Ask Me Anything (AMA) #7: February 2019— eSports and New features
Summary of the monthly AMA with the Bethereum core team
As you already know, we care about updating our community and hearing everyones input. That is why we‘re holding an AMA (Ask Me Anything) that takes place on a monthly basis regarding different topics. The seventh session took place On Tuesday, February 27, 2019, 14:00 CET in our Telegram group.
This session was all about the updated eSports and new features coming in the next version of the Gaming platform and this is a summary of what we have discussed and shared with our community.
Spoiler alert: A lot of the new features were revealed.
eSports related
Kuba: New betting platform bring more options to bet? e.g. yellow cards, goals each player, etc
Giacomo: Not for sports. Our approach has always been not to bring every option but bring the most important content and the most popular bet types. It’s not just because in social betting we need enough people on each bet (type) but also because we consider it value-add to make a selection for you, giving you enough choice but helping with that choice as well. It’s a different positioning from standard betting operators…where you can bet on anything, but you’re often overwhelmed by…too much choice.
Winok: Can you tell more about the eSports: Is it just winner loser or did you pick up some of the other stuff, like u/o, number of kills, etc.?
Giacomo: So first let me share a couple of screens, then. Btw, what you’ll see today is based on UI templates… so don’t care about the content (e.g., bets that are repeated more times, scores, dates).
Most of this is already implemented and being tested. And even though you’ll mostly see screens from desktop today, all functionality is mobile-optimised and this time we will launch the new contest on both desktop and mobile at the same time. Exactly what you mention: Winner / Loser AND Over / Under on total number of kills. These are BY FAR the two most popular bets in eSports, from our research.
Winok responded: How cool is that!
Giacomo added: Very, and let me tell you — the live streams from Twitch add a really great element to the betting. You’ll be able to see the match you’re betting on, streamed live! (whenever available, but we’ll choose matches that have streams, as much as possible).
Talking of following matches live, this won’t be limited only to eSports! We’re implementing a live match tracker for sports as well (may not always be available, depends on the provider, but it should be there in most matches).
Let me show you a screenshot on that. This is for football (showing both the small screen version and the big screen one — you’ll be able to easily jump from one version to the other):
In the live match tracker for sports, you’ll see the most important actions taking place in REAL TIME, and also statistics on the match. This is the version for basketball:
Pleaderzazure: In the next competition what will happen to the old All-Time leaderboard from the Gaming Platform 1.0?
Giacomo: Because of technical and gameplay reasons we will reset the leaderboard (we have many improvements to the leaderboard in the new platform and a fresh restart works best). But we will most likely keep the leaderboard positions from the older betting game saved, so if you want to check it out, you will be able to.
Kuba: Next competition/platform testing will be the same rules like previous?
Giacomo: Rules will be similar, but we have a few changes:
- Your starting point balance will be 4000 points.
- Bet share and referrals will work slightly different (more of this later)
- We will split the betting contest into two rounds, each of about 5 weeks.
So, you’ll be able to win prizes in round 1, then leaderboards will be reset for round 2, and all players will restart (doesn’t matter you didn’t do too well in round 1, you get a new chance to win!). Also, we’ll have time limited contests!
N K: Will you include the alliance into the new betting competition?
Giacomo: Not yet. We DEFINITELY plan to include alliances and reuse part of the work that was done for our contest in January, but there is really too much to develop now, so it’s not a top priority.
Talking of that, we want to launch the new Betting Contest in mid-March (exact date TBC), so we may decide to postpone some extra feature(s) based on that. What you also don’t see but took a lot of effort from the development team is a recording of part of our solution to be more performing, load faster, and improve real-time refresh / update of many site sections, e.g. the match scores. That many, means also some glitches at the start, but in the long run this was needed for future-proofing our platform.
Luka: On the screenshots you sent the game is actually going on and you can bet? I’m probably understanding it wrong, there shouldn’t be a ‘live bet’ element included in pool betting, right?
Giacomo: Live betting is for the future (it’s on our roadmap). For now, you’ll be able to “watch” the game, but bets will still have to be entered before the start of the game. However, as you point out, this live match tracker or the eSports live streamer is the basis for future live betting functionality.
Only the start, let me continue ;) Yes this will show you the winning multiplier you can expect on every game, AND whenever available, the odds in the market (what you see as results probability).
But you’ll be able to do more than that. Clicking on ODDS OVER TIME will show you how the social betting odds have evolved since players started to bet on the game.
This works well with the possibility to bet on multiple results, at different times. Say that at the beginning you like the odds for HOME…but then you see they changed quite a bit, you can still hedge your bets by choosing a new bet result.
In this image you also see that you’ll be able to compare odds within our platform and the market (bookmakers) but this feature will come later, now we have to finish more work for the next contest :).
Steven: Will I be able to change my bets in this competition?
Giacomo: Bet edit not yet implemented (yes, I know we owe you this), BUT you’ll be able to bet on more results for the same game. So, if you bet on home win and later on you decide to also bet on Draw, you’ll be able to do that):
This feature will work well with the new indications you’ll get by clicking on the info icon on current potential win.
It’s a bit hard right now for players to tell what influences their potential wins (in standard betting, it would be the odds set by betting operators). Now, clicking on the info icon on current potential win will show you how much you can get back from every bet, on any result you bet on.
Marshallow: Rewards and top places will be the same as during the last event?
Giacomo: No. it will be our biggest contest ever, split into two rounds, with the top 500 players receiving prizes in each round. And we’re also planning time-limited competitions (one or two, during the contest).
Let me tell you a bit about the time-limited competition by first showing another improvement that will be in the next betting game. Leaderboards will have much more functionality:
In itself this is maybe not so interesting (although you’ll be able to see how good you are on the leaderboard in eSports only, or in the last week), but it will allow us to run time-limited competitions.
