It brings me regret to have to write this post.
Recently I had this exchange with @dantheman
I hope he is true to his word because what looks here like a small problem might well turn out to be a very large problem
I am now sure that two accounts have been running a fraudulent betting game.
The culprits are @thegame and @steembets.
I believe one other very well known account is involved.
Here's what has happened:
About 20 days ago the first @thegame betting posts went up. It was a nice idea. 2-1 odds on each game. The exact criteria were left somewhat vague but that didn't matter. It was a nice fun extra alongside @Steemsports.
Sadly I didn't win anything in the first bet, or the second, or the third, or the fourth, or the fifth.
Still... You can't win 'em all...
Losing 5 in a row. Odds of 32-1.
There were various slight problems such as the the poster not marking who the winner was but it didn't seem to matter.
So I bet on a sixth, a seventh.... you get the picture.
After 12 I still hadn't won. A 2048-1 chance. Very very unlikely.... But possible. I played another 9 times. I didn't win a thing. Now the odds are getting silly. Odds of 1048576 - 1.
Very very VERY unlikely. Those sort of chances mean a safe assumption that something is 'up'. And I knew something was definitely UP.
In all I played 25 times and never won anything.
Let's backtrack...
Here are concerns about payout voiced around the ninth game.
This was not addressed.
It was already apparent that the person posting these games was leaving varrious things deliberately vague. At the time I thought it just mild incompetence. As I will show later, I think this, and various other things like the use of fuzzy explanations was by design.
I also began to note that the poster was sometimes leaving single full stop comments. Though I can't prove it I suspect that he was leaving himself the option to come back later and edit these comments in.
By the tenth game I was getting a little frustrated... (remember odds of 1024-1 by now) and asked him to mark the winner.
Amusingly he marked the option I bet on as the winner. I'm certain I didn't receive payment.
By the next post another Steemian was complaining
Apparently the problem was now internet trouble. He couldn't pay out past winnings but he could keep posting games. This post also seems to have attracted 98 downvotes.
By the thirteenth game (8192-1 odds) it gets more interesting...
I'm starting to get angryat this point, as are other posters.
Note how here he leaves a full stop. This, I believe, is to be able to edit in an answer at a later date; something I suspect he did elsewhere.
Amusingly he marked this one (my bet) a winner again! Though he still didn't pay me.
I won the next one as well.
I wasn't paid
I won the one after that.
I wasn't paid and he didn't address my complaints.
He did point out what he felt was the flaw in logic in one of my arguments. However the payment criteria are vague so it's hard to know exactly what he's offering.
Up until this point I believe no winners had been marked. He then went back and marked a few of them.
I gave him a reminder here. Needless to say he ignored me.
This is actually the 15th non payout in a row.
Now some people giveup when faced with injustice.
I do not.
Especially when I've invested my time and energy in a platform in which I believe.
So perhaps you'll understand my blood beginning to boil at the following:
Here I'm fairly sure I linked two unpaid wins just to give an example.
I believe he changed the result on one of the links I provided. He ignored the other issues.
You'll have to judge for yourself here whether he's trying to taunt me. Bear in mind that he's too busy to answer my other posts
Here's the next interaction. Think he's bothered about resolving this?
By this point he had stopped marking winners again.
To confirm my suspicions I continued to bet and to inform other betters that not all winners were being paid. He continued to counter that he had paid A LOT of winners.
After a while I stopped complaining and started flagging.
And then suddenly we come to a post where we see it has all been a huge misunderstanding.
He claims it was a mistake in his script...
At this point I had bet in 25 games in a row. I had won none of them. I had voted at 100% until the last few games where it was clear he was not even attempting to be honest.
Another poster had lost 9 in a row. I suspect most people who hadn't been paid had given up.
There was a lot of support for @thegame's victim status, having put all the effort and energy into his lovely game, only for ungrateful people to get angry when he stole their money.
Here's my reply
More recently there was this
Note how @thegame tries to claim it was all a misunderstanding which he is now trying to resolve...
Now it's time to reveal something further.
Multiple people have told me this account is run by @virtualgrowth
Whilst @virtualgrowth was happy to talk to me on chat before I brought this up, once I asked him about this he went silent. He's often in chat yet ignores my private message requests for clarification.
Judging from the writing and posting style which are very similar, I believe this is true.
I then researched the payouts a little more. It seems that both @steembets and @thegame pay a fee to @virtualgrowth
This seems to be for a retweet by a twitter account. No one else is offered the option to retweet for money.
Money is also transferred between the betting account and virtualgrowth
And here is this
https://steemit.com/steemit/@virtualgrowth/thegame-your-rules-our-rules-your-rewards-our-rewards-your-and-our-ways-to-share-steem
My concerns here are threefold
If virtualgrowth has run this game how far can he be trusted?
How many other accounts which impact the growth and development of Steemit does he control?
If we don't sort this out now it will only get worse.
Does the same person run other accounts that everyone is giving to?
I voiced this concern and look who answered
Is Steemit in for a nasty shock when multiple crowd funded projects turn out to be run fraudulently?
If you look at @virtualgrowth's account you can see that he is extremely experienced at internet betting games.
Do you think it likely this is all a big misunderstanding?
I have a solution.
I've spoken to an extremely grumpy and irascible internet detective called @Walden who has said he will do a forensic investigation of this matter.
He can check the blockchain and go over every transaction.
As this is his job he'll need to be paid.
Maybe we can fund this with a series of posts...
If I'm wrong I'll apologise
But I don't think I am.
This betting account run by a trusted member of Steemit will be found to be a scam.
Apologies for the clunky style throughout. This has taken me hours to write and now I've got to the end I'm tired and angry at having to deal with such nonsense on a platform I love.