Topic: Is there a "betfair" for bitcoin up and running yet? - page 2. (Read 680 times)

Not a massive surprise, given how little money there seemed to be up there. Interested to see reaction, will check out thread now.

I've just noticed that BetBTC.co has switched away from the exchange model and is now a straight up sportsbook.

Interesting move, but disappointing to see so little love giving to us exchange users crying out for somewhere we can trade sports with BTC.

More details here on the switch here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=856175.1840

I signed up to Fairlay just this week and had a few bets.

Initial thoughts:
- easy deposit process (that's crypto for you)
- one of the most confusing UIs I have ever seen
- messy, busy, over-featured betslip - doesn't match up to the standard exchange experience at all
- no in-play betting (!)... did I miss something?

Any others have feedback (good or bad) on Fairlay? Would love to hear that it was just me, but right now this is not fit for purpose as an exchange product.

Yeh, that's the big miss for me.

API access means a whole load of profitable strategies come into play.
Without API access, it's more or less just another sportsbook.

I asked asianconnect few months ago if they accept people from UK and they said yes , you don't need to worry about VPN I keep using VPN with all of the sites that Asianconnect offers and they even suggested me to use VPN for their Asainodds service cause sometimes the site wasn't loading at all for me


oh  I totally forgot about matchbook , Asianconnect offers Matchbook as well 

Same here Mel!

Here in the UK the use of brokers i think is still the reserve of the high rollers in general,i do hear it mentioned in dispatches but im sure some just do it for the kudos of perhaps being perceived as a high roller! (i am not a high roller!)

Completely agree re the api access,an exchange where you havent got it is pretty much an exchange in name only!

The ability to make real time decisions and react to them instantaneously is pretty much the whole user exchange experience in a nutshell  for me personally otherwise like you arco and sy id just be using sportsbooks(or an exchange as a glorified one)

I dont think ive acome across anything so far that matches the betfair/matchbook/betdaq exchange user experience in cryptoland.

Thanks getpaid,yes the commission rates are lower than betfair and the lure of no premium charge,or the constant fear of getting trapped into it at least,does make it attractive!

Orbit is geoblocked though for UK users(i am one) and yes i can go the vpn route i suppose but again its just an added hassle and they arent foolproof either as lots of betting companies automatically restrict your betting when they detect youre using a vpn (betvictor is one sportsbook i know of that automatically do this).

Hi Josjac,

I'm glad my initial post here in this thread helped you (and maybe others) see there is an easier way to bet in "BetFair" using Bitcoin. Using agents is simply next to none, you won't get any better than this.

Now regarding the commission - I know with Orbit the commission is 3% flat, so you would never pay more than 3% on your winnings - so in that case this is better for you than using BetFair website, isn't it?

yeah Asianconnect don't offer API access for both of the exchanges , so this may be a problem for some of you

personally I don't trade and I mainly use orbitexchange for horse racing since I have no access to any of UK bookmakers that offer good lines for racing so orbit is my only place to bet on horses

it's not perfect , but it's helpful if you have lack of options and lower commissions is always great 

9wickets say explicitly that they don't provide API access.
I assume Orbit is the same deal, but maybe SyGambler knows.

To be honest, without API access, an exchange is useful but still more of a glorified sportsbook than anything. Being able to Lay a bet is great, and the prices can be good... but without API access, 90% of the really interesting exchange activity is not possible, including market making and HFT.

Very true - still staggers me how bad the UX of some of the normal exchanges are given hundreds of millions of $$$ is traded through them each day!

This is really interesting - always thought I needed to be betting large amounts to go through a broker.

Many thanks for the replies and info over the weekend guys!

I've looked at asainconnect thanks sy and they do seem to provide an immediate sticking plaster solution to my problem of betting bitcoin on betfair exchange but it's not really the same as my user experience with betfair where my decisions are acted out instantaneously and I'm driving the ship so to speak!

Also ,do you know if can we gain api access to the exchange through Asianconnect pls? I couldn't find any info regards api access on their site?


To answer your premium charge question on betfair,they very cleverly market the exchange as a "5% commission paid on winning bets" as they're general rule of thumb.

However the actual reality is that for a long term winning bettor on betfair their pricing structure and premium charge means you will pay a MINIMUM of 22.5% ish in commission,staggering I know! (I generally hover between 21% and 25% myself....21% means I'm on a good run...25% makes me cry a lot lol)


There's a huge market out there for a low cost fully functional betfair type experience using crypto and frankly given the tech know-how there is in the field im amazed it hasnt been put on the market yet! If the crypto sportsbooks are exploding as im reading about then quite simply an exchange has to follow!

Sure, it takes time to get the bugs out of new platforms. I think Fairlay has been around for years now, so should be getting the basic bet matching right. But good luck to them.

Agree about crypto in general.. it's not a customer-friendly space yet from what I have seen. And you make a good point about crypto exchanges - they have been around for years, and are the foundation of the hole system.. but so many of them are awful products.

I know you are not looking to promote anything, do not worry,,, I did not think that. And I agree that Fairlay website does not really look very friendly, it took me quite a while to understand how to use it, and the fee structure is very confusing if you do not read it properly.

Bet matching errors are common with new platforms just like as Betfair used to face, so that is only natural.

Bitcoin is still tough to understand for technical people, so they are surely doing their best but we just have to be patient. I mean look at even normal exchanges they are still so terrible in general even years after Bitcoin being in existence!

oh , nothing at all mentioned about that so I guess there is no premium charge at all
didn't know that betfair charges more for winners , this makes no sense since they are getting their commissions no matter of the traders' results

3% is not too bad given what you are getting (i.e. access to Betfair markets with BTC and no KYC).

Premium Charge is an *extra* fee that Betfair charge long-term winners. They introduced it years ago, this is from their website:
https://en-betfair.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/6156/~/premium-charge---what-is-it%3F-will-i-need-to-pay-it%3F

Basically, it was introduced to take a bigger chunk of the profits their professional users were making. And because of their market position it is something a lot of very unhappy Betfair pros have had to put up with. A source of continued irritation to most.

Funny, I had looked at OneHash some time ago, and thought then that it had been an exchange that had turned into a sportsbook. But it's an exchange? OK.. I feel thick now... How do you lay a bet or see the orderbook?

commission in both of Orbit and 9wickets is 3% on winnings , which is lower than the standard betfair but as I understood from support commissions don't get lower lower even if you wager hundred of thousands with them unlike betfair where high rollers get discounts

I didn't get what you mean about premium charge , can you explain it ?