Topic: 🎰🏈🃏[ANN] GAMBL.io - Welcome to Gaming 3.0... The Blockchain Betting Solution (Read 343 times)

Update with an important two-part series of articles covering the vast amounts of user data being collected, widely shared, and likely misused - by both online and physical casinos.

In the US we have the AGA releasing a very troubling guide outlining their best practices, which include a wide range of often sensitive user data being gathered and voluntarily shared with a large number of businesses, government agencies, and other organizations. Also seems to indicate a high likelihood of many innocent users being flagged and subjected to even higher scrutiny and outright harassment, especially for foreign users who could even see their funds confiscated in some cases. And in the more mature UK market we're already seeing data misuse cases being brought up.

This is just the beginning, the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Most/all of us in crypto already know where this path leads, and we need to give users a better option. The normies may not yet see all of the benefits of something like GAMBL, but they will eventually.

https://gambl.io/gambling-with-user-info-aga-doc-reveals-concerning-practices/

https://gambl.io/uk-operator-sbg-accused-of-misusing-user-data/

Whitelist pre-orders are up and running smoothly the past few days, might even be a few unused spots if they haven't already been reclaimed by another.

General access for pre-orders begins August 15th.

There are also ways to earn GAMBL, perhaps the best is the 10% bonus for referrals. Gleam bonuses are over, but there will be regular bonuses so it's worth keeping an eye on this thread - or the website, or Telegram which is perhaps the best.

I can understand some won't prefer to use Telegram for various reasons, so I will try to keep things updated here.

One week left until the whitelist sale starts. This is the chance to lock in the lowest rate for GAMBL.

There is only a very limited amount of GAMBL Whitelist Spots remaining…those will be filled on a first come, first served basis - until all whitelist spots are gone!

A maximum of about 3 weeks left to lock up a whitelist spot and be among those who get the first shot at some GAMBL tokens, along with a nice discount.

We've seen what DraftKings, FanDuel, and others have done to this industry. The vast majority of bettors aren't very happy (to put it rather mildly) and are left wanting something else. The demand is certainly there and the bar isn't exactly high.

And with crypto markets the way they are now, it can't afford to lose even more of the gambling industry to the current corrupt and inefficient oligarchy. Companies like DraftKings are currently down about as much as crypto so they're desperate and they have a LOT of lobbyists, which is not a great combination for crypto as we've already begun to see in recent months.

This is one of the few major use-cases that crypto is clearly more efficient at, lets keep it in crypto!

Very happy to announce that the GAMBL pre-sale will begin August 1st for whitelist members, and general access begins on August 15th. It's the first chance to get in on the action and the sale is capped at 40m tokens. Whitelist price is discounted to 6c from the general access price of 8c. There is also a referral bonus of 10% for those who want to earn some extra tokens. More info available on our site.

There's still time to get on the whitelist and we've made some more whitelist spots available through our contest, details are at the link below.

https://gambl.io/whitelist-contest/

Yes, likely could.

However, the long-term goal is legitimate decentralization which requires tokens to be sufficiently dispersed. We want anyone to be able to get in as early and fairly as possible, we're not going to be gatekeepers and just pander to VCs who only want to resell to users at a higher cost. Ideally we want bettors and those who want to run nodes at some point, especially when it comes to eventual governance.

There has also been a lot of preparation already on the legal/regulatory side too, Mario and Karl are quite familiar with the Malta Gaming Authority if you look at their backgrounds. Mario's IGA Group also won consultancy of the year at the 2021 Sigma Europe Gaming Awards. He's become quite adept at solving both operational and regulatory challenges.

We've seen all of of the failures and outright scams, and we genuinely want to change that. Even the traditional gambling industry is in a terrible state right now, especially for the users. This is an industry where crypto actually makes sense, as it is primarily composed of transactions which are increasingly becoming digital. Not to mention that total global betting is now estimated to be in the trillions per year in USD value.

We know a system like this can operate much more efficiently than our traditional counterparts, and even most of them now realize it, which is why they're so interested in pushing for tighter crypto regulations and centralized controls.

May I ask if you have private investors on this project? Do you think you can launch this gaming platform without any crowdsourcing activities? Based from my impression, it seems the team is well-prepared. You already won the top blockchain stellar award, which means, you've been developing this gaming platform for quite a while already.

Things are starting to heat up, along with those summer temps. The end of Q2 is fast approaching and with it the release of more information about the GAMBL sale.

Join the GAMBL telegram to stay on top of the updates and be among the first to get information about the project and the wider industry as a whole.

