Staking Services Pt. 2

NOTE: Anywhere that mentions "staking" refers to "boxing" which is a duel between two maxed accounts with no weapons, food, armor, drinks, or anything. You punch each other and have nothing else, thus it has a 50/50 chance (minus any glitches at the time).

RE: http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1432551

This feedback thread I made was in response to the banning of staking services. I decided to make this continuation, because the last thread had a good debate going, and I'd say around a 50% support, and 50% non-support base. I've decided to address each and every concern on this new thread. The reason I'm not doing it on the other thread is because I feel it may not be read since people are debating with each other and posting very long responses for or against it.

Staking services are similar to investments, you're right. They're similar in many ways, but NOT the same. Where do they differ? An investment has guaranteed return, whereas a staking service, the client [person paying for the service] knows that the odds are not in their favor, and is told this many times. They acknowledge the fact that their gold is at risk, and they choose to do it anyway. With this, the staker [person giving the service] receives compensation for every win they get for the client (mine was 10% of the stake amount). Investors often times could run out of money, their method of earning money could back-fire on them, or they may get banned/lose gold. When I say run out of money, I'm talking about a Ponzi scheme. Obviously not all investment services are Ponzi schemes, but a select few of them may be (only the investment service owner would truly know if it is or not).

People have been saying that staking services are too risky for the client. I don't understand how it's any riskier than any other services allowed on Sythe. I'll outline some other services, and the methods people can be scammed using them.

• Account Sales: Accounts can be scammed during the trade, by receiving the payment and never giving the account (although this would have proof). It could also be recovered at a later date, which makes it more risky than a staking service because you would have no proof.
• Gold/Item Sales: People are scammed every day by buying or selling gold/items. The other person may not pay up, or they may charge back (although this would have proof).
• Renting Accounts: Way riskier than staking services. When you rent an account and put a large sum of gold on it, it's easy for a person to get it locked (kick you off), then unlock it, change the password quickly, and take all of your gold. You would have absolutely no proof to get them banned.
• Questing Services: People can easily take gold/items from clients' banks while questing for them, which would leave no evidence.
• Firecaping: People can easily take gold/items from the clients' banks while firecaping for them, which would leave no evidence.
• Defender Services: People can easily take gold/items from the clients' banks while getting them defenders, which would leave no evidence.

All of these methods are riskier than staking services, yet they're still allowed on Sythe. Apparently, it's easy to scam/fraud by doing staking services. I'll outline below how easy it is to prevent that from happening (taken from my first thread regarding this).

1. Make sure the staker records all of the duels and shows the client the video after.
2. Make sure the staker takes screenshots of each win/loss and shows the client after.
3. Make sure the staker takes screenshots of the duelling hiscores board and shows the client after.
4. The customer can watch all duels from upstairs in the duel arena.
5. The customer can view all results on the duelling hiscores board in the duel arena.
6. The staker can set up a webcam to show their screen during the entire process over MSN (to be recorded by the client).
7. The staker can set up a life stream (purposely misspelled to avoid the censor) and the customer can watch.

I'll bring up some points here that people made for or against this service, and I'll post my feedback regarding it.

As long as the client is watching the stake (I listed about 4 methods above in which they can watch the duel live), it's almost impossible to do this. It's pretty obvious when you stop attacking the opponent. Rules could also be set up to pay back clients if the staker lags out, misclicks, or has any other problem.

Thank you Travis, I never thought about it this way before, but you're exactly right. They both have the same odds, and the same risks. Allowing one but not the other doesn't make any sense.

In both dicing and staking there is about a 50% chance (minus any glitches/bugs) of winning, which also means a 50% chance of losing. The odds are equal, and both have equal risks. Both services are guaranteed, and they both could make you lose your money.

In the original post I listed many ways to prevent the staker from hiding or changing the results.

Thank you for backing up all of my points.

Yes, strict rules. That is a great idea. There should just be stricter rules on the service, not ban it altogether. Some rules could be that the staker must keep the entire duel video for a certain amount of time, must have a certain amount of screenshots, etc. If they don't do any of these things then they could get banned.

I would just like to make one thing VERY clear:

STAKING SERVICES HAVE NO PROMISE OF BEING PAID BACK IF YOU LOSE.
It is NOT the same as Stui's service where he paid everyone back no matter what. Obviously what he was doing was going to lead to a scam, how could he afford to pay everyone back their losses?

