The number one spot is taken with 138 bitcoins wagered. To give you an idea of how much that is, 138 bitcoins totals to 500 thousand dollars. Someone wagered about 500 thousand dollars in gambling in order to reach the number one spot that will be getting 10 thousand dollars in rewards.
I am not saying anyone who gambles 500 thousand dollars loses money, after all the house edge is small and you can even be lucky and even won money during that much gambling and maybe that person will get 10 thousand dollars on top of the money they already made but risking 500 thousand dollars to make 10 thousand dollars sounds crazy. That person and all the following people there with 125 and so forth must be really into gambling.
I have not gambled anything more than 0.05 so far so it sounds so crazy to think about how much I would have to bet my max comfortable amount to actually reach to point they are right now. I applaud them for their courage and hope they will tie the house edge with this promotion at least and make profits.
That's one massive whale. Imagine how much funds he/ she has to actually manipulate the prices of BTC.
He has WAGERED half a million dollars, doesn't mean he owns it. Even if you owned 138 BTC you can't manipulate anything, not even on 1 exchange much less global BTC price!
Judging from my own very small balance and wagering, I generally manage to wager around 30x my deposit minimum before busting, and that's without a conservative strategy. Conservative should be close to 90x so maybe he has 50k worth of BTC. Anyway, if the guy is smart, he is wagering conservatively and taking advantage of RP bonus plus Wager bonus to reduce his 5% house edge to about 4%. I suppose he will maximize his free rolls too, so maybe that even goes to 3.5% With the prize of 10k, that's 1.5% house edge. With lotteries, that's back to 1%, maybe even lower and close to 0.