Editorial Notes (vol. 31) – Enjoy the World Cup with Web3

A week ago, the FIFA World Cup started in Qatar – one of the biggest sporting events in the world and it has invigorated the gambling community as well as all other sports enthusiasts. Gambling and sports have always been closely intertwined therefore, it is not surprising that on-chain prediction markets and betting applications saw a renewed interest.

For example, one of the dApps we’ll highlight here – Overtime Markets has seen by far the highest volumes (150 thousand dollars on November 28th) and transaction counts (>1000 on November 25) on the platform since it has been live, with the vast majority of activity happening specifically on World Cup betting – mind you, prior to the world cup it barely achieved half of these numbers.

All in all, Web3 is very well suited for these types of applications due to its immutability, trustlessness, and borderlessness. The ease of using these dApps is virtually the same as that of their Web2 counterparts – requiring users to simply connect with their wallet and make bets in no time. But, there is a large bonus in the fact that you can avoid the tedious process of identification.

Let's check out the dApps that make it possible.

Bet, win, and redeem on Bookmaker.XYZ.

Bookmaker.XYZ is decentralized and permissionless betting market to which you can connect with a Web3 wallet and place bets. When you bet, your money is locked into blockchain smart contracts which have pre-determined outcomes. Once the game/event finishes - the contract allows you to redeem your winnings. 

At the moment, it only supports football betting, however, they have plans to add tennis, boxing, and esports in the near future. Additionally, during the World Cup, Bookmaker is running the largest betting competition with up to 50 thousand dollars on the line – learn more about how it works here.

Join the Web3 sports market revolution with Overtime Markets.

Overtime is a positional market for popular sporting events that operates without relying on a centralized entity like most sports markets. As a sports AMM built on top of Thales, it allows users to purchase positions for their favorite sports teams through the highs and lows of an entire season. With sports such as soccer, football, basketball, UFC, Formula 1, and Moto GP all on offer, you can finally support your favorite team or athlete entirely on the blockchain.

Augur – a no-fee betting platform with no limit on what or how much you can bet.

Augur is a decentralized oracle and peer-to-peer protocol for prediction markets on Ethereum that lets anyone create a market around the outcome of any real-world event.  It offers Augur Market where users can create their own prediction markets around real-world events, and The Sportsbook where you can place a wager on your favorite team, game, or sporting event.

It is geo-blocking, so if you are trying to access trading from one of the following regions that aren't supported – the United States, the United Kingdom, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, or Zimbabwe you won’t be able to participate.

Bet on games and climb the leaderboard on Dexsport.

Dexsport is a betting platform deployed on Polygon, Avalanche, BSC, and OKC. It allows you to bet on virtually any sport – football, hockey, basketball, esports, and many others. Additionally, when winning you not only receive the rewards, but you’ll also start climbing the leaderboard and compete for the top spot as the most profitable gambler on the platform.

When playing on this platform, you join a shared liquidity pool to receive your winnings. For that reason, you don’t need the bookmarker’s permission to withdraw your winnings since you will be playing on a decentralized protocol.

Sakka – where Web3 betting meets DeFi.

Sakka is a Binance Smart Chain and Klaytn-based prediction matching and DeFi platform. It provides a one-stop forecasting service with a built-in revenue-sharing mechanism supporting liquidity staking and deflationary token economics.

Currently, you can only bet on the World Cup matches and participate in the liquidity mining program by depositing select tokens and earning the native token returns in the process.

Bet on the highly debated topics and events with PolyMarket.

Polymarket is an information markets platform that lets you trade on the world’s most highly-debated topics (e.g. sports, politics, current events, etc.). You can build a portfolio based on your forecasts and earn a return if you are right. At the same time, Polymarket is a great source of unbiased and real-time data on future events.

When you decide to buy shares in a market, you are weighing in with your own knowledge and view of the future. Market prices reflect what traders think are the odds of future events, turning the trading activity into actionable insights that help people make better decisions.