Also, another big question I've been asked is why can't people stake on their own? Why would they pay you to stake for them? Well, not everyone has a maxed account, and not everyone knows how to stake. The last client who used me, I had to explain to him what boxing was, what rules to put on, etc.

Please, make a sticky and explain the risks of staking services and set up strict rules. Do not just completely out-right ban the service because a few people scammed using it in the past. If you banned a service because of the amount of scams it has had, account sales, account upgrades, skilling, and many other services would also be banned.

 

Let's bump this to the top, shall we?

 

When a ban was posed on staking services I was shocked. These services show no harm to the community because just like any other goods and service on the site, you purchase from members who are deemed trustworthy. I provided this service for approximately 6 months with no trust problems at all. Members who were involving themself with were well aware of the risks that were involved with the service, applications were filled out and TOS were reviewed before hand.

When I performed the service, users were able to actually watch me in the game. This made the "trust-part" a lot easier because losses couldn't be faked when you're being watched live and in real-time. I made the customers aware of the exact moment when I went into the fights via 3rd party messenger and there was never a problem with them being able to spectate the fight. Customers knew that if for some reason they missed the viewing of a fight, losses were not refunded.

Over the six month period of providing this service, I had no issues. Of course every customer needed to be briefed on how the service worked before getting into it, which made everything easily understandable. Customers were allowed to choose the specific bet amount, and/or choose the opponents who were fought against too.

All in all, the staking services that I provided showed no risk to the community at all. It benefited players who were less confident/lower "skilled" in the game, and it benefited myself as well by improving my ability to communcite and relate to the Sythe.org comminuty as a whole.

SUPPORT​

 

My opinion is small since I am new here however i offer a very legit staking service for my flower clan hosts.

Its had only 1 snag when i was glitched and xlogged for 1.2b stake.

However Record all things.
Trade after evry fight -% u keep
Have them watch everystake
and if you want skype with your betters....

I see this issue as something that maybe should be less biased. Because even if 50/50 id stake 5b on staking over planting a fucking flower..... Or going into a irc which can be rigged at any command. Just saying this was a biased ban. That should of more been a whole community vote. From what i was reading stui was doing more of a ponzi scheme type of plan. Where this is instant payouts and u can observe ur money at work

 

Sythe isn't a democracy, it is a totalitarian oligarchy a.k.a. a privately held business and the community is only included on any decisions out of courtesy, but the admins always have ultimate say no matter how many people support it. Also stui paid the first few rounds of investments off - he was glitched and lost a lot and couldn't afford to pay some people off iirc.


On topic:
After reading and considering both sides I still have to agree with the ban. If they unban this then 'investment services' should also be unbanned as they're pretty much the same thing, except return isn't even promised with a staking service. If people want to gamble their money they can go to a reputable dice clan and gamble it themselves where the risk of scamming is minimal. The only way a staking service should be allowed to run is if they can promise a full return on money through glitching or something.

And unless the staff magically change their mind it doesn't seem like there will be any change in the rule any time soon. If there hadn't been a change after the first thread I don't think a second will likely change any minds.

 

Staking services is simply taking a bet and placing it for someone who doesn't have an account to do so. Investing is giving a set amount to a business, with high hopes of a positive return over time. With investing, more than one person would be giving a user money, while staking services, you would only be taking one bet at a time. The risk of a scam in a staking service would be the same as the risk in doing a basic trade, I really see no harm as long as the user is trusted (maybe implement a maximum of 750M). If you don't want to take the risk of losing your money, don't do it, it's the same as any other business on sythe.

 

Im going to have to vote against this... I already been scammed by novorite's staking service i think its just too easy to rig stakes. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is thats what i learned lol.

 

Staking services are 50/50, there's really nothing to good to be true about it, it's the same as gambling in a casino. If you are stupid enough to get scammed on sythe, my look at it is you really shouldn't be here. People can rig stakes just like they can say a MoneyPak or a pin didn't work. Again, if you're stupid enough to get scammed on sythe, you probably shouldn't be here. You should do background checks and choose wisely who you do business with.


I think the administrators could set up a bond service, which would make sythe as a whole a safer place to trade. There could be say, a certain fee per month they could charge to hold your bond, kind of like a membership. If a user is proven to have scammed, the amount of the scam would go to the scammed user, and the rest of the money would be kept by the site and go towards updates n' shit. There would also have to be new icons set up, and it would probably replace all the current donator icons, but it would be worth the move. I wouldn't see what harm it would do, because the site would still be making tons of money, if not more, from taking monthly fees and reducing the amount of donations.

