Zero House Edge — Provably fair online gambling with zero fees and zero limitations, powered by Bitcoin

Jack Mallers
4 min readMay 25, 2016

by Jack Mallers

console.log(“Hello World”). My name is Jack, and I want to introduce a project I’ve been working on for about 6 weeks now: Zero House Edge, the first online-gambling experience with no fees or limitations. With Zero House Edge you can place wagers on the internet with no fees, no house edge — and on any event with an uncertain outcome with a reliable data set.

Below is a homemade screencast I made showing the problems we have with online gambling today, and then showing how Zero House Edge solves those problems. Excuse my video-making skills, not my expertise.

Why this is important for gambling

The “house edge” or built-in house advantage started in Las Vegas casinos, hence the term “Vegas always wins,” as Las Vegas was selling you an experience. The business plan was simple: Give customers travel deals, hotel suites, free meals, light shows, etc., to get you into the casino, where they would get their money back, and then some, by skewing the odds. When the internet evolved and people wanted to gamble online, this business model traveled online. The only problem is there were no travel deals, no hotels, no light shows, no fancy pools, no concerts or any other flashy experiences worth paying for. When you gamble online, you just get a shitty website and fees at every turn.

To break even gambling online today you have to win 52.4% of your bets, not even factoring in the fees you have to pay when you deposit and then when you withdraw money. It sure is a shame that the average bettor wins 45%-48% of their bets against the skewed odds.

Because of this history and experience, gambling carries a stigma of shame. The math works out that the more you gamble the more money you lose. This highly usurious market dominated by big money players basically sells you a product that mathematically drains your pocket over time.

By using Zero House Edge all of these issues are gone. We now have the technology necessary to remove the 3rd party in gambling. To break even gambling online at Zero House Edge you must win 50% of your bets. You create your own odds, own lines, own spread, etc. You are your own bookie. With no house edge, gambling no longer carries a negative (predatory) stigma; now it’s a way simply to become more involved in an uncertain outcome in an enjoyable way. Gambling is now limitless. Where before you were limited to outcomes that enabled the house to balance its books, you can now bet on anything: sports, politics, reality TV, live betting like balls vs. strikes, etc.

Why this is important for Bitcoin

Bitcoin is probably the most revolutionary technology we’ve seen since the internet, and probably the most important technology we will see for a long time. What is so exciting is that as I am writing this the bitcoin price is $447, and we have not even seen what bitcoin the money instrument or Bitcoin the protocol is capable of. Right now the market is mostly speculators, which means that the majority of people who own Bitcoin are simply investing and speculating on the price; but they aren’t yet benefiting from its use cases. This is why you see these violent price swings; that is just speculators buying and selling based on rumors, New York Times articles, false and shallow press runs, etc. But soon, developers like me will release software using Bitcoin that will answer real needs — like flipping the gambling industry on its head. Whether it is me or someone else, when gambling is free and limitless, billions of dollars will then be poured into Bitcoin because of an actual use case. So I believe this project is not only beneficial to gamblers, but it is also exciting for the Bitcoin community.

Let’s do this together

If this project is going to work and change gambling as we know it, it’s gonna take a team effort. For right now I am totally open to all ideas on how to advance this project to where it needs to go. Being open source, private company, mix of both, etc. I just want fee-less and limitless gambling to exist.

Here is how you can help:

BETA testers / people that want to stay in the loop

Right now I can’t publicly launch the BETA I have built until I get the thumbs up from my legal friends, but it will be up soon. If you want to help test the software or join the mailing list email me: jimmymowschess@gmail.com

Developers, Developers, Developers

All of this software is totally doable and realistic, but I could use a bit of help. If you are a developer and interested in helping build Zero House Edge, please contact me: jimmymowschess@gmail.com

Funding / Investors

Right now I am working on this project for free, which is fine, but that can’t last forever. I also could use a little coding help. In my not-so-humble opinion I think with a small team of developers working full time on this project we can launch fee-less gambling software in ~3–6 months. If would like to fund/invest in this project email me: jimmymowschess@gmail.com

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