Quote from: emberbekas on April 07, 2019, 08:32:51 PM

Quote from: Deylandra on April 07, 2019, 06:07:20 AM

I was thinking of trying to build a sports betting website with a 0% house edge.

I was wondering if anything like this existed now?

Basically, the website wouldn't use any of it's own money but would just hold funds in escrow, which would enable a 0% house edge.

For example, if you want to bet $100 on the Patriots and place it with a betting parlor, the house edge is like 10%. The casino needs to make a profit.

But if my best friend wants to bet $100 on the Rams, I can just bet against him and receive a 0% house edge.

But what if you don't have a best friend who wants to bet on the Rams?

This website would enable you to put $100 into a bitcoin escrow on the Patriots, and if another user wants to accept your bet, they put $100 into escrow for the Rams.

A smart contract would ensure automatic payoff upon completion of the game.

I mean, this is basically what Ethereum was built for I think, so I'm assuming someone has perhaps already done it?

I was living in England for a while and there's like sports betting parlors on every street corner. I'm just picturing like, all of this gone in 10 years, like what happened to blockbuster. When people figure out you can get a negligible house edge, why place bets where the juice is 10%?

Such a scenario will work if bets only involve a few people and they have different choices, one person chooses team A and the other person has to choose team B. But when betting involves many people and because the chances of people having the same choice are high, the scenario like that won't work. That is why there must be bookies that are ready to accept whatever bets we make and that will only happen with the help of the house edge.

That's exactly how the site will make money. You can get the zero house edge only if you find another user willing to bet against you. For example, if there are exactly 100 people wanting to bet on the Patriots and 100 wanting to bet on the Rams, then everyone would get a zero house edge.

But that scenario is not realistic. You might get 80 people who want to bet on the Patriots and 50 people who want to bet on the Rams.

For those additional 30 people to bet, they would have to bet against the house's money, which would have a house edge.

You could also offer table games like blackjack, etc with a house edge.

But the lure to get people in the door would be the possibility of a zero house edge on sportsbetting.

The only other way to keep the house edge zero, might be through advertising and scaling to a massive, massive size. That would require deep pockets to get off the ground though.