LIGA aims to resolve the problems of conventional betting services and attract a much wider range of users by tapping into the community of sports fans.
Traditional bookmaking might be attractive to many, but it turns off even more people due to several major drawbacks.
One of the biggest issues with traditional bookies who cash in on the human penchant for gambling is that people often simply don’t trust them. And they have good reasons for that.
A bookmaker can, for example, unilaterally cancel a player’s bet, depriving the punter of a possible win.
Even if you have won, collecting your winnings can turn into quite an endeavor. Very few bookies pay you on the same day, while many try to drag out the process indefinitely or, in the worst cases, find pretexts not to pay you at all — such as alleged violations of some vague terms.
Verification procedures required for collecting your winnings are often deliberately made too complicated, and you are required to present various documents — something users are not always willing to do.
And, finally, bookmakers always ensure they are in the black regardless of the outcome by including a margin of between 2% and 20% in the odds.
LIGA’s approach eliminates all of these issues. A bet on the outcome of a sports or other event placed on the blockchain is immutable and cannot be cancelled by anyone. Blockchain bets are transparent and can be publicly viewed.
LIGA doesn’t offer any odds, and the size of any winnings is determined exclusively by the popularity of a certain outcome and the number of participants who back it. There is no central authority, and all deals are effectively made between users. LIGA only deducts a 6% fee from the prize fund.
A bet — placed in the form of purchasing a card — immediately becomes an independent asset that can be sold or exchanged at any time. All cards are available on the in-game market and Waves.Exchange.
The verification process is simple and easy, and payouts are immediately sent to holders of cards for the winning outcome.
In addition, users can create their own events, betting on the outcome within a group of selected addresses.
Overall, we are trying to move away from traditional bookmakers’ approach and interfaces, placing an emphasis on gamification. Instead of “placing a bet,” a user “buys a card” — an idea derived from physical collectible baseball cards. Digital collectible cards will trade on exchanges, while users can collect or swap them just like physical cards.
Meanwhile, LIGA users don’t need any knowledge of the underlying blockchain technology, making the service accessible to a wide range of people.
With a broad potential audience, LIGA has the ability to become a leading player in the gambling segment. Thanks to our advantages over traditional bookmakers, we can quickly grow our user base, mainly thanks to attracting people who have been wary of traditional bookmaking. By offering gamification options and an opportunity to “collect” cards, we can target a much larger audience of sports fans who have not yet ventured into betting.
LIGA sees its target audience as consisting of a wide range of fans and interested parties — from those who follow sports and cybersports teams to those who take an interest in political developments and in other famous individuals. Adding fiat gateways is set to broaden the service’s appeal further.
Meanwhile, by adding convenient processes for depositing and withdrawing ETH and BTC in the short term, LIGA will offer new opportunities to crypto enthusiasts and, specifically, to those interested in crypto trading.
In the longer term, LIGA aims to become a global supplier of information on users’ predictions for major sports and other events over widgets or APIs.
And, of course, we’ll continue to expand the list of events available for tokenization. In addition to traditional flagship events, like the English Premier League and the UEFA Champions’ League, we’ll tokenize the Russian football Premier League’s 2020/2021 season. We’ll also add the US Open tennis tournament’s final, the ice hockey Stanley Cup and the NBA basketball league.
Stepping into video gaming territory, we’ll offer The International, an annual eSports world championship tournament for the video game Dota 2, the BLAST Pro Series global final, ESL Pro Tour and Overwatch.
Finally, in a venture beyond the sporting domain, we’ll tokenize the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.
