Place your bets!

[Alexander]

A game of limited information like Mafia naturally lends itself to betting. Why didn't anyone think of it before, I wonder.... let's do it.

So, here's what we are going to do:
1. Register here to participate.
2. Each participant automatically gets $100 in their account.
3. At any time, you may place bets related to any game that you are not in. All bets are placed by PM to me. Here are some examples of allowed bets:

"I bet $10 on Fritzler being mafia in mini 398"
"I bet $11 on MeMe being nightkilled N2 in mini 401"
"I bet $25 on town winning newbie 666"

4. Once you have placed your bet, I will PM you back your expected payoff. For something overwhelmingly unlikely (eg. attempting to guess all 3 mafia in a mini that has barely started), you may be paid 20-1 or even higher. For something more mundane ("town will win"), the payoff will be much smaller, probably 1-1.
5. If you don't like the payoff I am offering, you may withdraw the bet. However, you may not withdraw 2 bets in a row (if you withdraw once, you may not withdraw your next one).
6. Once a bet is won or lost, I will post an update in-thread.

Additional rules:
- I will only accept bets on minis and newbie games. Large games are too complex for me to read through to determine the payoff.
- For obvious reasons, I cannot accept bets on games I am in, or games I am modding. (For reference, I am in Mini 282 and Mini 251, and I am modding Mini 278).
- For equally obvious reasons, I cannot accept bets on games you are in, and games you are modding.

Place those bets, ladies and gentlemen!

[zu_Faul]

Shall we tell him how this worked out during the Invitational?

[Alexander]

Well, if you did it during the invitational, that's good. I'd like to have an ongoing running feature rather than a 1-shot.

So... who wants /in ??

[BrianMcQueso]

Shall we tell him how this worked out during the Invitational?

This isn't a good thing he's talking about, Alexander. You might want to take a reading to:

http://mafiascum.mithmojo.net/invitatio ... um.php?f=2

[Alexander]

Shucks, so it didn't work the first time. Let's make it work this time. Who wants to be in? remember, you can bet on any event in any game.

[inHimshallibe]

Shucks, so it didn't work the first time. Let's make it work this time. Who wants to be in? remember, you can bet on any event in any game.

Ooh... me likey the anything.

So these would be like prop bets, right? Anything?

Only /in if participators get an allowance - I

KNOW

I'll be broke very quickly.

[Alexander]

If you go broke, you are out of the game ... but you can rejoin and get a new batch of $100, how's that!? Neat, huh?

Anyway, whoever is /in, automatically has 100, and can PM me with bets (I guess posting bets in-thread is bad style)

[Fritzler]

/in

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

/in, now to find me some mafia.

[Fritzler]

YEa honestly, I think I have some info on every game, so I can't really bet.

[Alexander]

Good grief, how many games are you in?
PS: you may also bet on games in which you died, but only in condition you were an uninformed role, such as vanilla townie.

[MeMe]

It won't be public knowledge what bets have been placed, will it? Part of playing mafia is playing the specific players in each specific game. If I knew that, for example, Talitha's guesses on my alignment in all of my games were going to be out there for everyone to see...well, that's kinda crappy. It could become a bit of an unofficial resource to check your own thoughts against a large panel. "Eighty percent of those betting believe that MeMe's scum? Well, vote MeMe, then!"

Even if the results aren't public...the games in which you (Alexander) are participating should probably be excluded from play since YOU would always know what "the panel" is thinking.

Am I just way too worried about game integrity that I see problems where there are none? It's alright...you can be honest.

[Alexander]

All bets are by PMs to me. I will not reveal the bets until they are won/lost.
And yes, I specifically stated above that the games I am playing/modding are excluded. Hope it's fine this way and no games integrity is geopardized.

Cogito Ergo Sum placed 4 different bets for a total of $80, by the way.
EDIT: make this 3 bets for $60, as he declined the payoff on one of them.
Now, who else wants to play?

[chamber]

in

[Alexander]

People, please DO NOT bet on large games with more than 12 players. Those take a bit too long for me to read through to determine the ods (even if I only need to skim).

I will accept the bets made so far, but all new bets, on newbie and mini games ONLY. TIA.

[EnderX]

/in.

EDIT:
Are we allowed to place multiple bets covering the same scenario? Like, in a specific game, hedge against loss by betting for multiple sides?

[Alexander]

Sure, why not.
The house reserves the right to protects itself by setting payoffs appropriately, of course.

[MeMe]

Man, I

really

need to beef up my reading comprehension skills.

[VitaminR]

/in

[AniX]

/ni

[rajrhcpfreak]

/in

[petroleumjelly]

That's actually a pretty cool idea. It encourages people to read other ongoing games!

/in

[Fuldu]

I'm curious about where the odds for this are coming from. Just offhand, I looked at your example of 20:1 (or even higher) for guessing the three mafia in a mini that just started and thought, "Those are terrible odds." So I looked at the math on it and, yeah, they're terrible odds. Even assuming you know for a fact that there are exactly three mafia in a 12 person mini (which is a bet that probably only has a probability around 40%), there are 220 different possible 3-person groups. Assuming there was one death Night One, then you're looking at 11 people with 165 different possible scum groups. A 20:1 return on that bet, even after you've had a full day's worth of information (but before the lynch is revealed) is painfully low.

I say this not to suggest that this is a bad idea, but to point out that if you, as the bank, quickly end up with the majority of most people's money (and at odds like that, you will), this isn't going to be fun for very long.

The other thing you might want to consider a way to deal with is the time-horizon problem. Many of the possible bets you've described can take weeks or even months to pay out. That's going to be a really long time to wait before it's really fair to compare how well people are doing. I was a participant in the Invitational, not a spectator, so I can't say from first-hand experience, but I'd guess that the time-horizon problem was the reason that the betting didn't really work out there.

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

/in

so how much money are we starting with?

And can we bet on games in which we would have insider knowledge?

[rajrhcpfreak]

2. Each participant automatically gets $100 in their account.

well i want to ask. we cant bet on games we are in. but what if we are voted out and we are a townie. and you have a feeling 3 people are scum. can you make a bet on it?