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Cloudflare took down our website after trying to force us to pay $120000 within 24h
(robindev.substack.com)
this post was submitted on 26 May 2024
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Technology
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Yikes. That sounds bad.
Okay all my sympathy is gone. Online casinos deserve to die.
That said, my feelings towards economic vampires aside, the way the events unfolded is concerning to say the least. Cloudflare has been racking up evil-corp points quite rapidly in recent months.
As a person who works in server hosting (not as devops or IT), I'm often privy to customer interactions. I feel like my company does a really good job at damage control - where if we fuck up, some rep gets on the phone and makes things right. We've eaten costs on behalf of our customers.
But sometimes, you just gotta tell a customer to go fuck themselves.
And those customers, those biggest complainers are often in online gambling, crypto, adult content, or racist shit.
We get DDos'd a lot from it. But I'm glad the company I work for doesn't bow down to garbage companies.
I'm honestly not surprised.
I used to hook up with a guy who was 100% convinced that he could game the system. It had something to do with break frequencies from various services and certain time windows for playing. He won sometimes, but he obviously didn't talk much about his losses. He wasn't a very happy person, and I think gambling offered an easy release.
That's my big issue with gambling. It's a business preying on addicts leaving many in financial ruin, and overall they do nothing for society at large. Here in Sweden it is regulated, but you honestly don't notice it. There are so many internet casinos vanishing and cropping up on an almost daily basis. If you turn on the radio the adverts are like 40% online casinos, 40% sex toy sites, and 20% various services, like tyre shifting, glass repairs, etc.
A lot of those exploit EU rules on open markets to dodge proper local licensing (I'm also from Sweden)
That explains why they all seem so samey. E.g. online casinos never have any sort of physical presence like scratch cards or what have you, even though we have plenty of scratch cards.
No they don't, at least for Sweden. I remember when they regulated the market in Sweden (I was working for a gambling company at the time and I had to run the security & compliance for the Swedish license). There is no such thing as open market for gambling where the market is regulated (Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, not sure if Norway finally regulated).
As far as I know, a handful of companies got regulated at the first round, some failed and could not operate in Sweden (this might mean you actually need to deny access to users from Sweden - since you do KYC you know) for quite some time (before they eventually managed to get the license).
The problem (why the other user mentions all similar sites) is that the big companies (say Kindred group, Betsson) tend to spin up many alternative brands with different looks to attract different customers.
Also, most of the companies that operate in Scandinavia use the Maltese license, but that works only in unregulated markets (Finland, Iceland and Norway for example - unless something changed in the last 3 years). That said, getting a license once you have another is quite simple usually. The Swedish license for example is easier to get than and very similar to the Danish one, so if you operate in Denmark you can just fill in the paperwork and you should be easily able to pick that one up.
I despise gambling, I don't gamble myself and I consider it a tax on those who don't know math. That said, I worked for a gambling company and I know that different companies target different types of customers. Also they have responsible gambling programs that are more or less serious (some of which might be required by regulations). The company I worked for operated in Scandinavia and was sportsbook heavy (vs casino heavy), and had quite serious measures against suspected addicts (immediate block, calling the person on the phone if there were any signs like long sessions etc., proof of income to set limits proportional to income etc.), because it was considered bad for business. Many companies in general are terrible, and especially those who depend on casino games, where the margins are fixed and the dynamics are more prone to create addiction (available 24/7, quick feedback etc.).
If it had been a sports betting site OP would have said so. The fact that they said "casino" says it all.
Many do both, I would say the vast majority. Same regulations and licenses apply, in fact. Simply some companies invest more in casino (which are purchased games from vendors in the vast majority of cases), some invest more in sportsbook. I guess the OP's case is the former, but it's not a very relevant distinction to make.
I just wonder how much was left out
That's fair, this is one part of the story, and it's not like screenshots can't be doctored. Any screenshot taken from the web is ridiculously easy to manipulate.
Key.
Key.
Key.
