Owned by: Stunna, Edward
Bitcointalk.org Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=208986.0
This is a copy of the review available on my site
Primedices blue and white theme is gentle on the eye and provides a calming feel. When I open the site, I immediately see what I need and I get no feelings of confusion or frustrations from playing.
Primedice is well laid out and easy to use. The betting controls are easy to understand and laid out in a logical manner, with descriptive labels where needed.
The side-mounted menu for profile, stats and other controls are easy and obvious to use, with some cool achievements to unlock like wagering, betting, profit, chatting and more. Everything you need can be achieved within 4 clicks from the home page.
I am not a fan of the chat layout though. It can be hard to follow at times and the scrolling is a bit buggy. IT glitches down while scrolled up or sometimes doesn't scroll down when new messages are received. The short history shown (50 messages) is a bit short, especially if you are multitasking.
Other than the chat, I have no problems with the usability of the site
Primedice uses a nonce and hash based provably fair method, very similar to PRC and just-dice. The basis of this provably fair method is probably the best that is currently being used at dice sites. From primedice:
To create a roll number, Primedice uses a multi-step process to create a roll number 0-99.99. Both client and server seeds and a nonce are combined with hmac-sha512(server_seed, client_seed-nonce) which will generate a hex string. The nonce is the # of bets you made with the current seed pair. First five characters are taken from the hex string to create a roll number that is 0-1,048,575. If the roll number is over 999,999, the proccess is repeated with the next five characters skipping the previous set. This is done until a number less than 1,000,000 is achieved. In the astronomically unlikely event that all possible 5 character combinations are greater, 99.99 is used as the roll number. The resulting number 0-999,999 is applied a modulus of 10^4, to obtain a roll number 0-9999, and divided by 10^2 to result a 0-99.99 number.
A roll verifier for primedice can be found at http://dicesites.com/primedice/verifier
a c# implementation of the provably fair algorithm:
Code:
public override double GetLucky(string server, string client, int nonce)
{
HMACSHA512 betgenerator = new HMACSHA512();
int charstouse = 5;
List<byte> serverb = new List<byte>();
for (int i = 0; i < server.Length; i++)
{
serverb.Add(Convert.ToByte(server[i]));
}
betgenerator.Key = serverb.ToArray();
List<byte> buffer = new List<byte>();
string msg = client + "-" + nonce.ToString();
foreach (char c in msg)
{
buffer.Add(Convert.ToByte(c));
}
byte[] hash = betgenerator.ComputeHash(buffer.ToArray());
StringBuilder hex = new StringBuilder(hash.Length * 2);
foreach (byte b in hash)
hex.AppendFormat("{0:x2}", b);
for (int i = 0; i < hex.Length; i += charstouse)
{
string s = hex.ToString().Substring(i, charstouse);
double lucky = int.Parse(s, System.Globalization.NumberStyles.HexNumber);
if (lucky < 1000000)
return lucky / 10000;
}
return 0;
}
PDs betting speed is average but stable. At a lot of sites, the betting speed varies a lot based on the site load, but PD has a constant betting speed of around 1 - 1.5 bets/s (for me at least). There are some limitations on some of the other features in the site, for example
The api at primedice is easy to use and well documented. I had some trouble discovering the api, but once I did, it was only a few minutes before I was able to log in and place a bet using the api.
The PrimeDice API documentation can be found here
Some things to look out for in the api that I discovered as I wrote the bot:
The target is dependent on the condition and is NOT just the chance. If you want to bet a 49.5 low, the target is 49.5. But betting at 49.5 High, the target is 50.49. In the bot, I use the following line to determine the target:
Code:
double tmpchance = High ? 99.99 - chance : chance;
I occasionally get http errors 429 and 502 while betting. It's safe to retry the bet when these occur.
Keep in mind the rate limit for bets and other actions, like resetting the seed. Bets are limited to 2 bets/s (as far as I know) and resetting seeds are limited to once every 90 seconds (it might be once/60 seconds). I'm not sure about other actions, but actions like tipping, withdrawing and chatting are probably also limited.
The chat api returns the last 50 chat messages, and the ids for chat messages are not constant or useful in any way that I found. I've had to resort to the using the time of the last message to determine whether a message is new or not:
Code:
string sEmitResponse = Client.GetStringAsync("messages?access_token=" + accesstoken + "&room=English").Result;
chatmessages msgs = json.JsonDeserialize<chatmessages>(sEmitResponse);
bool pastlast = false;
for (int i = 0; i < msgs.messages.Length; i++)
{
//if (!pastlast)
{
pastlast = json.ToDateTime2(msgs.messages[i].timestamp).Ticks > lastchat.Ticks;
}
if (pastlast)
{
lastchat = json.ToDateTime2(msgs.messages[i].timestamp);
ReceivedChatMessage(lastchat.ToShortTimeString() + "(" + msgs.messages[i].userid + ") < " + msgs.messages[i].username + "> " + msgs.messages[i].message);
}
}
The community at PrimeDice is probably one of the oldest and most loyal communities in the bitcoin gambling scene, with members going back to the launch of primedice 1.
Most users are friendly and helpful. Begging and rude behavior in general is frowned upon by the users and the mods quickly act upon it, as well as spamming. Begging in PM is quickly found and and acted upon.
The moderators at PD are reasonable and I have not personally witnessed any one of them abusing power in any way. I've not had any issues with them and I commend them for their good work in keeping the chat clean and respectable.
Stunna and Edward are not extremely active on the site from what I can see, but they are both widely trusted. My dealings with them has always been kind and to the point. They've treated me with respect and never seemed to be looking down on users.
In the few visits to the chat I've witnessed, they were kind and respectful to their users and often "rained" on others.
I like PD and have had many interesting conversations in the chat there. I've not had the greatest of luck at PD, but at least one of my accounts there are in profit :). The bets I have checked and verified were all indeed provably fair.
I feel Stunna and Edward could be a bit more involved in the chat, but I might just be missing them when they're online.
Overall, PD is a good, fast and fair site to gamble your coins away on.
