Specifically, I would like opinions on how we handle the betting. Details are here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=6172382&postcount=2

We should consider using odds for more risk/reward.

You can't divide the pool evenly. It has to be proportional to the size of the bet -- otherwise someone who bets big will get screwed whether or not he wins. Looks like the spreadsheet is set up that way so it's all good.

Edit: Melyn you should make this explicit or a lot of people will probably wind up feeling cheated. The prize pool is not simply split evenly between the winners. The prize pool is split proportionally according to the % of the bets placed on the winning player.

Completely unbiased Example: 2 duelists.

Ushanev and Melyn bet on duelist 1

Ushanev bets 9 credits

Melyn bets 1 credit (wuss)

Urdnought bets on duelist 2

He bets 10 credits (should have bet where the smart money was).

The total prize pool is 20 credits.

If duelist 1 wins, the 20 credits are not split evenly. Rather Ushanev gets 90% of the prize pool because he placed 90% of the bets that were placed on the winning duelist.

So Ushanev wins 18 credits and Melyn wins 2 credits.

Kind of a fun, self-regulating system that also offers bettors a way to hedge on longshot bets.

What about having someone act as a bookie? Set an initial "odds" based on what you think will happen, then run the odds recursively so that as each bet is placed, the odds change to correct for the pool. Then the bookie just has to keep track of who has placed bets and what the odds were when they placed the bet. It could be done fairly easily in a spreadsheet, then you just need to worry about having a bookie for each fight who can keep the numbers straight (which shouldn't be hard).

Example. Moco bets 300K on Aikon at 3:5 odds against Flux. Then the odds shift a bit and Melyn puts 500K on at 33:50 (3.3 to 5) odds on Flux. The numbers used are arbitrary, but I think the idea is there.

You can tweak some values a bit if you want to improve the chances that the house ends up with some credits for their trouble, but it seems like a reasonable way to go about it. Actually, that may be how it's done in some systems, I'm more of a math man than a gambling one.

Looking at some of the posts about ASB and BSR not making a profit (or losing money) on the endeavor, I think Ush probably has the best means to go about it.

Ill be arriving with zero credits in my inventory and plan on leaving with zero credits. Ill have Desa w/ extra credits on him incase we suffer loses

But no this isn't a money making venture, just something to add to the excitement

Edit: ill have 100k to bet on my boy OG

If kylen and Zython make it ill be putting 50k on each of them. Assuming these guys make it to the final four

Dick.

If I owe any money to anyone I'm running to Mexico to skip on my debts

Dick.

All the more perfect for us: we can "get back" at Urdnought for his lack of trust by making him lose money while we win the tournament by beating Kylen and OG!

...ofc, OG is my guildy so... Idk.

All the more perfect for us: we can "get back" at Urdnought for his lack of trust by making him lose money while we win the tournament by beating Kylen and OG!

 

...ofc, OG is my guildy so... Idk.

Pshhh Manka is my guild master and I'm betting against him

What about having someone act as a bookie? Set an initial "odds" based on what you think will happen, then run the odds recursively so that as each bet is placed, the odds change to correct for the pool. Then the bookie just has to keep track of who has placed bets and what the odds were when they placed the bet. It could be done fairly easily in a spreadsheet, then you just need to worry about having a bookie for each fight who can keep the numbers straight (which shouldn't be hard).

 

Example. Moco bets 300K on Aikon at 3:5 odds against Flux. Then the odds shift a bit and Melyn puts 500K on at 33:50 (3.3 to 5) odds on Flux. The numbers used are arbitrary, but I think the idea is there.

 

You can tweak some values a bit if you want to improve the chances that the house ends up with some credits for their trouble, but it seems like a reasonable way to go about it. Actually, that may be how it's done in some systems, I'm more of a math man than a gambling one.

The beauty of this system is that the odds are basically crowd sourced. In the example, Ushanev and Melyn get 1:1 odds on their money because the betting was split exactly between duelist 1 and duelist 2, but if one duelist is heavily favored by the crowd, you can get substantially higher odds by betting on the underdog.

Example:

10 people bet 10 credits each on duelist 1.

