🤖The Problem

What mental poker is?

The term “mental poker” refers to a class of cryptographic issues involving playing a fair game across a distance without the aid of a reliable third party. The phrase is also used to describe theories that surround these issues and potential fixes.

In poker, this could translate to: Can two players who are dishonest with each other play fair poker without using cards, but, for example, over the phone?

If the players were seated face to face and watching each other during a physical card game, this would be pretty easy, at least if the chance of conventional cheating were eliminated.

Nevertheless, this suddenly becomes quite challenging if the players are not seated at the same spot but instead are at widely apart locations and are trying to pass the full deck between them (using the mail, for example). This is not conceivable unless the technique prevents any party from cheating by manipulating or improperly monitoring the electronic “deck” in electronic card games like online poker, where the game rules are concealed from the user.

It is challenging to develop fully decentralized gambling. The main reason for this is that every single gaming activity constitutes a transaction, and instantaneous transactions are notoriously unattainable. For instance, a three-player poker game has a definite time lag because it requires 70–80 transactions. Transaction speed is, therefore, the main obstacle in blockchain gambling.

The need for each player to encrypt each dealt card applies to any mental poker protocol that depends on the players to carry out the encryption. But substantially more effective methods could be achieved by making just a few unproven claims about the reliability of other parties. The protocol for picking cards without shuffling may be modified to allow two or more servers to conduct encryption. Such a protocol is safe as long as the servers are not conspiring.

Here, in PokerDAO, we are reducing the time lag from minutes to seconds. We have created entirely decentralized online poker games that can change how hands are shuffled and address cheating issues. The cards are provably fair to ensure system reliability and prevent cheating schemes, and the website is secured by adhering to the blockchain. This prohibits third parties from meddling with the system so that the shuffling process may take so long — and that’s another challenge they promise to win.