PoolTogether

What is the biggest problem with PoolTogether?

#1

Would love to hear what you guys think the biggest problem with PoolTogether is.
here is what I think it is:

  1. fairness
  2. gas fees

On fairness -
We have to strive to make PoolTogether as fair as possible. Perhaps absolute fairness can never exist but the spectrum of fairness in PoolTogether at the moment is worrying me greatly. Whales have a huge advantage, and they can pool together a mafia of whales to create even larger liquidity and split prize between themselves- perhaps they can even make their own smart contract where they all add to one pool and if that “wallet” wins the prize its split between all of them.
If we change the system to 1 ticket per wallet no matter the amount your putting in that’s also problematic for many reasons
The only way I can think of making pool drastically fairer is one ticket per identity. which would require “identity tokens”
Would love to hear your thoughts!

#2

Regarding your proposition of 1 ticket per wallet, why would a whale tie up millions in funds if they only got 1 ticket? Unfortunately, the answer is they wouldn’t. Furthermore, if whales don’t contribute millions, the interest generated for the prize pool isn’t high enough.

6 Likes
#3

Can we give whales other incentives that don’t include ruining the chances for the little guy?
Perhaps farming pool tokens?

#4

There is a misconception that because whales win more frequently it is unfair. There is an opportunity cost to their capital leaving it in the lotto; the whale could just withdraw it out t compound . All things being equal it is probably not attractive for a whale to leave their funds in pooltogether because sure they can win the jackpot, but the variance on their interest returns gets much more volatile. The big increase in liquidity is purely down to the incentive skew the token has created. A small fish winning 1 in a long shot is how lottos work and there is nothing unfair about that.

2 Likes
#5

An easy way to encourage fairness is to limit the percentage of a pool you can buy in tickets. When PT first started, whales were necessary to have enough in the pool to generate any return. The only issue with this is any whale can spread their deposits across multiple wallets anyways. Limiting the percentage of the entire pool that you could invest wouldn’t be an instant cure but could be interesting.

PT is now a different animal - especially with the perceived incentive of POOL tokens, which IMHO are getting diluted (excuse the pool pun) very quickly as more and more people are placing funds into the pool. As long as there is also a perceived benefit along with the “lossless gambling” but incorporate a limit per address, you have a win-win situation.

#6

In one of my posts I suggested a way to prove uniqueness
look at the post

Also, another post I made could solve this problem.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Jansma
Empowering the vision and possibilities of everyone and anything
RichardJansma.nl & RichardJ.nl
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