Topic: Is there a "betfair" for bitcoin up and running yet? (Read 683 times)

Thought the latest Exbet news could be relevant in this thread:

Curacao license granted, September launch date confirmed, and liquidity on its way  

Read more here:
Exbet awarded Curacao Licence ahead of September Launch
https://www.cryptogamblingnews.com/news/exbet-awarded-curacao-licence-ahead-of-september-launch/

Hi, we saw that you signed up on the ANN thread, that's good news!
We really hope it lives up to your expectations - we have been working hard to bring a pure old-school  betting exchange to Bitcoin bettors. See you in the Closed Beta 

Interesting, if this does what it says on the tin. I'm withholding judgement until we see what is being delivered. Will sign up for Closed Beta.

That's great to hear meliquidaes, pleased to have you on board for the Closed Beta.

Nice, been waiting for something like this for awhile. Will check out the beta.

Hello people!

We think it is relevant here to mention that exbet.io is going into Closed Beta next week (Oct 1st).

The OP asked if there was a "betfair" for bitcoin.. well that's exactly what exbet.io is.

In fact, CryptoGamblingNews said this of exbet.io - "It looks like we may finally have a Betfair for the Bitcoin age".

Please take a look at the ANN thread here, we'd love to have you join the Closed Beta before full launch later in 2019:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/exbet-is-live-the-bitcoin-betting-exchange-exbetio-5187610

Regards
The exbet.io team

Still...nothing...?

This is an interesting one. I remember sports betting in the early 2000s and the state of most sportsbooks was pretty dire. It was always a nightmare to find the market you wanted to bet on, the UI was horrible. It is basically where we are at with the vast majority of crypto sportsbook today.

It does seem the tide is beginning to turn though...

Faireum.io is too fair, anytime and everytime.

yeh, some reasonable numbers there although i think the volumes are the exception rather than the rule.

Look at this right now:
One of the most popular soccer markets today.

https://fairlay.com/market/sevilla-vs-alaves-79/?referral=81e186f2-0d5e-441c-be8c-d0c8badd1e3d

Sevilla vs. Alaves.

Seviilla BACK 1.425 <---> LAY 1.445

lets convert it to asian handicap:
Sevilla -0.5 vs Alaves +0.5 = 1.425 vs 3.247 The bookmaker takes a margin of 0.97% (payout is: 99.03%).

I don't think anyone has a best margin at the moment. Even fiat bookies and exchanges like matchbook will not give you such a good odds becouse they will take at least 2% from your winnings.

Look at this market for exampale:
https://fairlay.com/archive/washington-wizards-denver-nuggets-51/?referral=81e186f2-0d5e-441c-be8c-d0c8badd1e3d

Someone placed on Denver Nuggets -7.5 first half around 8000 mBTC = 8 BTC = 40 000 USD.
He placed seven consecutive bets (~1.3 BTC) to get amount he wanted. It's not a small amount for NBA second half  market. Nitrogensports will not allow you to place several bets at the same market, and their odds always lower.

Today's game: NCAA Wisc Green Bay vs Marshall -5.5 spread:
Nitrogensports: 1.909 vs 1.909 The bookmaker takes a margin of 5.21% (payout is: 94.79%).
Fairlay: 1.925 vs 1.925 The bookmaker takes a margin of 3.90% (payout is: 96.10%).

This is an early  line example. Close to game you will get even better odds. And you can make your own offer as well.

I suggest everyone to register on both and compare lines and limits before placing bets. I will assure you most of them will be on Fairlay platform.

 

Agreed, crypto sports betting is maturing, just as so many other parts of crypto-industry are maturing. A Betfair for BTC is surely just a matter of time.

No, I think your words were correct!
I just wanted to know - how much money can you usually bet on FairLay?
And what are nitrgoensports limits?

May be I chose wrong words. Sorry. Non native speaker. I meant their limits mach higher compared to other crypto sports bookies. nitrogensports have similar limits but they offer lower odds and don't allow rebet. Anyway if you are not a highroller I would recomend bitcoinrash, they offer pini lines with 0.2% rakeback, and dont lower odds when you make parlays (compared to Pinnacle, betbtc). Bitcoinrash is the best chose for anyone who don't bet over 0.5 Btc IMHO. But they have the same cons - no live betting.