Hendriwahyudi1768: Is it possible that in the coming competition can see the betting history on other user profiles such as in the previous world cup competition? Maybe this will be more transparent.
Giacomo: We haven’t included this feature but in future we plan for this AND also for the possibility of FOLLOWING other players, along with some indicators on how good the other players are / how risky their bets.
Ioannis: Can u disclose next competition reward model?
Giacomo: It will be similar to the previous betting game, but we’ll have a bit more emphasis on virality as well. So, more points for referring users (we calculated that referrals made up only 2% of the points bettors who referred people gained) and new modalities / variations on bet share. Still, by far and large the winners of the competition will be those who get the best results in bets.
Primarydumz: Do you think there will be interest in eSports on your betting platform? As I know only or mostly gamers know eSports.
Giacomo: Huge request, actually, from the community. eSports is growing very strong, especially among the young. But if you like sports betting, you’ll have it there as well. We plan for broad scope exactly to give you a choice.
eSports non-related
Kuba and Nik: Could you tell about progress with license? Work are faster than expected or dates are not changed?
Giacomo: We have already passed due diligence and are ready to submit the draft for the application, but please this AMA, about the new betting platform.
Winok: Will I be able to invite friend for a duel on the 1v1 games or is it random? Because that would trigger some of my passive buddy’s?
Giacomo: We’ve been talking about 1v1 betting for some time, but since then the team started to get really creative on what we want to bring you. It requires more work and preparation than the original 1v1 theme we had in mind (we never make it easy for ourselves…) but we’re planning some great stuff and I am sure you’ll be impressed. However, that’s not what we’re going to cover today — we’re still running proof of concepts and before we finish them, we won’t disclose the “winner” that will get to you!
Faisal: Can we create a gaming platform, with day and night modes for web appearance?
Martin: We’ve actually been considering this from the very start. I still remember the conversation we had with Giacomo and the team — betting works much better with dark modes. However, in the future, creating a light mode is possible. All of the code is pretty carefully written, so restyling shouldn’t be a problem down the line. For now, we’ll stick to those colors. However — eSports and Token Gaming will have their own “primary” color, so platform components are clearly distinguishable.
Marek: I will tell you that I was skeptical about this project because of the competition which is not small, but I have invested in ICO.
When can we expect a license? Currently, the majority of investors in ICO are on a large loss. In my opinion, only obtaining a license, and for this proving that the project is legal and will be able to enter markets where other projects cannot, will allow us to regain losses.
For clarity, I do not blame you for my losses
Giacomo: We track over 80 direct or indirect competitors and believe we’re more than well positioned. Yes, a license is very important, so no worries — we’re absolutely set on that. But getting a service licensed if it’s not appealing or usable won’t get you very far. With this new betting platform version, we’re ready to proceed to other areas of development (token-based betting) and to licensing.
We track the competition, we think there are good projects out there, with a different strategy or positioning compared to us, but we’re really not worried. There is enough space available for the top projects and we wish best of luck who those who work hard, because they deserve it — and we know it’s not easy to build a platform from scratch in a cutting edge tech space, with a crypto market that is not in their best shape. But we are confident we’re doing fine, and at least we know we have the strongest community support behind!
Ioannis: In what stage is the SDK development and when is the deadline?
Martin: Currently, we are in the process of development. For the upcoming months, we will support our own games that plug in to the SDK, to see the scope of what needs to be added. We’ve actually discussed it in detail yesterday — the time estimates from the devs. are also in, and I can tell you — looking good!
Miguel1Kaizer: Regarding License. Since you are in Europe you know that almost each country has it own law. If I’m Spanish I only can bet in Spanish sportsbooks that have license there, the same for France, UK, Germany, etc. How will you deal with this now and in the future if the project 🚀. Will you accept costumers from countries that doesn’t allow their citizens to “gamble” in sites that doesn’t have a license registered there?
Giacomo: We will always have the free to play model, as it’s legal in every country, allows us to build a strong player base and brand awareness. In countries where we will operate with a license, we will do it directly. In others we will partner or white-label the solution. White-labeling is an important part of our business model.
Miguel added: No one wants to play the free to play model regarding bets. As a sports betting bettor and trader, I don’t do this for free 😁.
Giacomo: We got 14000 players in our older betting game, with a version of the platform that was just at the start and zero paid marketing. Never say nobody or never :) Free to play bases are very important for monetisation as well, but i won’t get into this now.
Miguel1Kaizer: In the early stages, will you add liquidity to the markets in case some “pools” have heavy action only in 1 side, and the odds doesn’t match what the market is offering for the same game?
Giacomo: No we will not — but having bet edits available won’t make it so easy to run arbitrage, as in social betting the odds can change till the end, especially if you have (limited) bet edit capability.
Miguel1Kaizer: Why don’t you go after Europe first? Do you know around 300K people from all over the world play UEFA Fantasy games?
Giacomo: We are not excluding this at all. Initially anyway a soft launch is what is needed, in a tier 3 or tier 2 market. The US is tier 1, so we’d never start there. I just wanted to say that we do have it in mind as the end goal.
Andre: Do u think Bethereum will look to partner with any crypto casino?
Giacomo: We take all possible partnership into consideration but we want to make sure that any partner we engage with brings the same level of integrity, engagement, and transparency we adhere to. At the moment our plan is to bring a solid sport and eSports social betting sportsbook and integrate third-party games in an innovative way (that’s what we’re working on now, in addition to completing the platform for the upcoming betting game contest)
This was an amazing session, thank you everyone for your great questions! We definitely want to keep you involved and truly value your feedback.
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