So.. mining at slush's pool also is a gamble.
Just it is "more stable" gamlbe ; )
Well yes. Built in with the deductions, 24hr PPLNS system and all that. You could look at it as a weighted gamble that pays a steady income at some possible cost to that income.
And since p2pool overall hashrate is not so big, the stats could look bizzare.
Right?
Sort of. If you point a low hash rate (within reason!) machine at it, then there is a fair bit of variance on how often you'll get a valid share as well as how long each individual block takes.
Yes it's a lot of variance. That doesn't make it any more or less of a gamble than slush's pool. Well. Except Slushi might go down like any number of mining pools before it. Slushi is a single point access that might get DoS'd or just have a bad day. Or the 2% fee. You also have no idea what network inefficiencies (if any) happen at the server end of a fast pool like Slushi's. Could be better, same or worse. Who knows?
Apart from that. p2pool is totally a gamble just the same as Slushi.