Hi all, I have been waiting for a fair game of online poker for years. A couple of years ago I found that several different groups were trying to make a decentralized poker app. Here is one of them:
Unfortunately, all I see is bla, bla, bla soon, bla bla bla, and nothing really significant happening. So all I want to know is: could it be done with blockstack?
The answer seems to be “no” as expected. 
Why not? I think the APIs that are currently available do not really help a distributed poker solution, but there is nothing stopping someone from using blockstack for parts of a distributed poker app.
I’m a developer + poker enthusiast who is connected with many professional players: they’re definitely looking for a lower rake, P2P solution and would support the right project with $$s (crowdfunding) and massive word of mouth marketing.
I’d be interested in working on a proof of concept for this. I don’t know enough about the APIs yet, but am interested in learning. @dant - any docs to point me in the right direction? What’s the state of APIs right now, and what progress can we see that will help app builders in the next 6-12 mos? From what I can see, seems a little early to start building.
I think Virtue Poker has a solid approach (shadow poker, encrypting cards so the gameplay can be completely P2P). From talking to them earlier this year I know they’ve made a lot of progress. Shipping production ready, real-money poker software is quite the challenging, risky endeavor though.
@HateRigging - care to elaborate re: your interest and ability to help?
@sdtsui IMO the best place to start is https://github.com/blockstack. Note the blockstack.js and blockstack-storage.js repos. You should also join the #apps channel on slack (http://chat.blockstack.org/).
All I want is a decentralized, non-rigged poker app so I can play real money poker. I cant help with funding or anything else.
Daniel, I share several of your interests and concerns. With distributed blockchain applications for online gaming, performance and responsiveness can be an issue. virtue.poker and Dao.casino use Ethereum blockchain. Wonder what your conclusions about usability of Blockstack in this context are.
Tearo
@tearodactyl We have architected this system to build decentralized applications with performance in mind. With systems where everything settles on chain latency for some operations can become quite high. With Blockstack we use commodity storage for any data that needs to be high volume, bringing down latency.
The decentralized poker app could absolutely be built on the Blockstack platform. If you are at all interested in contributing to that app development I would suggest going over to https://blockstack.org/funding and putting in an application for the Signature Fund.
That’s just an awesome idea, here I think wishing to play will be just millions)
If you want to realize something like that with bitcoin, contact me) [email protected]
Hi I think you can start building this now that we have multiplayer storage enabled: https://blockstack.org/blog/connecting-users-and-their-data-on-the-decentralized-internet
Ping us if you need help!
If it’s still up to date, I highly recommend you to find some proper gaming place. I’m not a casino fan, to be honest, but as a passive income, it might work. If you need any list of nextgen casinos, here you go.