What do people think about a betting feature?
Like on Fox. And the points can be exchanged for AI reviews but never for money.
3 Likes
I am against implementing a betting feature on OGS. Even if it sounds innocent - points can be exchanged for AI reviews but never for money - it can be a first step towards a gambling addiction, which destroys lives.
13 Likes
Please, no. If you want betting, go to Fox.
5 Likes
But note that we feed the same kind of psychological systems with any action-reward mechanisms, including ASTs with trophies and posting memes that get likes…
6 Likes
You have got a point there (and I do play a lot of ASTs). However I think that the playing of ASTs is definitely much less disruptive in social life compared to gambling addiction, which often comes with other addictions (such as drugs- and alcohol addiction).
2 Likes
… right, but any action-reward system can be the first step towards a gambling addiction, be that betting for AI review points, or competing for AST trophies.
THOUGH it does have to be said that a key difference is that gambling is “special” in the sense that it is low-effort (just make a bet) compared to playing in an AST or posting a meme (or any forum post for that matter).
3 Likes
I don’t think that will ever be implemented. There have been threads in the past and I think the two barriers are:
- social acceptability
- lots of laws and regulations (I’m not sure how these rules apply if there’s no money involved, but obviously services like AI have value, so the laws probably still apply)
That said… wouldn’t it be wild if somebody made an extension that allowed betting on OGS 
1 Like
Why don’t Fox and the like suffer from these problems?
1 Like
Their users are mainly from China, I’m guessing if there was a cultural or legal challenge there, they wouldn’t be doing it
1 Like
To give it some context …
2 Likes
Although I agree with you that anything can trigger an addiction, I’d like to add some other reasons why I think gambling is particularly dangerous:
- Winning is countered by a risk of losing what was wagered. It’s nothing (I wouldn’t consider the disappointment of failure enough) versus the possibility of winning but there is a real risk of a loss that makes winning more appealing
- Bets are often made impulsively, it’s a decision made in seconds. Participating in a tournament, writing a post or creating a meme are usually not.
- In real gambling the outcome is completely random, even if the player is not fully aware of this they can do nothing to change the result.
I’m against the implementation of something like this, fwiw 
But I never used fox and I don’t know well how it works in go.
7 Likes
I’m not against betting per se. I have enjoyed playing some low stakes poker in the past. But betting is an integral part of that game.
At least in the West, Japan and Korea, I think a majority of go players (including myself) would dislike betting on go. I feel it’s against the spirit of the game.
4 Likes
I think this is a feature we could do without, certainly lower down the priority list than feature requests and bug fixes that have been around for years like game invitation links and undo on your move.
In China (and Korea, less so Japan I think) betting on go games, and in general, is more part of the culture.
Plus betting only really makes sense when you have many observers watching pro games or high dans, which doesn’t much happen on OGS.
4 Likes
“Why don’t we have more (Asian) pro/high dans??”
“Because no-one can bet on their games” 
3 Likes
I actually enjoy gambling and sports betting. In the past me and few other users have betted on games, but we arranged our bets on chat/PM and paid the winnings via some direct method.
Proper betting system could be really fun addition, but i guess it would be huge project to code that kinda completely new feature which has almost nothing in common with ogs’s core functions.
Also theres the question of what exactly are we betting with. If the bets have any real monetary value it would probably complicate ogs’s legal position a lot (just assuming here, maybe @mark5000 knows more) and it could potentially open the door for money-laundering and such.
If the bets are just worthless “points” which cannot be traded or used for buying anything, then i don’t know if theres really any point on having the betting system. Big part of excitement on betting and gambling comes from knowing the fact that you can indeed lose something of value >_>
1 Like
I hope OGS will not bring official betting here.
Also, there is no way a betting site will keep it simple (like “AI reviews only”) for ever.
That’s all I have to say.
5 Likes
TBH I think the chances of betting at OGS are close to zero, but I’ve certainly been interested to hear the debate so far…
1 Like
If the betting feature is really what’s keeping the “good” players away from OGS then I regret to say that this says a lot for the “good” players and not for the OGS player database.
No need to bring gambling, NFTs or whatever other trend is currently the latest into absolutely everything we do.
Gambling is gambling, it’s not playing Go.
Maybe betwin would like to extend their available services to baduk (I mean, betting is about the bet and not about the object, gambling 101), but that has hardly anything to do with the game.
7 Likes
In fox you gain points every time you play (more if you win less if you loose). Time is something of value. It doesn’t need to be money.
But yes. Once it starts you’ll eventually get some virtual points with your subscription then you’ll eventually be able to buy some more as a DLC…
4 Likes
I dislike the idea of adding gambling to OGS. I dislike the idea of adding anything to do with NFTs even more.
11 Likes