2 people bet 10 credits each on duelist 2.

The total prize pool is 120 credits. If the heavily-favored duelist 1 wins, each of the people who bet on him will have a net gain of 2 credits (12 creds total minus the initial 10-credit bet). Essentially they are laying odds at 1:5, risking 10 credits to win 2.

If Duelist 2 wins, each person who bet on duelist 2 will have a net gain of 50 credits (60 total minus 10 initial bet). They are getting odds of 5:1, risking 10 credits to win 50.

Now the problem with this system is that your odds might shift significantly after you place your bet. Because of this drawback, I think there should be a point after which no more bets can be made followed by a summary of odds and a short period where bets can be withdrawn (not shifted to another duelist, just withdrawn for zero gain/loss). It IS possible to manipulate a system like this by placing and then withdrawing large bets, so everyone is on the honor system (or maybe there's a rule that bets over x amount cannot be withdrawn). It's either that or all bets are placed blind without knowing the odds and odds are only revealed after betting is fully closed (or even after the tournament is finished to prevent charges of throwing a match).

Vegas-style odds won't be possible, imo. Even if the bookmakers can keep track of them, getting that info out to all potential bettors in a timely manner would be a huge hassle -- not worth it for what is supposed to be a fun event anyway.

First of all Ush, if you don't think data entry and running numbers is fun, you may want to reconsider some of your life choices.

As for people not being able to predict the odds, I think as long as they know they're going in with the odds and payout being determined afterwards, it's still fair. For my proposed method, it would really just mean having someone stand there and PM one person at a time taking bets and telling them the odds. That would necessitate a "House" and someone backing it, but it could be done. Then again, the "House" has the potential to gain or lose based on results, which isn't the point.

Yes, one of the most prominent reasons I chose the choice I did is because of what Ush and Soupy are saying. The way it's constructed, BSR and ASB won't win/lose any money and we don't have to worry about getting accurate odds (because frankly, none of these people have any significant history of dueling, so there's no way one can measure their success chance).

Other things people wish to discuss? I think the schedule will work pretty well, we may change some tournaments to double elimination as long as time does not become a problem. The biggest tournament will automatically be double elimination (similar to juggs last time) to make it more epic.

Specifically, are there things in the "procedures" section that could be changed to streamline the tournament and/or make it more fair? We're trying to cover our bases with rules so when situations present themselves, we can react in a decisive and unbiased manner. A prime example of this is our clause about leaving the dueling area being an automatic forfeit, since last time we had no rule, and Xerec accidentally jumped out of the pit. (We didn't know what to do, so we called a reduel, but that made neither party happy with the outcome). Now we have a rule that we can stick to for next time. Also, multiple matches had some confusion because there were multiple ACs dueling at once, the wardens were divided, and people weren't sure whether duels were starting. We are seeking to eliminate that confusion for the 2.0 tournament.

My two cents:

Everyone entering the tournament must pay a 100k entrance fee? (If that's too steep we could lower to 50k, 20k etc.) This will provide funds for the house/wardens.

(Melyn or Urd could collect the entrance fee prior to the tournament through mailboxes. Melyn could accept credits for the republic side and Urd for the empire. Both of them would then create a spreadsheet of players who have entered the tourney. This streamlines the whole process so that tournament day wont become a big cluster F***. ( If players don't trust giving their money to Urd or Melyn they could just go F themselves kidding. Melyn/Urd could then take screenshots of each mailbox entry and post them on the forums for each player who entered to confirm their money was accepted and that they are in the tourney...)

Enforce a maximum betting amount per duel. Maximum amount could be anywhere from 20k-40k, this negates players betting 1 million credits and getting a 2 million payout... Who has that kind of money to award them??? This stops people from purposely losing to get a big payday.

1. Have the house make the odds based on who they think will win the match, so either a Warden with good knowledge of the duelists can pick a favoured player, then whoever bets against that player gets double what he/she bet. Ex. House chooses player 1 to win, bets can be placed on player 1 at x1.5 payout, all bets placed on player 2 get x2.0 payout. Basically the house chooses an underdog and topdog.

