kfaraday had an idea to take bets on the winners of Winter Chip VIII, but this could apply to any major with a long voting period. Unlike a regular bookie, we think it should pay out exactly the money that is paid in.

So, we can have as many instances of this as we need, maybe one per category + one overall, or whatever.

Unfortunately, to keep the payouts fair, and the odds transparent, I think the only kind of bet that can be accepted is a bet to win. People who want to increase their chances will simply need to bet on multiple entries. (I tried to work this out, but I don't think there's a good way to unsure 100% payout if you start taking 2nd place, etc. bets.)

So, for any given betting instance, you have X entries, and anybody can bet as many boons as they have on as many of the entries as they want.

While bets are being taken, the current odds should be displayed next to entry. For each entry this should be:

odds = (total boons bet) / (total boons bet on this entry)

If there are no bets on this entry, don't divide by 0, just display a blank or "no bets yet" or whatever. The odds must be recalculated every time a bet is placed so that we can watch the odds as they come in (exciting!).

When the winners are announced, those who bet on the winner get a payout:

payout = (your boons bet on this entry) * (odds)

Note that the odds used are the ones calcualted at the end of betting, not the ones displayed when they placed their bets (as you would with a bookie). This means odds will fluctuate as people bet, i.e. betting heavily on an entry will lower its odds. This is to ensure that all money bet gets paid out, and don't worry, if you bet on a winner you can never get less money back than you put in.

The table displaying betting could have rows like this:
entry | ( boons to add to bet ) | your bet on this entry | odds | total boons bet

To make a bet, put a value in the add to bet field and click "bet" or whatever. Your boons will be taken immediately and held until the winner is announced. You can add more to your bet at any time.

After the last row, a total boons bet on category should be displayed at the bottom. (This makes the odds calculation completely transparent and easily verifiable.)

Also, anyone with a troll ailment should not be allowed to bet.

I still think this cannot possibly do anything good for the community, but I may be biased. I understand you want to do something interesting with boons, but there's other ideas.

I know I would sharply downvote an entry which has thousands of boons riding on it :3~

I donut think there is a way to implement this that is worth the potential damage

Gambling always brings crime. I learned this from Sim City.

We've had this discussion numerous time over the past years and years. We always hit the same conclusion :: Betting affects voting. :(

This reminds me of another thing...

Is there any way we could verify who gave us boons? Probably shouldn't be public, but it would be good to be able to see who gave you boons, and how much the transactions were for, viewable by the giver and received only.

You mean a receipt?

Betting is a stupid idea.

A "reciept", as it were, would not be. I think a nice message in the top popup thing would suffice, like "rainwarrior gifted you 250 boons!! What a nice gesture!! Remember to say thank you <3 <3 <3".

I don't think tracking these gifts would be necessary. We're not accountants.

It's easy to miss a one-time message like that, especially if you've got like 20 tabs open because you're voting on Winter Chip. For the current messages, they're all unimportant, and some of them are just random nonsense, so it doesn't really matter if you miss them, but I wouldn't want to miss knowing who gave me boons. (Though the option for anonymous gift would be fine too.)

i would immediately stop giving people boons if they were able to find out it was me who gave them

woof woof

I don't want to take away anonymous boongifts! I just want nonymous ones too.

Tracking boon exchanges is a nice idea but not a priority. Also, and I don't know why I'm even suggesting this, with the ability to gift boons, y'all could be organizing your own bets w/o the AIDs of BotB.

I probly would've implemented some kinda bookie bot by now if I thought it was a good idea

Wait, what? I could swear every time someone gives me boons, it outright says who gave them to me. Am I misunderstanding something?

Yes, you could. You'd probably have to be careful about timing, make sure you're in communication and nobody tries to make bets at the same time. With receipts people could just leave you a message and boons at their leisure.

Not that I want to run a bookie, but I do find some types of gambling fun.