Money Making Game

This content has been retired and is no longer available in game.

The Money Making Game was the sixth of seven games available in The Casino on the Wrong Side of the Tracks. It acted as a Rafflebot-type game, where players put up Meat against each other, and have a 50% chance of doubling their Meat. The 'House' took 1% (all fractions rounded up) of the Meat from each player in each transaction. See also meatsink.

Notes

• Player must have had a registered email to play the MMG. Without one, player is directed to Add an E-Mail Address
• Taking a bet entails accepting a bet that is on offer from another player. When you take a bet, the outcome is determined immediately.
• Making a bet entails setting up a bet that will be offered to other players. When you make a bet, the outcome does not occur until someone else takes your bet.
• The minimum you can bet is 1,000 Meat, while the maximum is 100,000,000 Meat.
• You are limited to having five bets of your own making running at one time.
• If you are in ronin or hardcore and you bet the Meat on hand your Meat is deducted from what you have, but ALL of the winnings are sent to Hagnk's. You don't even get your bet back.
• It has been confirmed that carrying a ten-leaf clover has no effect on the outcome.
• If you are in chat while you have active made bet offers, the chat pane will display the success or failure of the bet when someone takes you up on it.
• Bets you can't afford to take have their bet button grayed out.
• The game has five different mini-games that are used to determine the outcome of a bet: Coin Flip, Spork, Meat, Lizard, Shoot the Papaya, Roul wheel, and Schrödinger's cat (see below). Each of these are functionally equivalent; giving each player a 50/50 chance of winning.
• The game has a built-in search function that allows you to search for bets based upon your entered Meat range.
• The game also has a bet archive feature that allows you to see a complete record of all your bets and outcomes in the past two weeks, including your net winnings.
• On November 28th, 2005, the MMG was changed from an almost worthless adventure area into a game of sorts. The old game used an adventure and always took 20 Meat from you.
• This game used to be the place to come with a ten-leaf clover if you were looking to get a big rock, but the Lemon Party Slot now serves that purpose.

Taking a Bet

• If you take a bet, you will get this message:

You take the bet from <opponent>.

You bet <bet amount> Meat.

• If you take a bet using money from Hagnk's:

You take the <bet amount> bet from <opponent>. You look nervously at the old man, and he nods at you, indicating that Hagnk's has cleared you for an expenditure of <bet amount> Meat.

• If you are carrying a ten-leaf clover, then the following text will be added to the end of the message:

You grip your ten-leaf clover in your hand tightly.

• If you try to take a bet, but it has already been taken:

The old man looks at you quizzically. "There's no bet like that anywhere in our records. Maybe someone else got to it before you could."

• If you try to take a bet without checking the confirmation box:

You didn't tick the confirm checkbox. Go on, it won't bite. Too hard.

• If you successfully take a bet:

See the Bet Outcomes list below. Note that all of these messages are only visible to the person who takes the bet.

• If you bet money from Hagnk's, the following text is added after a win:

"Congratulations," says the old man. "I'll call Godot up and have him deliver <bet amount * 2 - bet amount / 1,000> Meat to your account immediately."

Making a Bet

• If you place a bet with money from Hagnk's:

You make a bet. "<bet amount> Meat, that's right. Thanks," the old man says into his phone. "<bet amount> of your Meat has been taken from Hagnk's Ancestral Mini-Storage and put into a bet."

• If you win after taking Meat from Hagnk's or if you are in ronin/hardcore, the game will display this message the next time you go to the map screen:

<date & time> - <opponent> took your <bet amount> Meat bet, and you won, earning you <bet amount * 2 - bet amount * 2 / 1,000> Meat, which was delivered to Hagnk's.

• If you lose, the game will display this message the next time you go to the map screen:

<date & time> - <opponent> took your <bet amount> Meat bet, and you lost. Better luck next time.

• If you bet with Meat on hand and are in ronin/hardcore, a message box will pop up, along with this message:

You are in ronin/hardcore currently. Are you sure you want to make this bet from your on-hand Meat?

• If you bet Meat on hand:

You make a bet.

You bet <bet amount> Meat.

