The EPL Betting contest has now been running for a steady 15 weeks. The initial reason for hosting this contest was to get more exposure on Steemit. I figured it would cost me 190$ to give away 5$ each week to cover the entire season which I could partially fund by payouts from other Steemit sports contest. The idea was to have this contest open for everyone on steemit who wanted to join.
It has never been an objective to make the contest itself profitable and I started seeing it more as a way to give something back and help others and the community grow along with myself. Unfortunately, the theory of using the contest to help the community grow and the reality have not really matched. First in week 5, I spotted very suspicious double accounts. I rejected their entry, but the same accounts along with a 3th double account entered the week after. My main frustration was the time it took to play police and investigate all the links between these accounts, so I added a rule that states that suspicious double accounts can get entry rejected.
With the jackpot growing to 25$+ I noticed more suspicious accounts and found someone was scamming the system with 5 different accounts which all got rejected and banned.
Last week the 27$+ jackpot was won. With the rise in SBD it was worth around 200$. The SBD $ amount never was stated as a condition in the rules, so 200$ worth of SBD was paid out to the winner as promised. I assumed it would at least partially be used to power up, but instead all of it was quickly cashed out while the account itself didn't even have 10 Steem Power. Off course everyone is free to do what they want, but these taking mindset accounts is not where I prefer to see the guaranteed prize pool and jackpot that was build up by contributing accounts end up going to.
I have been thinking about a rule to solve all of these issues as I really want to continue the contest as a way to give back and help those who want to grow on this steemit platform without it being taken advantage of and getting my time wasted. Looking at all the accounts over time that I had to reject or that have a rather taking mindset, they all have one thing in common. Slim to none of these accounts are in any way invested in the platform with a little bit of Steem Power. Setting the bar to enter the contest at a minimum of 50 SP and 0.01$ upvote would pretty much remove all the entries that try to take advantage instantly. Most of the regular active steemit accounts that play weekly easily meet this requirement and the ones just below right now should have a really easy time getting there with current SBD price.
The main downside of this rule is that it is very unfriendly towards new Steemit members with good intentions. I could start making exceptions, but I'm not really willing to go down that road as it will overcomplicate things. The 50SP rule can also be seen as a incentive for new Steem members who want to join to get some initial steem power.
So more than ever, the contest will be about supporting active members that want to grow on this platform. The guaranteed prize pool will remain around 5$ worth of STEEM or SBD and 100% of the liquid SBD will be used to grow the Jackpot.
I'm also thinking about including a @steembasicincome sponsorship into the prize pool. they are a new project who are aiming to provide a daily guaranteed upvote based on shares in the program.
Please let me know your thoughts about this 50SP rule to prevent scammers and if the @steembasicincome sponsorship being part of the weekly prize pool sounds interesting. I'm always open for discussion and willing to change my mind if solid arguments are presented to me!