If it's providing games of skill like online poker, it's actually a very intellectually stimulating game. People have made a ton of instructional videos and many books on the poker variations.
After playing poker professionally I was able to leverage the skills of bankroll management and emotional control to become successful in investing in the stock market.
I held all of my stocks through the entire pandemic to rebound from a loss over multiple years holding tech to a $600,000 profit by buying at the bottom. If I hadn't played poker I probably wouldn't be able to stomach looking at a six digit loss in 2021. I only sold my bonds which I used to buy more stocks at a cheaper price (which was the point of the bond allocation)
I used to be in credit risk for a very large stock market company.
Calling the bottom of the market is the same as betting big and getting 21 in blackjack.
Super cool when it happens, but not skill. The number of grown men I had to hear crying because they were dollar cost averaging down to the bottom until they went broke still disturbs me.
I’m happy this worked for you, but it was not skill.
You can't go broke with 1x leverage, and I bought $AMD all the way down from $100 to $70
If it went to $50 I wouldn't go broke, if it went $1 I wouldn't go broke. I just would have missed a bigger opportunity
If it goes from $100 to $1, there’s not much left to go before bankruptcy/delisting. Say hello to swaths of BBBY bag holders… oh wait, no bags left there!
It went to $2 in like 2013, close to bankruptcy. But it didn't go bankrupt, and that's all I'm betting on. My point is you don't need to care about where the bottom is as long as you're buying the dip.
Especially if you are just buying $VTI which won't go to $1 any time soon.
I'm really glad for you, that sounds amazing. I don't think you're the rule, though. I think you're the exception. I also feel like it wouldn't be unfeasible to have competitive/e-sports poker while still strictly regulating online casinos.
I think we should keep games of skill and pure slot machine strictly separated
Is it really so crazy that if you practice gambling you might end up good at gambling? I dont see any difference between playing the stock market and playing cards for money.
Stocks are just the rich white man slot machine.
Yes, that's the point, I'm good at combinatorics, probability. These mathematical skills have a lot of carryover
Would you advise others that learning through increasingly higher stakes is a good way to practice these skills and apply them to make a living?
I admit I dont have much issue with gambling as recreation/sport, but I dont know its a benefit to society to treat gambling as a profession.
Stock brokers gambling with others money is a whole other thing.
Only to the point that you get bored and do something useful with your new knowledge.
People enter tournaments for all kinds of games and those tournaments have money prizes and entry fees. I think it's unfair to single out poker since it's a game of skill.
It just so happens it doesn't make sense to play without even the smallest stakes. Otherwise the best strategy is to go all in with any hand and try to double up quickly (if the chips are free, there's no downside to doing this)
Even like $2 buy in games are much tighter than play money games
Everything in your post seems to give reasons for recreational gambling, and I do agree that the stakes are part of the game, and one with no stakes is markedly different. It does seem though that this is all in service of fair play, and to reward those for requiring they pay to prove they are in good faith.
To me I dont think the potential reward is the point with recreational gambling. You might even give your winnings back in a friendly game were you to find out that the stakes bled out into real life.
However I dont see how all of this applies to gambling as a profession and as a part of society in larger ways such as stock markets and Crypto currency. What's the supposed benefits of that?
I would argue that the professional setting is not recreational at all, and in many cases is abusive, with there seeming to be some intent to disguise how abusive it is to the victim.
Nah, you don't play with stakes that could matter to someone. In my case, our buy-ins in the home game are $28 when converted to dollars and nobody bats an eye at dropping $100
The tiny reward does make it more interesting because you actually care about winning. It's better to do $20 stakes and keep the money than play for $100 stakes and have to give it back because someone was irresponsible with their money
Doesn't gambling for a living by definition mean you have to play with stakes that matter?
Honestly if people could only gamble with their own money, I might feel different about it.
They matter in so far as it feels bad to lose. But they shouldn't matter to your family's finances
It’s still gambling and getting people addicted.
People get addicted to alcohol and caffeine. Should we can those too?