• If you retract a bet that you have placed:

You retract your bid. Well done.

You gain <bet amount> Meat.

• If you retract a bet that you placed from Hagnk's:

You retract your bid. Well done. "Your meat is back on its way to Hagnk's," says the old man.

• If you try to retract a bet you have placed, but it has already been taken:

"You can't take that bet", says the old man. "It's not here anymore. Someone probably got to it before you did."

• If you try to bet fewer than 1,000 Meat or more than 100,000,000 Meat:

You can't make a wager for less than 1,000/more than 100,000,000 Meat. Sad, but true.

• If you bet more Meat than you actually have:

You open your wallet and proudly pull out Meat. The old man gives you a funny look, and you start to sweat. After rifling through your pockets for a few awkward moments, you realize that you just don't have enough data. I mean, Meat. To make that wager.

• If you bet from Hagnk's more money than you have there:

After a wait that seems to take forever, the old man turns to you and says, "Sorry, kid, but Hagnk's secretary says that you don't have enough Meat to make that big of a wager. Care to try again?"

Searching

• Leaving the search field blank and clicking search, or entering anything other than a number in the search field, results in this message:

You did not put any (legal) prices to search for. For which to search. Consider such accoutrements as numbers.

Strategy

• No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, no matter how loud you scream at Jick and get your account disabled, the ratio of wins/losses is always 50/50, and so is the amount of Meat you make, so effectively you should always break even. Added to that, the small percentage of Meat given to the House makes you actually break less than even, making it impossible to go anywhere but backwards. There are a few strategies used to attempt to circumvent the break-less-than-even principle. Which don't work.
• The most common strategy is to bet a small amount -- say, 1,000 Meat, and double your bet each time you lose. If you win, reset to 1,000 and start again. The idea is that you realize a profit of approximately 1,000 Meat each time you win. Eventually, you'll cut all your losses, and since the chance of winning is 50/50, it's extremely unlikely you'll lose more than a couple times in a row. This strategy is traditionally known as the Martingale betting system.
  The downside to this is that, even though in the short term it makes lots of Meat, in the long term there's a teeny-tiny ninja star of a chance that you'll lose every single time, and if you do then you'll lose all the Meat you've ever made. This shows why you can't escape the 50/50 rule -- but you can increase the magnitude of Meat loss in exchange for decreasing the probability that you will lose any Meat. This method requires a fair amount of "seed money" to cover a string of 5 or more straight losses. Eventually, it is possible to hit the limit of 100,000,000 Meat when covering successive losses (1 in 131,072); this prevents truly egregious abuse of the system (it's the same reason real casinos have maximum bets). Also, since the house takes 1% of each bet, you will need to slightly more than double your bet for each loss, otherwise the profit grows smaller and smaller with each successive loss. Study the betting patterns of some of the most active bettors for an illustration of this, but beware: As stated above, you can't beat the odds forever.
• A similar strategy is the same as above, only tripling the bet for each loss: Start with 1,000 Meat and bet 3,000, then 9,000, 27,000, 81,000, 243,000, etc. This greatly increases the profit realized by each bet "chain," but also dramatically increases the amount of money needed to cover increasing the bet in the event of a loss. After 11 straight losses (which has a 1/2,048 chance of happening over any sequence of 11 bets), the system breaks down completely because of the 100,000,000 Meat maximum bet. Variants of the system involving other multipliers suffer the same potential problems in direct proportion to the potential profit, that is, as profit increases, so does the danger of the system breaking down. As stated above, you can't beat the odds forever.
• Many people attempt to beat the odds by running 5 bets using the system outlined above, in the mistaken belief that more bets will "spread out" the losses and prevent bets from reaching stratospheric levels. In addition to requiring considerably more attention and maintenance, this system fails because the law of independent events still wins in the long run: Each bet is a 50/50 proposition, and no amount of tinkering will prevent a large bet from coming down to a coin toss. As stated above, you can't beat the odds forever.
• As a warning, don't get too greedy with gambling your meat, unless you really do not care about losing every last bit of meat in your wallet. Just because there's a chance of winning millions or even billions of meat does not guarantee an easy path to the /villa channel.
• Just to repeat -- you cannot beat the house. You cannot cheat the rules of math by playing clever number games.

