Thanks again for the questions! Will jump right in...
OP, do you really need censorship resistance and go through the inefficiencies of the blockchain only to set up a sports betting exchange? What is the value proposition of this idea and what difference does it make if I use a regulated counterpart of your service that accepts Bitcoins and altcoins?
Hi Wind_FURY, good questions.
Some of the key reasons for us building Bookie on top of a blockchain (well, not any old blockchain, it's the Peerplays blockchain, which is built specifically for gaming and betting apps):
- Provably fair - All source code for Bookie will be available on Github. No secrets.
- Real-time transparency - All Bookie bets published on a public ledger in real-time. No more doubts or arguments about what bet was or was not made, what the stakes were, for how much, etc.
The same can be achieved by your centralized counterparts, so there is no added value in using a blockchain there.
With a centralized architecture, there is always a single authority who decides what transactional information is released and when (if ever).
By using the Peerplays blockchain as back-end, Bookie as a matter of fact has full, public, real-time disclosure of all transactions. This is built in to the tech - every bet
By the way, does anyone know of any centralized sportsbooks or exchanges that offer full, public disclosure of every transaction in real-time? We haven't heard of any, but interested to hear others' experience.
It is not a question of who is first to do it but does it give your service more value. But I am sure an argument can be made for yes it can and no it does not. But if your service is tied with gambling, I believe some things must remain private.
You will also for sure have problems with scaling some time in the future
Thanks to the Dmo09 for bringing up how DPoS & Graphene allows the Peerplays blockchain to scale (up to 10,000 transactions per second and beyond).
More info (including the BitShares stress test) can be found here:
https://www.peerplays.com/resources/#grapheneI will look into this. I know there are some top Bitcoiners who argue that DPOS sacrifices some decentralization, and plain POS is not a very good way to secure blockchains. I will read up on them and come back.
Regarding censorship-resistance in sports betting, this could be seen to have value for someone who finds themselves in a situation where such censorship is practiced.
Hope that answers your questions!
I could see some benefits of censorship resistance in your service. A good example of it would be if you are running an illegal and unlicensed P2P betting exchange. Are you running one?
The Bookie app is being developed by PBSA (that's us!) - check out
http://bookie.exchange/ for the back story.
Once released, the Bookie app will be downloaded by end users and connect to the Peerplays blockchain, which takes care of all bet matching and settlement. The Peerplays blockchain is fully decentralized. PBSA has no operational or executive role in its operation. Independent "Witnesses" run the Peerplays blockchain (
https://www.peerplays.com/governance/#witnesses).
So... No. PBSA is not running a betting exchange, unlicensed or otherwise.
But this is new tech and it doesn't fit neatly into established, traditional models. We really appreciate people like Wind_FURY taking the time to help us explain the disruptive tech behind Bookie and Peerplays.
You are playing loop the loop with the regulators. Hahaha. But does the service have a token? It reminds me a lot like the DAO, in how everything is set up.