Spotlighting XWIN: The Next Big Blockchain-Based Betting Platform
XWIN had a promising pre-ICO and ICO investment period, raising over $300M in venture capital. How will they use blockchain technology revolutionize the sports betting industry?
We’ve touched on the basics of blockchain technology in sports betting in our series, Betting with Blockchain. We even listed a number of blockchain-based betting platforms in Part 3 of that series. From Edgeless, to BetterBetting, to EtherSport, to WinFlow, the options for crypto-based sports betting seem to be limitless and chances are there’s no immediate end in site. So how do we sort through all these ICOs and white papers and ‘World’s Best Coffee’ type advertising for these new ventures?
It seems they’re all touting the same thing. Edgeless betting. The sweet transparency of blockchain technology. The power and utilization of smart contracts. The speed and ease of payouts. The absence of third-party oversight. The decentralization of sportsbooks, etc.
We have many reasons to celebrate the coming crypto revolution. These innovations are clearly among those reasons. Trusted Blockchain technology like Ethereum has its use cases in the sports and other betting sector as it can be used to guarantee payments, usher in transparency, prevent lock-outs caused by frequent wins, establish identity, reduce risks like embezzlements and provide reliable account security and privacy. Due to the smart contract functionality available on Ethereum, it has become possible to automate terms of agreement between the player and the bookmaker. These conditions can also be made immutable. Escrow services can be provided by default until the conditions are fulfilled.
While Bitcoin-based betting has been a thing for at least a year now, the real innovation comes in the form of this Ethereum-based technology.
Enter XWIN
In recent years, as the online sports betting market expands across the globe, restrictions and bans on online gambling have slowly begun to dissolve. As it stands, more than 80 countries have taken measures to legalize gambling. Unfortunately, many of the current online gambling sites — such as those used by poker enthusiasts — have been rife with bots and algorithms built to beat their human peers. Of all forms of online gambling, sports betting is the only one that by its nature can withstand attempts at algorithmic takeovers. At best, algorithms and bots can predict an amount of success such as the one Sports Analytics Simulator uses. So it makes sense that sports betting offers gamblers an avenue for true excitement. Now with blockchain technology, true excitement can join true accountability in creating a unique and equitable sports betting experience.
Currently, sports betting occupies the largest market share in the global gambling market, Reports have staked the income of bookmakers in 2017 at more than 144 billion dollars. The advantages of online bookmaking have allowed it to take off in a short amount of time. With all the online sites and apps that offer discrete online sports betting, it’s about time that a new technology comes in to revolutionize the existing stuff.
But trust has been a big problem. Due to the unregulated nature of the industry (for the most part) it’s been fraught with scams and frauds — hence why most people choose to stick with Nevada bookmakers and the more reputable, centralized online sportsbooks like Bovada.
With the development and rise of blockchain and smart contract technologies, we’re beginning to see the future of sports gambling shaping up before us. The benefits the Blockchain has lent to other sectors in society allow for trust to be created in areas where it has been missing. Enter XWIN, a new crypto-betting platform, that has been developed on the Ethereum Blockchain to bring some changes into the betting industry.
With an ICO that lasted from January 1 to January 30, XWIN is an extremely new product to hit crypto markets. You can check out their white papers here. For those who don’t know, a white paper is an authoritative report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue, in this case the business plan for XWIN.
XWIN is a transparent betting platform for sporting and other events with revenue sharing using the decentralized smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.
The unprecedented development of blockchain technology and introduction of smart contracts has led to new opportunities in the field of betting on sporting and other events. At present, for the majority of private players, it is important to have comfortable, convenient and, most importantly, safe and guaranteed access to betting on the outcome of any event, and for investors – to receive guaranteed income from the bookmaker’s activity.
XWIN was created in order to solve these tasks.
Here are some of the advantages of betting with XWIN according to their white papers.