Bet Outcome

(Terrible)
You wipe cold sweat from your brow. Nausea twists in your guts. The game begins. "The coin doesn't matter," says the old man. "your stupid lizard brain will do what it has been programmed by evolution to do." The coin is nonsense. Fake, meaningless nonsense. Stop doing this.
WIN	LOSE
MEANINGLESS "Congratulations," says the old man. "I'll pretend that this X Meat is worth being happy about."	MEANINGLESS You lost... Why are you still doing this." [sic]

Retired Outcomes

Coin Flip
With that, the game begins! "This is how this works," says the old man. "I'm going to flip this flat, shiny, round thing that I found in the sewer into the air and catch it. One side of this thing I found has a picture of a spooky shrunken head, and the other side has a rather disturbing picture of a pile of severed bugbear tails. When I flip it into the air, you call 'heads' or 'tails.' If you pick which side this shiny thing lands on correctly, you win. Otherwise, this other guy wins. Ready?" "I, er, actually--" you stammer, but before you can remember what words mean, the coin is in the air! You nervously stammer out...
WIN	LOSE
"Heads/Tails!" The old man catches the coin, slaps it against the top of his hand, and slowly reveals to you... Spooky shrunken heads/Severed bugbear tails! You win!	"Heads/Tails!" The old man catches the coin, slaps it against the top of his hand, and slowly reveals to you... Severed bugbear tails!/Spooky shrunken heads You lost...

or

Spork, Meat, Lizard
With that, the game begins! "Okay," the old man says, "this game is called 'spork, meat, lizard.' It works like this: I count to three, and each player throws out a hand signal: hold up three fingers for 'spork,' make a fist for 'meat,' and touch your thumb and forefinger together for 'lizard.' Call out the name as you make the signal." "How do you win?" "I'll tell you that once you both throw your signs," he says. "Now -- one, two, THREE!"
WIN	LOSE
"Meat!" you shout, while making a fist. You see <opponent> has chosen lizard. "Ah-ha!" the old man shouts. "Meat poisons lizard!" You win! "Lizard!" you shout, while touching your thumb and forefinger together. You see <opponent> has chosen spork. "Ah-ha!" the old man shouts. "Lizard repels spork!" You win! "Spork!" you shout, while throwing out three fingers. You see <opponent> has chosen meat. "Ah-ha!" the old man shouts. "Spork stabs meat!" You win!	"Spork!" you shout, while throwing out three fingers. You see <opponent> has chosen lizard. "Ah-ha!" the old man shouts. "Lizard repels spork!" You lost... "Lizard!" you shout, while touching your thumb and forefinger together. You see <opponent> has chosen meat. "Ah-ha!" the old man shouts. "Meat poisons lizard!" You lost... "Tough luck, kid. Maybe next time." "Meat!" you shout, while making a fist. You see <opponent> has chosen spork. "Ah-ha!" the old man shouts. "Spork stabs meat!" You lost...

or

Shoot the Papaya
With that, the game begins! "You'll notice," the old man says, "that <opponent> is standing over there with a papaya on his/her head." "So he/she is," you say. "That's strange." "You have to take this crossbow and shoot the papaya. If you hit the papaya, you win. If you miss, he/she wins." You take careful aim and . . . FIRE!
WIN	LOSE
"Congratulations!" The old man pulls the arrow'd papaya off of <opponent>'s shaking head. "Great shot!"	"Oops." you say. "Don't worry," the old man says. "We'll just rush him/her straight to Doc Galaktik's. At least the meat he just won will pay Galaktik's bill."

or

Roul wheel
With that, the game begins! Sweating and straining, the old man pulls out a huge granite wheel with alternating squares of gray and darker gray arranged around the outside rim. "This," he says, "is a Roul wheel." "You mean roulette wheel?" you ask. "Ha! Roulette wheels are mere shadows of the original Roul wheels! Here is the way the game is played. I throw this pebble in the air over the wheel, and you pick gray or slightly darker gray while it's in the air. Whichever color the pebble lands on wins! Ready?"
WIN	LOSE
"Um -- wait -- gray/slightly darker gray!" you shout. The pebble bounces on the granite wheel and lands on gray/slightly darker gray. You win!	"Um -- wait -- gray/slightly darker gray!" you shout. The pebble bounces on the granite wheel and lands on slightly darker gray/gray. You lost...

