Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Proposal: Better Betting Bureau

Timed out and enacted, 3-2. Josh

Adminned at 16 Sep 2023 09:55:38 UTC

In the rule Form Sheet, change “optionally, its Odds” to “its Odds”.

In the same rule, change “and the required number of Participants for that Sport; it can also have an Odds, and should (if it occurred in the past)” to “an Odds, and the required number of Participants for that Sport; it should also (if it occurred in the past)”.

Add a new subrule to the rule Form Sheet, called Odds, with the following text:

All Potential Outcomes on each Sporting Event have Odds, which are the Odds on that outcome being offered by the Bookie. Odds are expressed in the form “X-to-Y” or “X:Y”, where X and Y are integers greater than 0, and are listed next to each Potential Outcome. When a Sporting Event is created, the values of X and Y for each Odds must be determined using the rules for the Sport identified in the Sporting Event. If no such rules for determining Odds exist for a Sport, then Odds for all outcomes are the default value, which is 11:10.

Whenever a Punter places a Bet, they must, for each Outcome of the Sporting Event for that Bet, increase the X in the Odds for that outcome by the 1; then they increase the Y of the Odds of the selected Outcome for the selected Sporting Event by the Stake of their Bet, divided by 10, and then rounded down to the nearest integer (to a minimum of 1).

Change the rule Betting to read as follows:

At any time, a Punter may place a Bet on any Sporting Event that they have not previously placed a Bet on. Bets placed are publicly tracked and must have the following elements:
* The name of the Punter placing the Bet
* A single, specific Sporting Event (identified by the Sport and the date on which it will occur) that has not yet occurred
* An outcome (defined in the rule for the Sport of that Sporting Event)
* A Stake (which must be a positive quantity of Readies that is not greater than the amount of Readies that Punter has, minus the Stakes of any other open Bets that Punter has)
* A Purchase Odds (which is the Odds on the selected Outcome at the time at which the Bet is placed, before Odds are updated on the basis of their own Bet)

Whenever a Punter places a Bet they must update Odds as described in the rule Odds.

After a Sporting Event has occurred, the Bookie should Cash all Bets for that Sporting Event, as an atomic action with the following steps:
* Remove all such Bets from public tracking
* For each Bet’s whose Outcome occured, increase the Readies of the betting Punter by the amount of the Stake multiplied by X and divided by Y, where X and Y are the values from the Purchase Odds of that Bet.
* For each Bet whose Outcome did not occur, decrease the Readies of the betting Punter by the amount of the Stake.

Comments

JonathanDark: he/him

13-09-2023 18:40:13 UTC

So Punters are playing a timing game with the Bookie when placing Bets, depending on whether they wait before or after the daily Update the Sheet, since there’s no particular time of the day that the Bookie is required to perform the update. Is that intentional?

Josh: he/they

13-09-2023 18:51:47 UTC

No, I just can’t think of a better way to do it. I suppose it could be automatic but that would result in unclear gamestate a lot of the time

Josh: he/they

13-09-2023 19:03:40 UTC

Hm, maybe the Better has to do it

JonathanDark: he/him

13-09-2023 19:18:08 UTC

Yeah, I think the updated version works out to be more predictable, even if that means that Punters have to do a little more work.

JonathanDark: he/him

13-09-2023 19:20:51 UTC

I’m also wondering if “should” is ok for updating the Odds, instead of the stronger “shall”, since it’s in each Punter’s hands to do so.

Josh: he/they

13-09-2023 19:35:59 UTC

Yep, good point - fixed

Bucky:

13-09-2023 19:59:11 UTC

I don’t like that the automatic version has two Punters make the same bet at about the same time and get different odds.

Bucky:

13-09-2023 20:07:50 UTC

Actually, I can think of no good reason for the odds to be adjusted proportional to the size of the bet.

Josh: he/they

13-09-2023 20:20:58 UTC

@Bucky I mean it is literally how bookies work in real life, right? The initial odds are set on an assessment of probability but they are adapted as bets come in to ensure that the bookie mantains an edge based on the wisdom of the crowds. As a mechanic here it’s intended to produce competitive markets - so as more is staked on one position, the better the value on the other position becomes, and there’s less value to herding.

It does produce a small late maover advantage, potentially, but Meddling should amorealate that somewhat.

Bucky:

13-09-2023 20:25:56 UTC

Your formula is off, then, because it makes no attempt to keep the sum of the implied probabilities within any reasonable range.

Josh: he/they

13-09-2023 20:34:25 UTC

Happy to take correction on it, although it will need to be kept simple.

Bucky:

13-09-2023 20:49:30 UTC

PM’d you clarification. Intend to vote against.

Bucky:

13-09-2023 22:21:43 UTC

While limiting us to one bet per punter per event means it takes a team to abuse the flawed formula, the flaws are still there.

against

Lulu: she/her

14-09-2023 09:18:49 UTC

against

Josh: he/they

14-09-2023 10:25:15 UTC

I’m not sure what flaws you’re referring to? You’re doing that thing you do, where you refer obliquely to flaws and scams but in such a way that it’s impossible to fix them… which is doubly frustrating because half the time they turn out not to be real problems anyway!

Kevan: City he/him

14-09-2023 13:20:55 UTC

imperial

JonathanDark: he/him

14-09-2023 19:34:50 UTC

imperial