this out. If you pay all your money then there is a 55% chance of going bankrupt.

Do you you think there should be a lower maximum fee being able to pay like 5k or 10k skybucks?
I don't charge any fee. 100% of the money paid contributes to the wager.

How much money have you earned so far with CoinFlipAI
Approximately 110 million.

Would you offer Staff to make the source code of the plugin open source
I would share the source code to staff, and certain modules of the source to players if they ask/express interest.

Why do you think does staff not offer a similar gambling service as yours? Should they introduce a similar service?
No comment.

Is CoinFlipAI a temporary social experiment? Do you plan on shutting CoinFlipAI down in the future?
It's a bot which statistically will make me a profit over the long run.

You can simply conduct a statistical test to prove if the bot is biased. I'm sure staff will listen to you if instead you provide them with statistical evidence that the bot is indeed biased, rather than complaints of how you lost 10 times in a row.

 

Sounds like ur directing ur entire argument to 1 guy (becuz u lost money) when skyblock has tons of players, including staff, promoting gambling (and have been for years)... While I can't say I support the promotion of gambling on Skyblock it's not Sky's fault, the whole server is built around (crates, raffle, a tutorial on how to make slot machines, etc.).

 

You could either say: You are just against it because you never played it OR You are just against it because you lost.

I have pointed out many risks and dangers and reasons why it should be banned, with focus on losses, addictions, drama and mojang regulations. I feel like you didnt read my essay.

Why is gambling so strictly regulated irl? Why do we have such drama on eco?

I got all my losses back again, I earn a lot of money. I just want to raise the voice for our smaller players, new ones who quickly leave our servers when they lose all their money and never get back, who dont have forums accounts. I tried many ways to warn them, even with reverse psychology by doing the opposite. It didnt help, the drama at the end is still real. We are not at the local pub where we can throw some confrontations around, I would like to have the points listed discussed.

 

I did read your post. I don't think it's wrong. What I do think is that this post comes from a place of anger from losing ur skybucks (regardless of if u won it back or not, which if u did that's sad cuz u continued to support gambling on the server after this complaint). All I was saying is that it's a whole server problem, not Sky's problem alone, as the server itself (and the majority of players on skyblock) support it. If you are against gambling you could do so without blaming a single player.

 

When gambling, there are no loosers, there are only quitters.

Most gamblers quit before they WIN big!

Just do the math. You can only lose 100% of your money but you can WIN 2000%+.

Casinos lose so much money from people WINNING big. Be that guy and take there money. Casinos are basically free money machines.

Keep Gambling! Keep winning! Get Rich!

 

Good luck with it offline.
Skyblocks official stance is that they don’t condone gambling but then the go and condone gambling.
It seems it’s all about what is said, not what is done.
Running a lottery is bad, but if you call that lottery a raffle, it’s all ok.
It’s hypocritical, it’s obvious and it’s laughable. Sadly gambling in kids games is no laughing matter.

 

I can assure you it is not because of any loss, because that is long ago. There is no anger in loss since I have enough funds. Anger in loss can only result at people who do not have sufficient funds or strategies to recover.

 

No one has ever said this.

Why have you directed this post at Sky? It’s not his problem. If the staff allow it then you need to question the server not the player lol

 

A quick search from the last 200 days.

I know you don't necessarily mean those exact words, this is just a bit of a joke.

But Queen is right, Sky isn't the issue.
CoinFlipAI and all casinos, do operate outside of the rules or code of conduct, but that isn't enforced so it's going to happen.

 

Me when my future wife asks me how did your gambling addiction start? during our divorce hearing

 

I have said in the past, that the day will come when someone sues a gaming platform for the gambling habit they developed as a child playing their game.

Staff usually refrain from commenting on these sort of threads. I find if you want an answer to something like this, it's best to keep it very simple and specific in seeking the one answer that really matters.
As I've done here: https://skyblock.net/threads/seeking-official-clarification-on-gambling.144210/

 

I thought call-out threads were not allowed? This thread is clearly intended as a dig towards one player despite the fact gambling is a common thing all around.

 

The CoinFlipAI itself is not a bad idea… if it was actually a coin flip.

Never in my life have I seen a coin with only a 45% chance of flipping in your favour.

In a coin flip the odds are evenly for and against you. In this, it is clearly against you and there is a profit motive not seen in real coin flips.

Either it should be rebranded as a form of gambling, or the odds should be 50/50. Sure I don’t think calling out a specific player is right but it literally isn’t a coin flip. If you can find a coin in the world with only a 45% chance of being in your favour then please let me know because I am yet to find one.

Not taking a jab at any one guy in particular just to be clear before some dim wit has a go at me

 

noobcrew should start from reopening ma j since 2019

 

Ah yes, making it 50/50 makes it not gambling, great point!

 

Personally I think the biggest issue, is that this is not a fair coinflip

If you were to play any redstone coinflip island on survival, you'll realise that they are 50/50, not 45/55.

45%/55% is intentional to create more chance of loosing than any possibility of winning.

By definition, this is no longer a coinflip but now a double or nothing. There's nothing wrong with this, other than the lie of it being a fair even coinflip. Renaming it to be more accurate could help. If a player plays a coinflip they expect it to be fair chances. If a player bids on a double or nothing with lesser chances to win, then they know what it is they're actually paying for.

The other issue is that whilst skyblock doesn't condone gambling znd are actively trying to remove aspects of gambling, sky allows players of any ages to waste their entire balance, and doesn't seem to realise the affect this can have on newer players, not fully understanding that coinflipao is a player account, and not affiliated with slyblock itself.

Then there's the concerns that the code could be rigged in favour of winning smaller bids amd loosing on higher bids. I do believe the full source code should be shared with staff to be better regulated. As was mentioned on economy, what's to stop the source code from being edited and changed for a fewins whilst someone's bidding higher? This could be done to limit high losses from cf. And then edited again when staff check. There is ZERO ways to regulate and monitor this. We have to take sky by his word that everything is fair and legit with the coding. Many times coinflip has been taken offline and the % of wins has changed a few times since coinflip very first started out. Used to be 48%, but now down to 45%, what's to stop that lowering even more.

At the very least, this could be classed as money laundering. Taking in large amounts of players income with false promises they can double it with even chances of wins and losses. The player bids expecting it to be fair, not realising that infact the "fair" coinflip takes in at very least 5% of every bid.



Rebrand it as something other than coinflip, tp reflect on it NOT being an actual cf game, and share the source code with staff who understand how to read znd check its legit. They're a couple of ways I feel would help. Also, advertising it on /ads I feel shouldn't be allowed. Seeing as the sole reason for that account is to money launder from players. Just how skyblock have had to remove their spawn casinos.