Top 3 crypto-betting ICOs
As we all know, gambling and betting bring high adrenaline into the game, there are always those who would say that watching a football game or any other sport is more enjoyable when there is money involved.
Betting is no longer just about winning or losing in a particular game, it’s way more than that! With unlimited betting options and sub-bettings, more and more people have found joy in watching the sport they like, even if only a few dollars are involved.
How big is the Sports betting market?
The global sports betting market is actually an industry in itself, the numbers are more similar to the annual budget of a large country and the number of participants is growing every year.
Based on several reports worldwide, the sports betting industry is estimated to have a market-cap of approx. $250 billion. This industry is considered as the most growing industry in the online sector today.
According to a recent Statista survey, over 50% of US citizens admitted to placing a bet on a sporting event at least once in their life.
Crypto-betting
One of the most prominent fields up for disruption by cryptocurrency and blockchain tech is the field of sports betting, with several platforms already competing for this lucrative market, it is ripe for disruption, as it is now either a game of state lotteries or semi-criminal elements, and is a hotbed for scams of all sorts. Betting is capital intensive with an estimated value of 3 trillion dollars, this is another quality that makes it suited for the crypto market. Smart contracts could be used to derive event outcomes and pay the players who got the results right without third party involvement.
Even in conventional fiat betting, online keeps growing in market share (50 billion USD-mobile and desktop), enabled by broadband internet and mobile penetration. Mobile has seen 40% per year growth rate,with per capita betting per adult going up 1500% in 7 years.
This enormous growth is despite built in flaws in fiat based betting, these include the odds being skewed in favour of the house or even manipulated during the game, repeated winners banned from playing,high rolling betters banned for funding liabilities in the case they win and complexity of use due to the variety of possible betting choices
As well as solving these challenges by putting players against each other directly, a crypto betting platform could offer additional features that will change how betting is done, turning it into a social experience,
The difference in power between the average gambler and the state or other element running the betting platform has always been a big one, the player always assumes the odds are stacked against him and the fairness of the platform could not be easily established.
Transparency is another major edge crypto has over fiat when it comes to betting, using public blockchains, “the house” can make everything it does completely open to the public, allowing constant auditing to take place and insuring the product works and that no cheating has taken place.
Bettings under smart contracts
Smart contracts are especially handy for the betting environment, and are essentially what is going to make betting transparent, as any movement of funds is available on the blockchain. A smart contract is a piece of code which executes when a pre-written condition is met with no third party involved in the execution, once bets are placed by sending funds to the smart contracts address, they are irreversible. Not having a third party involved in the bet is a plus for the players, as no one has to pay a high fee or have the counterparty risk of that third party failing.
This promise has attracted many investors into betting related ICOs in the past, with many tokens promising to be the one to bring crypto-betting to the masses.
Ethereum is the smart contract platform of choice for most of the projects dealing in decentralised betting, it’s stability, liquidity and round-the-clock operations allows this kind of platform to operate as intended.
Top 3 betting ICOs
3) MEvU
meVu uses coin holder incentivisation as a mechanism of determining the outcome of events,holders of the coin get to determine the outcomes of events, thus earning more coins. This method has the disadvantage of not allowing real high-roller bets, as a rich player can skew the results of events in his favor with his coins also used as voting rights, if a bet is disputed, a random coin holder gets to determine the outcome of the event, but this could be further attacked by holding many accounts with a small balance. These attack vectors and others like them are the reason why betting smart contracts that use crowd reporting are very hard to do well, as they require planning ahead for many unpredictable scenarios and a considerable engagement and participation since day 1 to work as intended.
Features:
- MVU App token: Game notification, betting, lottery participation, referral rewards.
- Bets can be costumed to fit any category
- User determined results on the platform could contribute to its decentralized nature
2) Xwin
Another platform is the XWIN, which has recently concluded its ICO, raising 2 million dollars which seems to be a sum not high enough to fund future development needs. While also relying on shady references to “AI” to monitor the betting, the leading value of decentralization which are sacrificed in favour of some nebulous “bookmaker”.
ICO XWIN is implemented using the Ethereum smart contract. Investment security (the deposited funds of the investors are placed on the account of smart contract and managed automatically).
With Xwin users can do sport-betting or gamble like a casino; roulette & slot-machine with their own token.
Features:
- More than 10 different leagues.
- White labels optional
- News subscription
1) Bethereum
Bethereum is an innovative social betting solution built on the Ethereum blockchain. Designed to tackle the key challenges of conventional betting, it delivers a host of unique features and improvements. One of its primary features is indeed the BetherNet protocol, which serves as the infrastructure for the whole blockchain betting ecosystem, placing Bethereum as a platform of its own, a major advantage compared to other betting apps that only offer a betting service.
When it comes to betting, their vision is to develop a wider ecosystem and establish the Bether token as the betting market standard. Bethereum’s approach to the matter lies in bringing a lot of elements from the mobile gaming world: Its user interface is smooth and responsive, and its social media features enable what the team at Bethereum term “social betting” - Aiming to make betting the social experience it used to be. Gamification is also a big plus Bethereum has over other platforms, who disregard this crucial part of the user experience, tight-knit along with the social element, the gaming-like leaderboards, awards and in-app chats, which, based on experience gained in gaming are known to increase user engagement and retention, which could be the ones to create a vibrant community of players, social network connectivity also being a great way of earning money through referral.
Along with the social betting element, there is also the use of the platform by other business clients, with the use of SDK tools provided by Bethereum and bring it to their customer base, that is going to be one of the angles of the Bethereum business model, the white-label business clients will be obligated to use the Bether token as part of their offering, thus giving more value to the token.
Features:
- Betting infrastructure protocol
- Developer SDK for third party application development
- Custom wallet for trading and storing tokens
- Oracle service for result validation
- B2C & B2B business models