Also to follow along and cheer for our team member and 2014 WSOP main event champion Martin Jacobson as he competes for his second bracelet, along with many of the other WSOP events he is playing in.

https://t.me/GAMBLCoin

It's not just crypto media either, in fact the calls are growing even louder over in the gambling industry. They already have large numbers of lobbyists engaged in the push for gambling legislation, so they already have a lot of weight to further tip the scales towards tighter crypto regulations. The end goal is of course to limit competition and make it much easier to funnel more value out of crypto and into their pockets.

These black-box solutions also pose some serious questions about how all of this user data is collected, shared, and secured. It seems like a really bad trade-off when the benefits really only amount to a slight increase in convenience.

Crypto needs to be fielding more projects like GAMBL, and and less of these poorly-planned and inefficient L2 gambling dapps if they really want to compete in the long-term. The global gambling market is absolutely massive and has always been a key factor in the increased adoption and value of crypto. Satoshi himself recognized it even in the earliest development of bitcoin.

https://ggbmagazine.com/article/crypto-capable/

DraftKings CEO - "The types of things [we need] to become mainstream fly directly in the face of decentralization. If you don't have some sort of centralized control, it's hard to protect people from themselves."

"I know the purists won't like this," he said. "But does there need to be some element of centralization that comes in that allows for some of the things that have to happen to make blockchain technology be more applicable to mainstream use cases?"

https://decrypt.co/101176/draftkings-ceo-jason-robins-on-crypto

Apparently BTC and others need centralized control to protect users. Rather conveniently it would also make it far easier to shut down any of his crypto-based competitors.

FanDuel CEO - "There's a massive black market that still exists. Hard to quantify exactly but probably to the tune of trillions of dollars. As that black market persists, the states aren't getting the economic benefit of that. Consumers aren't being protected."

Probably about as accurate as one can be on the size of the market, broad estimates are about all we can get but almost certainly it's into the trillions. Having some more confirmation on this massive size is always nice, even if it is just a little.

States and federal govs do technically earn some off of it through various means. It's just not the unsustainable price-gouging rates that they were promised by the few largest players in return for carefully crafting legislation that was meant to be favorable to them while still being unfavorable for any kind of new competition. In states like NY they're already going back on their word and finally admitting it isn't profitable enough for even the largest-scale entities, let alone any smaller operators or startups.

They know their users have already been squeezed too hard and won't bear any more. Which makes it a bit funny that they bring up users, especially when they're now referring to them as 'consumers' since they only want to serve the losing bettors.

Their marketing is promising these users a dream that they can never truly achieve, basically the definition of a scam. While on the other hand their legal and C-level are placating the authorities that they're merely 'providing entertainment to consumers'.

The mafia-style mention of protection is the cherry on top.

Posted some analysis on crypto gambling projects and the wider gambling industry as a whole. A continuation of some work I did a few years back, pretty much a must-read for anyone investing in these types of projects or considering it. The former turned out to be more accurate than most/all of even the paid industry analysis being churned out at the time.

If we don't review and acknowledge the mistakes of the past, then we certainly cannot learn from them and we are ultimately doomed to repeat them.

The good news is that there is a great window where we can really make some big things happen. It's mainly due to poor regulations, reckless spending by the big regulated casinos, and their unethical treatment of users.

Let's make the most of this opportunity!

https://twitter.com/lotuspod_o8/status/1525394703239331840

Edit: Just got this transcript portion from a meeting on Thursday with BetMGM CFO...just wow



It's not just the US either, an article just now posted highlights some major issues even in the far more mature UK markets. This is directly from the CEO of the Betting and Gaming Council. The black market phrasing is a bit laughable though, as it exists in a gray-area that current regulations are simply not equipped nor even informed enough to handle properly. It would be somewhat like a traditional banking exec (making big money squeezing its customers) referring to cheap and efficient crypto transactions as black market.

GAMBL news post: Sports Illustrated does a full 180 on its previously hardline anti-gambling stance, opening up their own sportsbook. After decades of moral grandstanding and fearmongering, they flip nearly as soon as regulation changes. Ironically enough, expect poor odds and shady practices.

https://gambl.io/the-problem-with-the-media-parroting-regulation/

Also more detailed info coming soon on the various parts of GAMBL, mainly for the bettors coming aboard who have less knowledge on the crypto side.

GAMBL news post: Deal between Wynn and the UAE highlights a major growing trend of gambling expansion. Rather surprisingly, Dubai isn't leading the way this time.

https://gambl.io/uae-and-wynn-deal-shows-promise-for-gambling-expansion/

Nitrogen reportedly steals 0.26 BTC from a user simply because they say he accessed the site from the US. They allowed him to bet for 4 months straight instead of closing the account right away and returning his funds.

