vBookie - vBulletin Betting Hack

vBookie

Introduction

vBookie is a 'bookmakers' or betting extension to vBulletin. It enables authorised members to post Events and Outcomes that forum members can bet on. Each Outcome has its own set of odds, and odds can be modified through the life of an Event (bets that are placed are stored with the prevailing odds, so even if the odds change, your users are paid at the correct rate).

Once the results are known, Events can be settled and forums members awarded their winnings.

vBookie uses its own vCash by default, but this has no more use than as 'bragging rights'. However, vBookie also comes with a built-in switch to allow it to use either uCash or Petz money instead. That means that all bets are paid for and settled using uCash or Petz money, making betting even more attractive than just for fun on forums with uShop/Petz installed. Although vBookie does not have any built-in facility to integrate with any other store hacks, it's a very simple job to hack vBookie itself to integrate it with any store/points system you care to use.

Features

• master switch to turn vBookie off
• option to use uCash
• option to use Petz money
• settings to restrict the creation of Events to specific user groups
• settings to restrict which user groups can bet on Events
• settings to restrict which user groups can edit or settle other people's Events
• per-Event, specify whether punters may bet on more than one outcome
• optional 'charity mode' so that the poorest members of the forum always have something to play with
• supplied with a module for vBadvanced

Please click if you install this hack, thanks. Please also let me know - send me an email or a PM. If you'd let me know the forum URL too that'd be cool!

vBookie is free, and will remain free.

Updates

1.0.0 -> 1.0.1

- adds the ability to delete Events. See this post for upgrade instructions if you already have 1.0.0

1.0.1 -> 1.0.2

Corrected a minor bug with the charity mode when using uCash. See this post for manual upgrade instructions from 1.0.1.

1.0.2 -> 1.0.3

Corrected a minor bug with the richest people display when using uCash. Just overwrite includes/functions_vbookie.php with the one from the new Zip file.

1.0.3 -> 1.0.4

Corrected some date display problems when using "Detailed" dates. For manual update instructions, see this post.

Corrected Petz bug whereby all winnings were paid to the bet's owner rather than individual winners. To upgrade from 1.03 or earlier, see this post or overwrite includes/functions.vbookie.php with the 1.0.4 version.

Problems?

-> Petz - If you are using Petz there is a bug in all versions up to and inclusing 1.0.3. Your players won't get paid their winning, and all payouts will end up in the account of the person that posted the Event. To correct this, please see this post. This fix will be incororated into 1.0.4 onwards.

-> If you can't post Events, or can't bet on them make sure you have set your user permissions

-> If you have an SQL error Invalid SQL: UPDATE SET =25 WHERE <25 make sure you are using version 1.0.3 or later.

-> If you have any other general problems, please check the installation/hack instructions and make sure you have carried out all the steps and also check that you made the changes correctly

Anything else, ask in this thread.

Other Stuff

-> If you are using Detailed Date & Time display and have a problem with Event dates appearing as '1 Minute Ago', see this post.

-> If you want to use poster 'Reputation' as the currency for vBookie, see this post.

About Odds

Odds of "5/1" are "amount won per amount placed". This means that I would win 5 for every 1 placed. Of course, if I win, I get my stake back as well. Odds of "1/5" means that I win 1 for every 5 placed. I'd have to place 25 to win just 5.

Decimal Odds

Decimal odds are just another way of displaying the same information. 2.0 is the same as 2/1. 0.2 is the same as 1/5. vBookie only lets you specify odds in terms of x/y, but if you think in terms of decimal you can still work out what odds to provide. Simply think of your decimal odds as "2.0 / 1.0" or "0.5 / 1.0" and then multiply each side through by 10 or 100 until there are only zeros to the right of the decimal point, then just take the whole number part.

2.0 / 1.0 has no decimals, so this is the same as 2/1

0.5 / 1.0 has a 0.5, so multiply both parts by 10 to get 5.0 / 10.0. Then you can specify your odds as 5 / 10. You might also realise that this is the same as 1/2. The technique is a simple way to work out any odds you may need to specify.

Odds of 0.65 -> 0.65 / 1.0 -> 65.0 / 100.0 or 65/100. Then you can divide through by 5 to get to 13 / 20, although this step isn't necessary.


_______________________________________

[mykes]

# Query_time: 977  Lock_time: 455  Rows_sent: 20  Rows_examined: 125192586
SELECT item.item_id, item.item_title, item.threadid, grp.group_title, item.item_
status, item.item_created, item.item_open_until, item.item_pay_after, thread.thr
eadid, thread.forumid, thread.postuserid FROM vbookie_items AS item
                LEFT JOIN vbookie_groups AS grp ON grp.group_id = item.group_id
                LEFT JOIN thread AS thread ON thread.vbookie_item_id = item.item
_id
                WHERE item.item_status='SETTLED'
                ORDER BY  item.item_id DESC 
                LIMIT 0, 20;

vBookie locking the thread table for 455 seconds! The whole site stops for that long. Look at how many rows examined! Dang these LEFT JOINs.

Did some digging:

mysql> select count(*) from thread;
+----------+
| count(*) |
+----------+
| 159281 |
+----------+

mysql> select count(*) from vbookie_items;
+----------+
| count(*) |
+----------+
| 844 |
+----------+

I think it scanned the entire thread table about 844 times to do the query, and it created temporary tables to boot.


My fix was to enter the following query:

create index thread_vbookie on thread (vbookie_item_id);

This costs sizeof(MEDIUM_INT)*159281 bytes of RAM to keep the needed field in RAM all the time.

At MEDIUM_INT = 2 bytes, it's 320K. At 4 bytes, it's 640K. Puny amount of memory to save all those table scans.

I'm pretty sure it worked, as I went to the vbookie.php page and did all kinds of sorts and they were instant.

[carolmyt]

Ok, I installed it, with no problems, I hadn't added any events yet, but the page was working. Now, when I click on the link, all I get is a blank white page. the php file is definitely still uploaded, and the link in the navbar is going to the right place, so, what's up?

[carolmyt]

Oh, and this is only when the hack is turned on. When its off, there's a standard 'you can't access this page' message.

[djwins]

Originally Posted by hitmanuk2k

Where does one define the start off amount each user gets? I want 100 not 500.

Set the default to 100 in vbookie_cash in the user table in your mySQL db.

[Flow Fusion]

Originally Posted by Flow Fusion

OK I got everything to work till I hit submit and then nothing. Anyone have any idea why this is?

A lil help here?

[freebase69]

Ok easy question here...how do you settle an event after the event has ended and you know the outcome? I can't seem to figure this one out and the online manual can't be found.

Thanks

[freebase69]

bump...anyone?

[RichieBoy67]

Is there an uninstaller for this? I need to reinstall the queris

[Pain86]

hi... i have this installed on my forums but when i set which usergroup to be able to bet it just wont let that usegroup bet...

any idea what could be the problem?

i want every usergroup to able to bet on events... so i set "can this usergroup bet on events" to yes...

but when i make an event it says "you may not bet on this event" ?!?!

help please.

[T_Montana]

great hack