How Blockchain Can Revitalize the Betting App Industry

How Blockchain Can
Revitalize the Betting
App Industry

Part 1. Intro. The State of Betting Apps
The State of Betting Apps
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The market for betting in general and betting apps in particular has been growing steadily
over the past few years. This kind of upswing is bringing new faces into the business, both
on the entrepreneur side and the client side. However, the growth won’t last unless major
changes are made. For one, we must address the current issues that plague the market and
its products. Mainly, there has to be a change in the relationship between players and the
betting establishments.
In this publication, we’ll talk about the challenges that the market faces now and the
approaches to solving them. Our aim is to introduce blockchain technology into the industry
on a global scale, which can revitalize it and turn many of the problems into opportunities
for further growth.
Furthermore, we will also address the issues that may arise during this technological
revolution. This should help save the market from any instability and make the transition
easier.

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At first glance you may be easily fooled into thinking that the betting apps market is doing
perfectly fine. It’s showing substantial growth, projected to keep rising for years and years,
and the number of betting platforms seemingly rolling in customers and profit is quite
encouraging. However, the optics of the situation change once you peer closer and realize
that the number of successful apps may be high but it’s not proportional to the overall
number of platforms available. And though the growth is, indeed, present it’s not as
stunning as it could be.
The most pressing problem for betting apps and services right now is, indisputably, the lack
of trust from customers. Most apps are seeing a huge flow of people leaving their platforms
as concerns of privacy, data leaks, and rigged games are brought up. With even a tiny
mistake likely to take a toll on your profits, there’s little room for error when it comes to your
relationship with the customers.
There’s also the question of payout speed. If the player doesn’t get their fairly won money
right away, they are likely to complain or even leave altogether. But relying on some of the
speedier services results in high commissions, which have to be shouldered by either the
app or the player. The former option means you lose money directly while the latter will
cause even more outrage from users who want the whole pie. Taking pieces out of it is a
surefire way to make them angry.
It’s also important to stress just how much the market is hurting itself. Being a very lucrative
industry, it has attracted thousands of bookmakers and casino. In theory, this could be good
since it diversifies the market and prevents monopolies.
Trust Needed
Need For Speed
Overcrowded

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However, the oversaturation leads to in-ﬁghting instead of healthy competition and the user
base gets diluted badly. Many betting apps that we’d call popular nowadays don’t really net
that many users and have plenty of room to grow. However, the constant changes in
priorities and unending technical and PR issues make this a very challenging system to
thrive in.
You don’t have to be a gambling guru to know that some bets aren’t worth making. But right
now, the betting app market isn’t a certain win nor a guaranteed loss. With some companies
staying on top and, relatively speaking, thriving, it’s hard to deny that smaller companies can
follow the leader.
But, still, we’d suggest that these very leaders are in need of innovation before the whole
market turns into a situation of the blind leading the blind. With the adoption of blockchain,
one could revolutionize the way betting apps run and the way any betting platform interacts
with the player.
If the betting app market wants to really reach its full potential, quite a few changes have to
be made. In order to clean up the reputation of casinos and solve technical issues, we’ll look
at separate cases and present a short guide on the possibilities of ﬁxing these problems.
From the problems we’ve described, it should be easy enough to see which challenges the
market is facing now. Solving them will be a bit of a tougher trick but we’ll get to it in time.
First on the board is the lack of trust and transparency. The challenge here lies in gaining
customers’ trust without rehauling the betting app infrastructure completely. The solution
needs to be not too intrusive and yet somehow guarantee that players won’t suspect that
the bookmakers are cheating.
Gaining Transparency
Part 2. Challenges And Solutions