- Guaranteed payments by the Ethereum smart contract;
- Transparency of transactions and payments;
- No account lock-outs due to frequent wins;
- No account lock-outs due to arbitrages;
- Absence of individual reduction coefficients;
- Simplified registration;
- Absence of infrastructure risks related to technical problems with equipment and interruptions in Internet access;
- Absence of risks of funds embezzlement;
- Absence of restrictions on access to the investment funds;
- Information security and confidentiality;
- Cross-border betting;
- Stability of XWIN is determined by the entire network of the Ethereum blockchain;
- Security of funds (the players’ accounts are placed on the smart contract account and are managed autonomously);
- Continuous monitoring and control of the better’s account transactions (constant control over the player’s funds, 24/7/365 availability from any place in the world and from any device).
With smart contract technology, the better who places the bet with XWIN, receives information about all conditions. Since they are written in the smart contract, these conditions cannot be changed. On top of that, the payout amount is locked on the account of the smart contract when the bet is placed and cannot be expended or spent prior to the settlement. None of the parties can make changes to the bet that has already been placed, and spend the prize fund. Thus, XWIN is the first and currently the only bookmaker, largely protected and safe from the traditional bookmaker market, and creates real alternative option.
But that’s just the technical side of things.
Another aspect of XWIN’s appeal is their investor plan. Let’s have a look at that.
The XWIN smart contract is established with due regard to the main objectives of private investors and capital management funds in the new economy development conditions, and designed to receive guaranteed income from XWIN activities through distribution of the betting margin between the investors. The XWIN top management team spent December 2017 in Asia in pursuit of new investors. In short order, they raised $1 million practically overnight. Now, with the ICO officially closed the XWIN site touts $3,448,675 raised. While the window is now closed, opportunities remain for bettors to get in on the ground floor of this innovative platform.
The following comes straight from XWIN’s economic model. It describes the system upon which it is built:
XWIN establishes new standards of relations between the players and online gambling resources due to the use of blockchain technologies.
There is no secret that the bookmaker business brings a considerable income. The XWIN margin ranges from 6% to 20% of the betting rate. The margin from the better’s bets is credited to the account of the XWIN smart contract and is managed autonomously. 100% of the received margin is distributed as follows:
• 25% – to the fund of guaranteed payments to the players;
• 35% – PR, marketing, promotion and advertising;
• 20% – administration and legal support;
• 20% – income distributed among the investors.
Within the framework of ICO platform XWIN CryptoBet will issue a limited number of tokens, 80% of which will be available to the investors and players.
The tokens they describe are no longer available, as I stated. But the sheer transparency of XWIN’s economic model offers a level of unprecedented trust in sports gambling that has not been seen thus far in the market.
If you check out their website, they’ve got a tab called Roadmap that outlines their plan going forward in simple terms, divided into each quarter. In the first quarter they plan to:
- Do a public release of mobile applications,
- Further development on an artificial intelligence that uses machine learning for the calculation of betting rates and probability of events (fancy terms for an artificially intelligent betting algorithm that adapts as it acquires new information.)
- Add racing to their sports betting options.
And that’s just the first quarter. By year’s end they hope to expand the casino to include a multi-wallet platform.
If you check out the Alfa section of the site, you can glimpse the interface they plan to implement. It looks clean and accessible to say the least. But looks alone will not suffice. The longevity of this venture will depend on people believing in the technology. Sooner or later the big sportsbooks are going to make moves to go online with cryptos. Indeed, Bovada already has the option to place bets with Bitcoin. But with Ethereum smart contracts becoming the market standard, we’re likely to see further innovations from platforms like XWIN and Edgeless. One thing is clear though: Blockchain technology is already revolutionizing the world’s financial sector. In one of the world’s most profitable industries, sports betting, it threatens to disrupt the centralized banking and betting authority that’s currently firmly fixed in Las Vegas. As we’ve seen with ventures like XWIN, there is clearly money to be made on the speculative side of blockchain betting but as we enter this next financial year it remains to be seen whether the betting public picks up on the potentials of this technology.
