Options for Dealing with Excessive Alts on Forum Contests

[wry]

I wasn't sure if this should go here or in the Forum section, so sorry and feel free to move.  Also, I seem to dimly recall this coming up in another thread, I did look....

Waiting for this week's payouts has given me time to think about the problem of all the alts clogging up the forum contests.  I REALLY enjoy the contests and think it sucks that people want to abuse the generosity of the site by making alts to try and win them multiple times.  However, that is life on the internet, you have to be prepared to deal with the absolute worst humanity has to offer.

Alts in the contests cause at least two problems, first they dilute the prize pools so that legitimate players receive less.   While the prizes are so generous it is still worthwhile, it is still an issue.  Second, they delay the payouts as they make massive amounts of work for the support staff to go through and try and check not only the bets, but the authenticity of the account that posted the bet.  There is also an expense to that for both Stake and the well being of the awesome support staff here.  Every minute spent checking to make sure some jerkface is not scamming via alts is a minute not helping other customers or helping everyone have fun in chat.

So what can be done?  Right now the site imposes a 10 post minimum, which seems reasonable but clearly it is not enough.

1. Only have one contest a week.  Right now we have two, and I like the variety of games that can then be offered, but by consolidating to one, hopefully with a combined prize pool, Stake could cut the workload on the staff by half.  Though of course, it would not do anything to directly reduce the potential for alts.
2. Make the contests by invitation only.  Right now Stake does some promotions via email.  Maybe expand that to the forum contests, check your email for the contest entry link or something to that extent.
3. Here's a radical idea, require a deposit to play in the contests.  So not only do you have to post your bet, you have to send Dan 1000 (or whatever) forum satoshi to play.  This would raise the barrier to entry quite a bit however, far more than the current 10 post count, since it takes awhile to start generating satoshi on the forum.  Of course the bad guys could just SEND forum satoshi from one master account to all their alts, but that would leave a trail back to their master account and also incur a real expense to them getting busted by the support staff for sending up so many alts.  After the contest the deposits could be refunded.
4. Put a requirement on the linked Stake account.  This would at least require the creation of two accounts to enter an alt into the contest.  Maybe this happens automatically already now that I think about it.  However, you could still have some kind of nominal betting requirement.  Of course the bad guys could just tip the minimum amount to all their alt Stake accounts as well, but that would leave an additional trial and impose an additional cost on them.

I keep trying to thing of something not too draconian on the front end to save support from so much work on the back end.

What are your ideas?

[toohoola]

18 minutes ago, wry said:

Only have one contest a week.

I like the versatility. It's good when sometimes there is a game that I don't want to play, so I can play the other one.

19 minutes ago, wry said:

Make the contests by invitation only.

This would exclude way too many players.

20 minutes ago, wry said:

Here's a radical idea, require a deposit to play in the contests.

If someone wants to abuse the system they are willing to deposit such small amount for it.

21 minutes ago, wry said:

Put a requirement on the linked Stake account.

I'm pretty sure it's automatic already in this aspect.

I think avoiding the manual checking would be a wrong decision. What could be helpful tho is an automated payout system (what I already suggested) so the support does not have to manually tip everyone, but based on the last payout I think this might be already implemented.

[maverick528]

Thanx a lot @wry for all the valuable ideas, and most important, for caring about support and for the giveaways.

None of the things that can be done are perfect, but some are good ideas.

For example, I think that the 10 forum messages minimum to join is too small, cause this encourages creating ALTs and posting 10 crappy messages in 10 minutes.

But of course if you impose a high number of posts, its sometimes difficult to achieve for new legit players.

Maybe 30 for example would be a good number.

Having a minimum wagered amount and a minimum message count on Stake chat is also a helpful measure, I think ....

 

[Kargai]

Same as @maverick528, 10 posts is for me wayyyyyyyy to few and encourage only the spam. 100 will be a better number imho. 

It will be more demanding in time for the creator of the alts and will let the team more time to mute/ban the user in case of spam of the forum to reach the number. And 100 posts is not difficult to reach for a genuine user who make decent contribution to the forum.

The minimum wagered amount will also be a nice addition since as you said @wry it will leave possibly more tracability. Thanks for the post in all cases

[wry]

1 hour ago, toohoola said:

I think avoiding the manual checking would be a wrong decision. What could be helpful tho is an automated payout system (what I already suggested) so the support does not have to manually tip everyone, but based on the last payout I think this might be already implemented.

Thanks for your comments.  There is no way to avoid manual checking, the idea is to structure the qualifications to play in such a way as the burden of that is reduced.

[Shaniqua]

seems like they have starting cracking down on the alts i hear
                                                                                                   
i hope it clears up soon, alts = bad for all in reality i think.... makes everyone's life harder

[Dan]

1. The alts participate in both so usually by clearing one it clears the other. Not really a problem.
2. Having a verified email doesn't in anyway determine you as not being an alt, in fact you are required to verify a unique email on the forum too to play, which wouldn't be any different from email based promotions (which as you said we sometimes do.) The contest/promotions are an initiative set up to bring interest to the site, if it was invite only it would be counter intuitive to the cause. Its a public promotion where we want as many players as possible to enter.
3. Every promotion is virtually impossible to participate with only the faucet. Or it would take a rather large amount of time to complete in most cases if trying to do so with the faucet. Deposits are almost always required by default to participate.
4. You cant link anyone's account that already linked on the forum. It is a unique field. If you say for example register on site and link that account on forum, once your banned for an ult on forum, you are forced to also create a new account on site.

 

So we are very aware of the alt issue, its a common problem that exists on almost every single platform in our demographic. We have far more measures in place than most sites and as a result we are able to confidently give out more free money to our devoted community. I appreciate your thought on the matter and the solutions you have mentioned are very well thought out, but the purpose of the promotions is marketing primarily, and the problem with free money is that there will always exist people trying to abuse the system.

[williamshennie9]

I think increasing the minimum post count to 30 would be a huge help in decreasing the amount of alts that try to take advantage of these giveaways.

[Dan]

1 minute ago, williamshennie9 said:

I think increasing the minimum post count to 30 would be a huge help in decreasing the amount of alts that try to take advantage of these giveaways.

I do like that idea, but we don't want genuine new players to find it difficult to participate. Its kind of hard to find ways to limit the alts without also making it difficult for genuine players.

[williamshennie9]

30 minutes ago, Dan said:

I do like that idea, but we don't want genuine new players to find it difficult to participate. Its kind of hard to find ways to limit the alts without also making it difficult for genuine players.

Maybe then increasing it to 20 posts would be the best alternative.

New users can easily get 20 posts in 2 days