The site acts like the main challenges are legal when really they're technical.
The one area where blockchain based gambling might offer a significant theoretical advance is games when all the gambling is contained within auditable code that's provably actuarially fair, but people generally don't get interested in slot machines because the ability to audit expected return is important to them (if they do, it's probably because they have a strong impulse to disregard that understanding and/or are gambling sums they don't care about...).
When it comes to bets on the outside world, crypto-gambling is arguably a lot worse than a high street bookmaker as it involves a de facto side bet on (i) the value of the crypto asset not declining during the bet duration and (ii) the oracle being reliable. It's not like you can't get odds or participate in more obscure bets or prediction markets using regular currency on p2p platforms or even with high street bookmakers either, it's just they're relatively niche interests...
Very well stated!
The main challenge, in my opinion, is volume.
The future of online betting is exchange marketplaces, where users/members can both back and lay event outcomes. This removes the reliance of a central player (bookmaker/sportsbook) to support the lay side of the market. Overlays are generally much smaller on exchanges.
However, to achieve this and also to support "trading" (multiple back and lay bets in the same market, based on in-play price movements), an exchange needs a high volume. Betfair is the best known exchange and has serious first mover advantage. I'm currently looking at the England vs India 3rd Test cricket Match Odds and over GBP44 million has been traded on that market alone. Liverpool vs Crystal Palace tonight, GBP700k and there's still four hours until kickoff. The 15.05 Thirsk 7f horse race, currently in-play and GBP650k volume.
All of Betfair's competitors to date have really struggled with this aspect. Betdaq, Smarkets, Matchbook, no matter how good their service offering or how low their commission, haven't been able to attract the same level of betting volume and are thus not as attractive as Betfair. A little bit chicken and egg scenario to be sure.
Anyway, in my view the biggest hurdle Augur will need to clear is that of market volume.
I know - just another armchair hack, but I've been running a company that builds/runs prediction markets inside corporations for the past 12 years...
You have better odds in Vegas.
In a very narrowly defined space, it is something that works, yes, but as always with tech in this space "there be dragons".
As a side note, I stg that every "new thing" built on ethereum is just a chain of underpants gnome logic. Except the "???" is something you can drive a star system through.
When something is currently operating, just saying it can't work because of "technical obstacles" is bound to seem like a drive-by comment. The same with saying "there be dragons."
I'm genuinely interested--so can we enumerate some dragons? Can you elaborate?
I'm interested in when the patents were issued and the methods they cover.
s/Gambling/trading