So I randomly stumbled on to a new ICO called ZeroEdge yesterday. This is something I have been thinking about for over a decade. Online gambling is one of the most greedy industries out there. They charge 100 times more than they have to. Gambling should basically be free, and like any other website, monetize it through ads and other business models.
When you go to a brick-and-mortar casino they have massive overhead. They have to pay a floor manager, dealers, property tax, etc. An online casino pays for none of these things.
ZeroEdge seeks to undercut all online gambling by doing just this: making gambling free or near free. I was totally thinking about buying some coins in the ICO until everything I read about it said "scam".
https://calvinayre.com/2018/02/04/bitcoin/zeroedge-crypto-casino-iniitial-coin-offering/
https://calvinayre.com/2018/05/02/bitcoin/zeroedge-crypto-scammers-ico-round-two/
So ZeroEdge is far from a sure thing but the idea remains. If ZeroEdge doesn't deliver, someone else will. Soon™, I'll be able to play poker online for free.
Rake
The rake is the amount of money the house takes out of a poker pot for themselves. If you don't take a rake, then it legally isn't considered gambling. This is why house games with friends are totally legal. I lived in Portland for some years and they have the best card rooms ever ever. To get around gambling laws they charge a $10 cover charge to get into the building. Also, the dealers aren't technically employees, they are volunteers. However, they make plenty of money in tips so it's all good.
In online poker, the rake in a cash game is 5% up to a cap of $3. This might not seem like a lot but it really adds up. When I was playing at Full Tilt Poker before it got shut down, every time I'd make $3000 (about 150 hours) Full Tilt Poker would rake another $3000. I could have doubled my income minus the rake. Thus, the term "racing the rake was born".
Decentralized Home Game Poker
My ultimate goal in this field is to create a decentralized poker app where anyone can host a server. The person hosting a server must be trusted and takes all legal responsibility. If anyone can start their own poker server you have a decentralized network that can't be attacked. We in the cryptosphere could create a space where anyone could "gamble" without having to pay the house.
The ramifications of this are huge. By not charging a rake, you eliminate the need to obey gambling laws because it's not gambling. Also, this undercuts every other site out there. Everyone serious about making money gambling would want to use this service.
What about people addicted to gambling? This helps them out in a big way as well. The rake makes it so only the top 10%-20% of people make money or break even. Without a rake this number rockets to 50%. Most people will break even or close to it. Only the truly terrible action junkies will lose money on average.
There is no question as to whether something like this is going to happen. It's happening. Blockchain platforms are lowering the overhead required to create such a project. Being able to securely store and transfer currency used to be a big deal. No longer.
The only question is: when will it happen? ZeroEdge is an ERC-20 token. Obviously Ethereum was not the correct choice due to scaling issues. Perhaps a project will pop up on EOS. One can only hope. Soon™