Centralized sportsbooks are a serious risk for bettors, even if they use crypto only. Link below to the post.

https://twitter.com/d_feustel/status/1521178127036305415

Even "decentralized" solutions that are reliant on a base layer could be targeted. Most of their investment comes directly from groups involved in the base layer, or from people heavily invested in it. Massive incentive to sell out bettors if push comes to shove, as it is simply just another user-case to them. Their main priority is the base layer, bettors are hardly an afterthought for them.

In addition, these kinds of solutions are susceptible to issues on the base layer. BetDEX is the latest victim, being based on Solana they suffered a 7+ hour outage. The proudly touted 50,000 transactions per second of BetDEX looks a bit suspect and outages lasting hours or days can be devastating for sportsbooks and casinos, especially if it happens during a major event. Also as these networks grow and expand into larger and wider ranges of uses, fees can quickly rise to a point where it becomes an issue for smaller bettors who make up the vast majority of users. This has already happened with ETH, and occasionally a few others.

Solutions like GAMBL cannot come soon enough, as the status quo seems to get worse and worse as time passes. Bettors need to group together and demand better. We love to hear input from all kinds of bettors, as we build in the spirit of: By bettors, for bettors.

GAMBL news post: Online poker gets a big boost from streaming, its players get a whole new route to sponsorships, and viewers get a much more accurate picture of what it's all truly like.

https://gambl.io/online-poker-the-streaming-boom/

Yep that's me, well one of the two on the community side currently. And yeah it's definitely quite a gateway with a long and sometime very interesting history here. I've been around for a rather long time, but I've tended to just read mostly. These days it feels as if much of crypto has shifted their presence outside of here to more mainstream platforms like Twitter though I suppose that's true for most of the old forums. I've made it a point to maintain an active presence here for GAMBL however, especially in these earliest stages.

Telegram is nice for quick back-and-forth communication, but we certainly don't mind having some discussions here also. I can get others on the team to speak up here on the topics that are in their domain, maybe some Q&A's at some point if/when there is demand for it. Particularly for Tippy as he can speak more definitively on the more technical details of the sportsbook side. Telegram link is on the site but I'll post here too - https://t.me/GAMBLCoin

Also forgot to mention earlier, there's really 3 main directions that a casino/sportsbook can take. First is far most common, just use btc or others for payments only but obviously centralization is an issue and history has already shown many times this isn't a long-term solution. Second is building atop a base layer like eth. As we saw with Augur and many other though, base layers can come with a lot of potential issues and in trying to do everything they end up being too inefficient or too impractical for many complex solutions.

That leaves tailoring a chain specifically to the gambling industry, which consumes much more time/resources and it can be a real pain to get up and running. But long-term it's the most practical, realistic, and efficient path. The industry is more than large enough to warrant it, just needs the proper structuring and incentives in order to do well. Even regulated sites have a ton of unethical issues and users are constantly left wanting something better, that has been our primary motivation to be honest. I'd much rather be governed by user consensus rather than the current status quo that only seems to get worse as more time passes.

Wouldn't it be better for the team to appoint a CM to attend matters here? The forum is quite a gateway for crypto. With TG as the main place for info, although the information and discussion will happen simultaneously, it'll be rather "exclusive" as investors will need to have the specific link to the channel. Just my opinion, though.

Nearly all of them only use crypto as a payment processor, with many just being reskinned clones of the same few old casinos. They're centralized and with the recent AGA letter to the DoJ, users should be more than a little concerned...given all of the past crackdowns and long lockups of user funds. Poker sites were doing great too, until the Black Friday crackdown in 2011 left the entire industry in tatters and it still hasn't fully recovered over a decade later. Same with sportsbooks and casinos in previous crackdowns.

Their article describing the AGA letter is here - https://www.americangaming.org/new/american-gaming-association-urges-department-of-justice-to-crack-down-on-illegal-gambling/

Also have a look at the team in this project, particularly the CEO and the others based on Malta. They have a long history in the industry, if the gambling community is going to attempt something like this then these are the guys we certainly would want and we're lucky to have them.

There's also plenty of other reasoning and information that will be coming out in future news posts and elsewhere, we're just getting started here.

Edit - I'm the only one posting here to start, but we have others across the social media platforms. Our Telegram is the main place for info and discussion.

What do you mean they will not conduct IEO? It is stated here and there that there will be token sales, even the tokenomy clearly shows these allocation for token sales, 60%, with 10% for presale and 50% on IEO