Overview
What is most attractive about SafeDice is its prominent tagline and claim of having one of the lowest house edges when it comes to online dice games: 0.5%. That alone puts it in an upper echelon of dice sites in an arena where house edges are closer to 1% to 2% on average.
Having been around since late 2014, it’s one of the more reputable sites on virtue of longevity, with an admin that is helpful and responsive to the players.
On the downside, additional support does seem like a necessary upgrade, as evidenced by frustrated players waiting for extended periods of time (hours at least). As support can only be reached through chat, email or forum, problems can take a while to resolve. For a test, we found our chat queries unanswered after more than an hour – far too long for us.
Another problem is the signup. While it’s great to be able to enter a username, deposit and play instantly, new players ought to be told to go to Settings to save their secret URL (which acts as instant login) or to set account passwords. We saw several players who entered, deposited and played but losing access after neglecting to do this.
Pros:
Unique variable house edge with one of the lowest default house edges available (0.5%).
Potential for big payouts at 10% of bankroll.
Anonymous gambling available with XMR.
Cons:
Helpful but absent support.
Relatively small bankroll.
No warning to create account or save secret URL when joining.
Investment
Catching on the wave of crowdfunded bankrolls, SafeDice also offers one of the highest investor share of commissions, taking only 10% of its house edge bet amount as commission. At time of writing, the total house bankroll is just under 400 BTC, so a big investor can still easily own a significant share of that.
Investors can also set individual Kelly criterion from a range of 0.5x to 10x, thus adjusting risk and reward to preference.
Deposits and Withdrawals
SafeDice accepts Bitcoin and Monero (XMR). That, TOR compatibility and the lack of verification requirements means that it is possible for complete anonymity with Monero, so that is a plus point.
There is no information on minimum deposits or withdrawals and we could not get answers from chat either. There is also no mention of withdrawal fees although FAQ indicates that a transaction fee will be deducted from your withdrawal.
Games
Like other minimalist dice sites, SafeDice features just the one dice game that allows you to win up to x9,950 of your bet at 0.01% chance to win. There is a unique “variable house edge” that allows players to adjust their appetite for risk in relation to payout.
In simple terms, the higher the payout you want, the higher the house edge will be (from as low as 0.5% house edge up to a cap of 10%). Detailed explanations are provided in the FAQ but as a general rule, the house edge is twice the value of your maximum payout as a percentage of the house bankroll.
Hence, the default house edge of 0.5% allows you to win a maximum payout equal to 0.25% of the total bankroll while a max payout equal to 5% of the total bankroll will set your house edge to 10%.
Bonuses
There are no deposit bonuses nor faucets at SafeDice, although the FAQ mentions of a chatbot that can award free satoshis (rain). As with most dice sites, generous gamblers are known to tip “nice users”.