 

Voting against this 100% still, why another thread? You are taking a very biased and 1 sided approach in saying it's "for people that don't have an account to box on", that's not one bit true. 1% of people are in that situation. This is an investment service, it goes against the investment rule and the glitched staking(guide) only rule.

You say this is just a 50% chance, but you ignore the fact that if STAKING SERVICES were allowed, people could say WHATEVER THE HELL THEY WANTED. My point is that it doesn't matter what you say, you can't just take a very naive viewpoint in only considering what you say you would do.


BMW just made a VERY good point, if this was allowed people could just do it with a friend, even on video, and that would mean whether they won or lost, they'd win the guys money, or some of it. Think about it, it would be so simple. Just have your friend sitting there, hell you could be streaming and on Skype at the same time. Very easy to rig it. Even if you could lose more than gain sometimes, the odds are in your favor, as if you win you get double, and if you lose, you lose less than the staked amount.

The problem with staking services, why it is different from dicing, is the fact that its an investment service. You are never at any financial risk, you are merely invested into. That's where the whole rig parts comes into it. That's why it's nothing like dicing. That's why it breaks current rules in place. That's why it shouldn't be allowed.

The admin don't even have nearly enough time on their hands at the moment for Sythe, there is no way policing this in any way shape or form would be feasible either. Such as the bond service you suggested. You are asking admins to waste their time so people can profit from risking other peoples money. Don't see that happening. Further, this suggestion ignores the fact that you wouldn't have a shred of proof to suggest someone had rigged it. They could have 2-3 friends in every staking world

Not true to be honest. Most pins are self-applied, and if you wanted to say it didn't work you'd have to give proof, and if it worked, it would say already redeemed, not invalid. Moneypak too, there are all sorts you can do to prove these trades such as recording. Rigging staking would be insanely easy, and since you're never at any risk you always win.

 

People that don't have an account to box on should rent one if they wish to stake. If they don't wish to do this and still wish to wager, they should do it themselves in a dyce clan.

No support at all.

 

It's much easier to scam someone by renting them an account than it is to do a staking service for them, as explained in the original post.

 

You can involve an OMM for the pin and its just as easy to scam in staking services.. Why even rent a staker its not like its difficult to get maxed combat they're handing out free exp.

 

Exactly what I'm trying to say. It's just like any other business/service on sythe, and there's always going to be risks of getting scammed. If you're stupid enough to fall for something, you shouldn't be here. Your trying to shoot it down just because the fact their is a scam risk, but in reality, there is a scam risk for every online trade.

They're offering a service for a certain amount of commission, which should be taken out of the bet before hand, not if they win. It's the same type of service as anything else you are doing, you are trusting a user by using there services for some kind of gain. Again, it all comes down to trust, if you don't trust the person, don't use there services. From what I've seen around sythe, the amount of business these staking services get, I can't believe this even came up.

 

Can you provide legit proof that the person hosting the service lost legit because even if its videoed it can be staged and you have to take their word you have no proof while in other trades there can be proof, taking screenshots even in renting a staker if they lock their account they will get caught.

 

How can you stage a duel? If you don't fight back, it's pretty obvious and you will have to pay back the loses.

 

Keep staking til you lose. This can be rigged with 3-4 people so it doesn't look suspicious

 

The client makes all the rules, tells you how much to stake each time. They're kept updated with each win/loss live. There is also a video after for proof. I really don't understand how that can be staged.

 

Why should I let someone stake for me, when I can do it myself making it a lot more safer.

Gambling is a risk, but having someone gamble for you is more of a risk.

No.

 

I'm going to have to support this. I was shocked myself seeing a few peoples Staking Services get terminated because of this new "rule". Any method used on sythe whether it be account/money/virtual money/etc has its positives and negatives, If what Dialatic and a few others had said "strict rules" be implemented than i dont see no harm in it. But, as a few others said. We have barely any say, if Admins dont want it, than I guess we dont get it.

Okay g4u, some people dont feel like maxing out an account just to do some stakes. If the Service has a reputable amount of Vouch/Rep than I dont see no harm no foul.

 

The staker really has no reason to scam. People like Folt make more off of being legit than they would from scamming, since he gets a 10% cut of each win.