Damn. Owner of Bitbookie.com here.<p>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.<p>Good luck!
In case you were curious how they make money, here is BitBookie's answer:<p>"It's too early to monetize, but when we do, it will probably be through ads or affiliate programs.<p>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!"
Is this vulnerable to a scenario where they have a bunch of coins in escrow and then they run off with them? If, for instance, the betting pools for world cup start filling up, whats to stop them from doing that?<p>edit: how in the world is this a dumb question / comment
Am I correct to understand that it is not possible to determine the payout for winning at the time of placing a bet, since the proportion of bets could change? Payouts are determined when the book closes, not based on the ratio when the bet is placed?
Suggestion: horse racing, or at least the big race this weekend. California Chrome could win the Triple Crown! (That hasn't happened since 1978.) I expect even a simple CC vs. the field event would see a lot of bets...
This is really awesome.<p>I'm really interested to see how the 'no cut' ideology helps circumvent the stupidly strict USA gambling laws.
How long does it take to go from wanting to place a bet, to your money being in the pool? My knowledge of bitcoin is lacking but I was of the understanding that there is some time before the transaction/transfer is verified? Thus if you wanted to submit a wager close to closing time, you would probably be unable to?<p>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?
Parimutuel has simplification benefits for the pool-operator and casual recreational bettor... but is of little interest to big-money/smart-money.<p>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.<p>That could limit the interest and liquidity here.
Clicking through to the World Cup page, I note a serious deficiency in this "parimutuel" system: only <i>two</i> entries per event, even when it's "wins the World Cup"! It certainly explains why the pools are so tiny. Expect to see <i>great</i> arbitrage opportunities among the myriad different pools. Regular bettors get screwed by this.<p>EDIT: I'm not wrong about this: <a href="https://bitbook.ie/make_bets/abf97e24-ded0-42bb-832d-669e275cfdc8" rel="nofollow">https://bitbook.ie/make_bets/abf97e24-ded0-42bb-832d-669e275...</a>
Apparently there is zero information about who runs this site. Yes, it looks nice, and seems to be a clever idea. But personally I wouldn't trust them with my coins.
I like the idea, but I'm not sure I would get anywhere near this as a US citizen. I can easily envision a federal prosecutor trying to make a name for himself coming up with an argument that it violates the Wire Act, and since it is parimutuel, then everybody who placed a bet also <i>accepted</i> a bet.