Moola - interesting concept in online gaming

trafnar · #1 05-15-2006, 10:07 AM

Came across this today, look interesting, perhaps worthy of our discussion.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/05/14...usiness-model/

put simply, they pay you one cent for signing up (they hope to make this back by showing you advertisements). You participate in a game against another player and the winner gets all the money. If you double up 30 times, you can win 10.7 million. You can cashout at any other level also.

The_Scout · #2 05-15-2006, 10:24 AM

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If you double up 30 times, you can win 10.7 million.

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And the odds of that are about 1 billion to 1. I'm guessing games will be pretty tough to find at the $100 level, and impossible at the $1000 level and up.

neverforgetlol · #3 05-15-2006, 10:33 AM

depends how good you are. if you assume even strength that's right though.

sharp63 · #4 05-15-2006, 11:04 AM

Right now, it's in beta and you only get 80-90 users online at the same time so the games get sparse. Also, it's a fairly simple game strategy-wise, so against a good opponent, the game will usually come down to you making a 50-50 decision. I will say that there are quite a few bad players though. It will be interesting once more people are playing how the games change. I was trying to grind at the 0.64 level as an experiment but got bored and tried to stay at the 0.64/win level but by Martigaling up if I lost. I was up to somethingl like 14.32 but went busto. I'm confidant that you could make a profit from that site simply by grinding out 50-50 games against good players and by easily beating the bad ones that do occasionally pop-up.

The issue is that you'd have to be playing at a much higher level to make it worth your time and at that level, probably 95% of the players are good enough to make it 50-50.

TylerD · #5 05-15-2006, 11:09 AM

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Given how easy it would be for Moola to beat successful players by automated means, I would assume that the risk of fraud is significant.

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Yep.

CalvinTy · #6 05-15-2006, 03:57 PM

What kind of games Moola have right now that you played, sharp63? Oh, also, you apparently saying that you can "stay at 1 level" and play "again & again" to win just that level's amount? I looked at their "30 level" amounts, and figured that you came to $14 or such via staying at Level 6 (to win $0.64 each time) by staying at Level 6 several times?

Would that mean that a player at, say, Level 10, via direct wins, would have $5.12 after Level 9? Then, instead of playing the new Level 10 (to win $10.24), a player could choose to play Level 9 again staking $2.56 to win $5.12, but if losing that game to another player, the other player wins your $2.56 only, not your full amount?

If this isn't a direct ladder strategy, I'm not so sure it's a good idea to allow a player to stay at same level for ages... it'd be like cherry picking for experienced players staying somewhere between Levels 5-10 all the time taking a dollar & few dollars building up "here and there" to a bankroll of $100-$200 without risking their winnings by truly going upwards in levels.

Nonetheless, I'm quite curious on what kind of games they have at this time so if someone can give me an invite via PM, I'll appreciate it (I don't feel like waiting until it's public, ha). If I like it, I definitely have a group of friends I can tap into for their tiered-referral program that can only help the referrer. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

* CalvinTy

other1 · #7 05-15-2006, 05:49 PM

Exactly. I'd like to meet two maniacs who are going to risk their $5M in free money to double up for 10M. I'd also wager this company doesn't actually have $10.7M in funding to pay someone if they did.

Realistically I see VERY few people going past say the $20 level without cashing out, and the odds of even getting to the $20 level are over 2000:1.

TripleQ · #8 05-25-2006, 06:53 PM

If anyone needs an invite PM me.. I have a few.

Guthrie · #9 05-25-2006, 06:59 PM

They don't need to have $10.7 million. They buy an insurance policy that will pay off in the unlikely event someone actually wins. Nearly all contests you see advertised, where the top prize is not guaranteed to be awarded, are funded by insurance.

Nathan183 · #10 05-25-2006, 10:50 PM

Why would they need an insurance policy? It's not like the 10.7 million is a jackpot. If anyone does get to that level it's because they risked $5 of their money to do so.

If my math is correct, 2.14 billion ads would have been viewed at that point. So even if two maniacs risked $5 million each on a coinflip, 2.14 billions ads were viewed to get that money. I don't know how much they get paid per ad, but I'm assuming it's at least $0.01.