Bitbookie: Parimutuel Bitcoin Sports Betting
bitbook.ie
bitbook.ie
A 'no-compete' clause in my current contract meant I couldn't work on BitBookie.com - although I was thinking a simple exchange similar to Betfair. What you've done looks interesting.
Good luck!
"It's too early to monetize, but when we do, it will probably be through ads or affiliate programs.
I think that not charging a house take will have a positive effect on the quality of the site. Most sites do have a house take and that creates an incentive for them to be very pushy about driving bets. It's annoying and distracting. It's like being in a real casino!"
I'd expect making money via a house take would require much less pushiness, because that involves making money off of something that people are coming to the site to do (gamble).
With ads, one is making money off of something no one is coming to the site for.
edit: how in the world is this a dumb question / comment
There is however a phone number listed here, https://bitbook.ie/contact
Bitbet attempts to solve this by giving a higher weight to earlier bets. Not sure how well that works but the site seems to be used.
Talking about the odds while the betting is open is really talking about what the payout would be if the event occurred with the current pool.
*It is of course about the amount of money, not the number of people.
I'm really interested to see how the 'no cut' ideology helps circumvent the stupidly strict USA gambling laws.
IS there trend data available? Can see see where the public money is going, or is it simply a case of monitoring the blockchain for transactions going to the wallets (pools) you're interested in?
Interestingly, my rejected bets for the losing team were not returned, but instead paid out to the winner. I'm informed the site owner already.
Why not? Unless they're the last money in, they might not be getting the odds they expect... and thus might even have their money on the 'wrong side' of the bet, given the final odds.
That could limit the interest and liquidity here.
EDIT: I'm not wrong about this: https://bitbook.ie/make_bets/abf97e24-ded0-42bb-832d-669e275...
If so, now we know the actual profit model of this business.
Actually there would still be value in getting one's arbitraged wagers in just before the window closes: at this moment the general public would be unlikely to drive one out of the money and the site operator would have no incentive to do so.
So this again presents more problems for potential arbitrageurs as soon as there's more than one last-minute "sniper": not only are they unsure if their bet will be minted into a block in time, they can't be sure N others following the same strategy don't try the same thing, making the final odds awful.
To the extent the operator has any discretion, it's just to make a final ruling on whether a block arrived "soon enough", or is the first block for which bets are a "no-go". There's a very, very slight abuse potential in such discretion: their decisions are publicly observable, and biased/arbitrary decisions would result in a lot of griping and lost credibility.
On the other hand, large mining pools would have significant power to control the 'last money in', in the blocks just before an event closes. (If they see imbalanced odds they like, they could blockade other bets, and only allow their own confederates' late money in, and only to the extent that the odds remain favorable.)
Maybe that's the real business model: kickbacks from side-betting mining pools!
Sure, but this is a challenge with parimutuel wagering in general. It's why the lines at the window are longest with one minute to post: there is more information about odds closer to the end.
Admittedly, the concern we're discussing is one reason why I wouldn't mind if this firm charged a really small distribution percentage.