Money Pot is a novel gambling concept I created -- the server generates a multiplier, X, in such a way that the probability of X or higher being generated is approximately 1 in X. (e.g. 2x or greater comes up ~50% of the time) The multiplier is hidden, so no player knows what it is -- however they are able to bet an amount of money against it.
When playing the game, you watch the number increase from 1x until it reaches X. If you stop at X or less, you get to multiply what you stopped at by your original bet amount. If you do not stop by the time the number increases past X, you will lose your original bet.
I created a handy odds calculator here: https://www.moneypot.com/calculator
There's no way to know when it'll stop, so the game is almost all luck. However, I skim 1% off every bet to award in bonuses for people to cashing out later -- so in effect, there's a bit of interesting game theory in play, to try be the last person to cash out.
It's based on node.js -- which feels a bit scary dealing with an application where correctness is so important, but I think it has been the right decision due to not having to context-switch between the server and client. I'm using postgres which I've been extremely happy with. And all the deposit addresses are generated with bip32, which is really reassuring as all the money goes direct into offline storage, and I don't need to worry (too much) about the site getting directly hacked.
Would highly appreciate any feedback!