or

Schrödinger's cat
With that, the game begins! The old man gestures extravagantly at a large lead box in the corner of the room. "All right, I've placed a cat in this box, along with a cunning deathtrap that may or may not have gone off by now. Theoretical physicists and people who eat a lot of funny mushrooms might claim that the cat is now both alive and dead, but at any rate, when I open the box it's definitely going to be one or the other. Which do you think it is?"
WIN	LOSE
You hazard a guess: "Ummm... alive?" The old man nods, and opens the lid for you to take a peek. Inside you see a little table made of gold, a laser gun, and a fluffy gray kitten, which looks up at you. "Mew?" You win! You hazard a guess: "Ummm... dead?" The old man nods, and opens the lid for you to take a peek. Inside you see a little table made of gold, a laser gun, and a rather sad mess. You win!	You hazard a guess: "Ummm... dead?" The old man nods, and opens the lid for you to take a peek. Inside you see a little table made of gold, a laser gun, and a fluffy gray kitten, which looks up at you. "Mew?" You lost... "Tough luck, kid. Maybe next time." You hazard a guess: "Ummm... alive?" The old man nods, and opens the lid for you to take a peek. Inside you see a little table made of gold, a laser gun, and a rather sad mess. You lost... "Tough luck, kid. Maybe next time."

References

• This adventure shares the same name as the Money Making Game from The Legend of Zelda, and this adventure's picture is the old man who runs it.
  • In the old MMG, the line "It's a Secret to Everybody." would appear if you had a ten-leaf clover. This is a quote also from The Legend of Zelda, and it was said when an orange Moblin hiding in a secret hideout gave you Rupees.
• When winning the papaya-shooting contest, "arrow'd" is a reference to the "Teen Girl Squad" cartoons from Homestar Runner.
• The kitten in a deathtrap scenario is a reference to Schrödinger's cat. The deathtrap itself is identical to one in the film Goldfinger, albeit with a kitten replacing James Bond.
• The symbol for lizard ("Lizard!" you shout, while touching your thumb and forefinger together) in spork, meat, lizard can be found in an extension of rock, paper, scissors, located here.
• The papaya on a player's head scenario is based on the legend of William Tell, in which he must use a crossbow to shoot an apple on his son's head to get him back from the dastardly local baron.
• The Godot Delivery Service is a reference to the play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.
• Part of the message returned when you bet more Meat than you have comes from a sample ("We don't have enough data. We just don't have enough data.") heard on Negativland's song "Helter Stupid".

History

• Originally, the introductory text was as follows:

  Money Making Game is simple -- you put up a bet for an amount of Meat, and then someone else pays the same amount that you put up to take the bet. Then, I decide which one of you gets all of the Meat (minus a small percentage for the House, of course...) Doesn't it sound fun?

• In an unannounced change some time around February 13, 2015, the introductory text was changed to the following:

  Money Making Game is stupid -- you put up a bet for an amount of Meat, and then someone else pays the same amount that you put up to take the bet. Then, I decide which one of you gets all of the Meat (minus a small percentage for the House, of course...) Doesn't it sound fun? No, it sounds stupid.

• After another unannounced change around February 25 of the same year, the introductory text was removed completely.
• On January 29, 2019, the house cut was increased from 0.1% to 1%. The MMG was also restricted to accounts with registered e-mail addresses at this time. The announcement read:

  The MMG can now only be played by accounts with registered e-mail addresses, and the house cut has been increased to 1%. Stop playing the MMG.

• The MMG was removed for good on August 26, 2019 with a final announcement:

  The house cut on the Money-Making Game has been reduced to -23%, which caused the Money-Making Game to cease to exist.

  • While some bets remained in the system, the interface for placing new bets was changed to the following:

  You have no pending bets. You have no more pending bets ever.