Nobody bets on EC's anymore...

Back when Bet Bot was around, you could typically get 20 bets per EC.

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Yeah it will be back. he just has to make some gold and think about what he did wrong to blow his bankroll last time.

I don't think he should be betting on the top player. Being top ranked doesn't necessarily make for a good bid. Betting on dogs will give bet bot a healthier shot at winning.

However, if he bids 10g, someone just has to bid 1g on everyone in the tournament and take away bet bot's monies. If he bids less, it might not be enough incentive for people to bid against.

There's also the option of ditching the /dogs option entirely for everybody and have bet bot place his money on a random player (which will be revealed only after the tournament has begun).

Well, if it were entirely up to me, I'd make bet bot place 100g on the lowest ranked player, but that won't work out.

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I would say just have it bet two gold on the top player. At least from what I've seen once someone bothers to place a bet others rush in. By betting two it wouldn't lose too much, but it would give an incentive for others to bet one.

I say huger has the most reasonable idea so far. I'm not for taking away dogs though. There's a time when you dog and there's a time when you don't dog. Trust me, I learned it the hard way.

I agree. The bot lost money because it stacked the odds against itself by betting big on one player. Everyone else just bet 1 and got free 1:10 odds. Cutting the bet to 2 will do more than make it lose at 20% the previous rate. It will make the odds better (for the bot), perhaps enough to make it break even.

I don't know what the correct number is. I guess it's the highest you can make it without incurring significant losses.

Whatever the number, betting on the top player is reasonable. I imagine more ECs are won by the top player than, say, the player ranked 4th. And dogs is usually a bad bet - if many people are betting (hopefully the case once the bot is back), anyone with a real shot at winning will be covered.

Another option is hedging bets. Nothing complicated - perhaps 2 on each of the top two. This will let the bot put more money into the system, enticing more bets, but it won't be stacking the odds against itself like it would by betting 4 on one player.

2 gold is way too small, IMO. Is it really worth risking your own gold to get 2 back? And that's assuming you're the only one betting. If 3 people bet, you're looking at 1:1. Personally, I'd rather hold on to the 1 gold I'm sure I have.

I really don't see what the aversion to giving away free gold is, really. I've also pointed Jed to where I got my idea of why free gold is good a couple of weeks ago.

Sure, I hear people abused the free ladder gold, but an EC is an entirely different matter. You can stack the odds in your favor, but a little investigating on Jed's part can easily find out who's been doing it. There's also the option of IP checking on the EC.

Anyway, if anyone's interested, you can ask me and I'll tell you how another online TCG is running 2nd (if not 1st) to MtG online in so far as profits go by actually giving their players as much free in-game credits as they can. (I completed a whole set of cards after spending under $50 in the game, that includes buying about 30 out-of-print/discontinued cards off the market). Sure, the percentage of paying players is tiny compared to the percentage of paying players on TFW. But, hey, 10% of 10,000 players is still a heck of a lot more than 100% of 100 players. I think TFW is sticking to the 100 players with it's current model.

Now I went off topic...

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My reason for thinking that two gold would be enough to entice people is that I've done it. In a couple of ECs recently I've gone ahead and wagered two on the top player and pretty quickly there is some betting action. Granted it's not as much as when the bot was betting 10, but I think that's in part due to the fact that people can't be assured there will be any bets so they come in late and don't even check odds. All that to say that I'm pretty certain if you always had the bot even bet two it would generate the betting action which then snowballs on itself and creates more.

Sure, 2 gold is enough to get a little bit. Not very much, though. With the 10, as I mentioned in my original post, 20g from the players was not uncommon. If you were the only one betting on a certain player, netting over 30g for your 1g investment was very realistic.

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I am all for increasing the gold pay out in the game, I agree that to grow the player base there needs to be incentive to play the game and have it truly be free while at the same time allowing people to try and get a jump on the competition by purchasing gold. I do not believe that a betting system is the best way to accomplish this though.

Has anyone looked at the legal ramifications of even having a betting system in the game. I know when magic was first released it had an ante system that involved 1 card from a person's deck being set aside and the winner would take the losers card. This system was quickly removed from the game because it is illegal for a player base which includes minors to gamble.