I guess its possible to bet on sports via crypto  then take a hedge on the crypto vs fiat and lay off the bet in FIAT.   Thats introducing extra cost and hassle to the process is not really ideal.

Anything that adds certainty to crypto has a powerful creative effect for all the business that then can take place.  BTC being around 10 years even though its been up and down, accumulates into some certainty for business to expand.    Reading this thread seems like crypto lay betting could possibly be superior to betfair for some people, which is surprising how much its developed as an industry.   Makes me more bullish for crypto overall.

After the opportunity to bet on sports using cryptocurrency, I began to do it only in this way. I will not advertise the sites of firms that accept sports betting in cryptocurrency. There is a large number of them in Google. It became much more convenient for me to bet.

Thanks for feedback, good to hear other people's thoughts!

Just out of interest, what would you say are "huge bets" in the bitcoin sportsbook market?

I totally agree with all you said about Fairlay. And will add some mine:

1. Built in crypto exchange. Very usefull when you want to place some bets but bitcoin mempool overloaded (like todays). Litecoin, BCH, ETH, DASH accepted.

2. You can place huge bets (compared to other bitcoin sportsbooks) and you can rebet the same market many times. You literally have pini line for Bitcoin sports betting with good limits . There are people who bet around 50 BTC on a single bet.
 
3. Well documented API (you can make your own script for market making or test some strategis, just carefully combine free and paid API's.

4. Lowest fees on the market.

5. No KYC.


If Fairlay had matchbook/betfair - like UI it would be the best place for crypto sports betting.

 Indeed there are some sites who are massively adopting the system which is given to us by the gambling sites and market places, I better feel safe while invest  now as price is not very high but there are chances to see power of your money, earning people are reacting well about recent growth in gambling market.

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 ?

It sounds v decent, no KYC obviously a huge attraction. What is the commission rate? Does it work just like on Betfair (5-7% base rate with discounts for volume players)? Or better? And what about premium charge?
Really appreciate the info, bit of an eye-opener after using vanilla Betfair for so many years!

it's really easy mate , back when I started using them it was complicated and everything related to deposits and withdrawals was through support but now it's way easier
just create account with asianconnect then login to your dashboard , you can find all what you need there

they have 24/7 live support , you can ask them whatever questions you have and they reply really fast
for deposits and withdrawals you will see the rate in your dashboard once you want to make a deposit or withdrawal and the rates are really accurate

reason I recommend Asianconnect is that in my case they never asked for KYC , and their deposits and withdrawals fee are close to zero while other brokers take 1-2% on every transaction

I had really high hopes for OneHash. Check it out and you'll see what I mean. Design wise, far ahead of say fairlay, and really smooth navigation.

Only issue is very poor size of orders, and very limited markets, at least that would interest me.

They appear to be trying hard to gain users and volume so am always hopeful but if it took Betfair ages, not sure when we can expect the same. Got to focus on users for Bitcoin first I guess.

Thanks for sharing your experience, very interesting.

How easy was it to set up the account with Asiaconnect?
And when you deposit BTC with them, how do they handle the conversion to fiat (and back again)?

1) no they aren't for high rollers , been using them for over a year a now and did many small deposits and withdrawals ( I'm using Asianconnect88 )

2) thing is that you aren't directly depositing to orbit or 9wickets , you create an account with asianconnect then you ask their support to open an account for you in orbit
they will create your account and send you your login details

after that you deposit bitcoin to asianconnect and transfer it to orbit , so both of your deposits and withdrawals are through the broker ( which is Asianconnect in my case )

they are really great and I'm using them a lot for horse racing

Hello Josjac, the ones I know of, were already recommended to you (Fairlay and BetBTC).
Once you try them out I would like to ask you to leave a vote in my rankings thread. You can vote for other bookies as well.

Here is the Sports Book rankings thread
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/sports-book-rankings-completely-user-generated-1820529

Fairlay is actually ranked 3rd there, with 17 votes, so you can also check for players reviews on the thread as well.

Good luck!

If you find spam you can always report to moderator to take action on it to dude. I am not sure whether he explained the real experience on it or what. Public troll of any user id not recommended in the forum. Cheers.

