It’s been busy at Virtue Poker!
Our biggest news, of course, is the launch of Beta 2. We are conducting a Sneak Preview right now for participants in earlier Beta or Alpha test rounds. Reaction to the new software has been very positive — players were thrilled to see the addition of Sit & Go tournaments, as well as advance action boxes and sound. These players have done a terrific job of helping us isolate bugs and improve the look, feel and performance of the Beta 2.
Players in the Sneak Preview of Beta 2 are being rewarded, as we have done in the past. Sneak Preview participants have so far shared in a total of 13 ETH in prizes awarded in daily drawings and Bust-a-Host tables. Bust-a-Host tables are just what they sound like — if you are at a Bust-a-Host table and you bust one of our hosts (names starting with Host, like HostDan, HostTony, HostDavid, HostRyan, HostJavi or HostSharon), you win a 0.2 ETH prize.
Development update
The Dev Team has been focused on releasing a stable, functional Beta with a range of new features implemented, including:
Sit & Go tournaments
Sound alerts
Advance betting actions
First-stage Leaderboard functionality
Gaming authority-mandated features
While the Beta 2 is in process, the team is, of course, focused first on client (player) issues and fixes. These include platform stability enhancements and improved Justice stability, among others. The next release in the Beta 2 will include enhanced chat functionality, four-colour deck, various Justice improvements and other interface enhancements.
The Platform team has been hard at work improving our data analysis capabilities and system robustness. We have enhanced data tracking for financial events and wallet interactions, player connections and tournament-related events, as well as internal monitoring tools for the Justice service. We have also onboarded a new data science tool to our game security infrastructure, allowing us to create more powerful tools to detect various forms of cheating. The team is currently focused on delivering features that satisfy the Malta Gaming Authority’s regulatory requirements as a gaming operator, with development ongoing to track real-time fiat conversion rates for our cryptocurrency offerings, implementation of anti-money laundering restrictions around deposits and withdrawals and integration of KYC capabilities into the client.
Regulatory update
Virtue Poker has made significant progress with our gaming license application. Our application is currently undergoing due diligence checks by the MGA. Our team has enlisted the audit firm BDO to complete our Systems Audit, and has begun reaching out to third-party Random Number Generation (RNG) testing and technology audit firms. Our goal is to complete the audit process early in 2020 following the holidays.
Call for Beta participants
Do you want to join us for the Virtue Poker Beta 2 Program? Over the course of the Beta, you’ll have a chance to win your share of 100 ETH and other great prizes that we’re giving away. If you’re interested in joining the Beta 2, email us at beta@virtue.poker and we will contact you when the open Beta 2 begins. If you bought tokens in our Token Sale, or if you participated in earlier test rounds, there is no need to sign up, as we will be in touch.
Note: if you haven’t already done so, we strongly suggest that you whitelist the Virtue Poker domain so you don’t miss any emails from us. The Beta 2 announcement email and other Beta announcements will come from beta@virtue.poker.
Conclusion
We are very pleased at the progress we have made in moving our Malta Gaming Authority gaming application along. The MGA has allowed us to have a voice in the process of building a framework for the regulation of online gaming on the blockchain. This will allow us and other industry members to ensure that blockchain gaming regulations are sensible and fair.
The software continues its march towards completion, now including almost all of the major components we will need for mainnet operation. Since we will be adding a lot of new players, we expect the Open Beta 2 to help move the process along even more quickly. This will allow us to test the software in a real production environment with a meaningful number of players.
As always, thanks much for your patience, and for your help in moving Virtue Poker that much closer to mainnet release.