2. Or have the odds even, and allow everyone to get a x1.5 payout regardless of the player they chose to win. This would eliminate any bias in the wardens decision.

Winners receive their payout. Leftover credits are stored by the house (This includes bet losses.)

Placing bets:

Have 1 warden delegated to each AC bracket who will take bets and keep track of them on a spreadsheet... if players wish to make a bet they would simply whisper the warden: -40k bet on underdog (or "Ramikade")

-40k bet on topdog (or "Ogclutch")

Ending the tournament:

When each AC is playing against each other in the final duel, the wardens/house can divide all the credits into even amounts:

(Total amount of credits / Amount of AC final duels)

So there's a total of 8 AC brackets so if the wardens/house had 2 million credits left over they would....

(2 million / 8 = Total Pot for each duel)

Once this amount has been determined, all spectators can pick a winner of each AC duel. The warden/house will keep a record of who chose who on a excel spreadsheet(Hopefully? ) Then the total pot is then divided out amongst the winners.

What this does is basically give people back the credits they used to enter the tournament. And also makes the final AC duels more interesting And refunnels the credits back to the players so that the house/wardens don't get a huge cashout.

Although I feel as though some credits should be awarded to those who organized the tournament as a thank you present.

Another option would be to allow Melyn or Urd to keep the credits left over at the end of the tournament and save them for future tournies.

 

Enforce a maximum betting amount per duel. Maximum amount could be anywhere from 20k-40k, this negates players betting 1 million credits and getting a 2 million payout... Who has that kind of money to award them??? This stops people from purposely losing to get a big payday.

No need to worry about this since there is no "house," really. Melyn and Urd are just neutral money-holders. All the money bet goes into a single pool and the players are betting against each other rather than the house. The way the system is currently described, it might well be very imprudent to bet very large amounts of credits because the whole amount you bet on your duelist is at risk, but if there isn't much money bet on the opposing duelist you don't stand to win much. This should discourage people from throwing around big sums of credits to skew the payouts.

For wardens we should do something different

Each prominent guild in the tournament can select one person to be a warden. That way when disputes happen you have a balanced panel of wardens rather than all BSR or ASB wardens. This means more wardens than last time, And more diversity. Qualification is that cannot be entered in the tournament and cannot be allowed to bet (obvious reason)

We could take a 20k entrance fee per character and use that to pay wardens possibly/ cover betting issues, or for hosting guilds to take for getting it organized

Thoughts?

I think the entrance fee may reduce participance however I feel it may also make people who did pay more inclined to showup. And i like the idea of recycling the entrance fee credits for the final AC duels for both the betters and winners. Knowing that if you win your brackets tourny youre gonna get a fatty prize will up the competition.

I agree with you ushanev, but to expand on what you said. I think people will still bet larger than most can afford causing people to stay out of bets. If someone bets 200k on player 1, im more inclined to bet for player 2 automatically. While at the same time i dont want to bet 200k on player 1 simply because I wont win much.

Thats where the maximum bet limit came into my mind. It just makes it a fair stance so rich players cant just go all in, I wouldnt be suprised if betting brings in schemers trying to rig duels and screw over honest players. Maybe put a 100k cap on the maximum?

If 50 players show up and pay 20k to enter thats a nice sum of cash to use for the duels. And 20k is easy for players to part with considering lvl 55 mk-9s cost an arm and a leg.

I defs agree with getting wardens from various guilds so long as their respectable, paying wardens for keeping track of spreadsheets is a nice thought too. As they dont get to participate but have a huge responsibility.

If I can't participate... I'm out! Also, who would bet a super huge amount on someone in the tourney? All 4 players are going to be talented, so your chances of winning are not that great. I currently have a 50k minimum bet, I think most people would just bet that. Is 50k too high? Maybe make it 20-100k? I didn't expect too many people to end up betting.

I DO, however, like the idea of a cheap entrance fee and giving some money to the winner, but I still worry about it causing problems. I really liked how, last month, the tournament was simply for fun and I don't to lose that. When tangible rewards come into the picture, people start turning darkside.