I don't know what liquidity is like there, but the website is a nightmare to look at, let alone use. They have some very odd features and a lot of tech issues historically around bet matching errors. But they seem to be honest and doing their best, and that is to their credit.

I am not looking to 'promote' any product.. If the product is good and provides me with value opportunities, I will be a user.
I am amazed the BTC space doesn't yet have a dedicated betting exchange that is built to professional standards.

I keep seeing people complain about liquidity at Fairlay but every time I check it out myself, I can see some pretty big orders there, for sure more than 1 BTC for even the lines I bet,,, I do not think there are that many whales who go for exchanges!

Keep promoting them and they will grow, just like OP says, Betfair took a long time to become popular and that is with fiat which almost everyone could use.

(1) That's my understanding as well. Another possible problem with these agents is that they act as a middleman between you and the exchange, which stops you being able to Back and Lay in real-time. Which defeats the purpose really.

(2) No, I couldn't see any mention of BTC deposits on their websites.

After digging a little deeper, I found that:
- Orbit minimum deposit is 500 EUR (!)
- 9 Wickets don't allow API access to Betfair.. which rules out most of the useful ways to interact with an exchange at scale.
- 9 Wickets don't allow Cash Out either... strange.

More info here:
https://acc-ex.com/9wickets/

Couple of questions:

(1) My understanding was betting agents are only really for high rollers. Is that not the case anymore?

(2) Do Orbit / 9Wickets allow BTC deposits?

You are in the right place to find a betting site which accept Bitcoin. There are already some good responses you can pick any from them or you can just explore the forum and find one suitable for you. You do not need to explore the entire forum, just explore the Gambling board

Cheers :-)

You can use a betting agent with Bitcoin such as AsianConnect88, BetInAsia and others - and deposit your Bitcoin with them and withdraw via Bitcoin with them as well.

They can open for you an account with Orbit Exchange or 9Wickets which are BetFair clones!

This way you would participate, indirectly, in the real BetFair website - and would pay even smaller commissions (3% instead of 5% on the winnings).

Cheers guys,agree re them two sites,potential for sure but a long way from what I'd be used too or indeed looking for at the minute.

Bookiepro look and feel last summer was more or less there as far as I can tell in terms of the user exchange  experience (backing/laying) but obviously trading was difficult  given the limited scope of the number of users and the amount of "currency" in play.

As we know an exchange lives or dies by it's liquidity!

I didn't join betfair til 2003 but would have liked to have seen the liquidity volumes in the very early years?

Is there anyone here that pre-dates 2003 and can remember how it was?

Betfair user for as long as I can remember (since early 2000s).

I haven't used the two Bitcoin sports betting exchanges mentioned here, but neither really look anywhere close to the experience.

It took awhile for Bitcoin sportsbooks to get close to the likes of bet365 (IMO they are still a little behind, but closing the gap fast). I fear it may still be awhile until we see a Bitcoin sports betting exchange that can compete.

Would be happy to be proved wrong...

OP, you took the words out of my mouth, also a long-time Betfair user and can't believe there isn't a booming BTC betting exchange yet. 

Good links from leowonderful, I have checked both those out already...  they are the best I could find but let's just say they both leave a lot to be desired. Be interested to hear what others think about them. Also if any others on here use Betfair or another of the fiat exchanges. 

Leo you are truly wonderful! I will check out them links,many thanks!

Both Fairlay (click for link) and BetBTC (click for link) are sportsbooks and also betting exchanges, though I've personally never used either of them and they don't seem to have a lot of volume from what I can see right now. I don't currently see any active scam accusations against either site so they should be safe to use (BetBTC's thread dates back to Nov 2014 and Fairlay's to July 2014), though please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Long term user of Betfair betting exchange here, mostly soccer but also other sports. Not a big user of bitcoin for betting, but starting to get involved. Would love to see a proper betting exchange like Betfair with BTC and lots of liquidity!

I used bookiepro on their testnet during the world cup and even managed to bag a couple of small prizes but that seems to have died a death at minute?

I hear there is so much BTC being bet on sportsbooks, surely a betting exchange is the next logical step? Interested to hear others' opinions on this.