Challenges And Solutions
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This issue is also challenging on the simple basis of being ancient. As soon as the first
player lost their first gamble or game in a casino, the lack of trust began. Proving that you
don’t have an unfair advantage and aren’t cheating, and persuading the customer to keep
playing even if they lose, that’s the real nut to crack here.
And though the lack of trust is as much an issue of public relations as it is a consequence of
technological imperfections, our expertise as a company can only tackle the tech side of
things. So for this challenge, we’ll attempt to help you choose an approximate tech stack
that can help establish transparency and make trust possible or even likely between you
and your players.
Our second challenge is the speed at which payouts happen. Or, rather, the challenge lies
in finding ways to boost that speed. It matters because a player who doesn’t get their
winnings quick loses trust. And we’ve just talked about the importance of trust.
Optimizing Cash Flow

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Theoretically, this is a challenge that can never be truly “solved” because the faster people
get their money - the better. But there’s certainly a reasonable limit to this speed and, really,
speed isn’t the sole factor here. We must also take into account the errors that sometimes
occur during payment processing, either through bank problems or the betting app’s fault.
This is a major red ﬂag for players and one that’s easy enough to prevent if your payment
architecture is well-made.
We’ve also touched upon commissions and the way they push away some players. This is a
tougher challenge to address but it’s actually one that can be solved outright. We will touch
upon the methods of eliminating commissions.
Let’s reiterate, just the problem of payouts is, in reality, three challenges:
As for the challenge of regulating competition, well, tech won’t help you on this one. It’s still
worth mentioning and, ideally, if the stronger competitors all advance technologically, the
worse apps will fall off on their own.
So, for now we’ll be talking about these core challenges:
Blockchain is a perfect tool for immutability and transparency, as the data is securely stored
inside it and cannot be modiﬁed. This means that players will have no reason to distrust the
casino as the latter will have no way to cheat. The smart contracts will guarantee that the
payments are set in stone and trustable. Plus, they will help eliminate any unsavory third
parties that might have added more risks of cheating.
1. Upping the payout speed
2. Circumventing bank payout errors
3. Eliminating commissions
• Enabling trust
• Raising payout speed
• Changing payout structure
• Reducing commissions
• Advancing technologically to be competitive

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Having these immutable protections will give the power to the players instead of the
casinos while keeping things fair. Moreover, blockchain guarantees that the record of wins
and losses will be available with no errors or tampering. This makes it easier to prove that a
single disgruntled client isn’t cause for concern. Those who are mad about losing and want
to rip off the casino won’t have any ground to really complain. Instead, only valid complaints
will be heard.
Now, for the question of payout structure is upended once you introduce blockchain. First
and foremost, you can eliminate pretty much all current intermediaries. Online payment-
processing systems, banks, and sketchy bookmakers will fall by the wayside automatically.
This both speeds up the payment process and makes it more direct, eliminating the need to
trust third parties. Moreover, this substantially cuts commissions or even eliminates them
completely.
By having lower or absent commissions you either have decreased losses or relieve your
clients of having to pay extra, which improves client retention. Basically, it’s a win-win
situation for both the platform and the players and it’s a direct beneﬁt of blockchain
integration.

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And you should also remember that, depending on your blockchain of choice, you could
considerably increase the payout speeds in general. This is an important factor for customer
satisfaction and it doesn’t require anything beyond careful research into your tech of choice.
Truthfully, blockchain isn’t guaranteed to eliminate 100% of errors that can happen during
payouts. However, it eliminates the human factor by automating the process, which makes
delays and errors far less likely.
All of these solutions might have you extra excited to get started but remember that new
technology brings new challenges as well. Let us start off by saying that no matter how
many challenges you might face when integrating blockchain into your betting app the
benefits will still outweigh them. Plus, this particular section is specifically intended to help
with any issues that arise.
So, what’s the first and most obvious challenge? As always, everything comes down to
money. Blockchain isn’t cheap and neither are experts in the field. And migrating from one
tech to another is always stressful financially.
This isn’t exactly “solvable” as much as it can be lessened. All you need to do to make the
financial hit less scary is prepare well, hire an actual expert, and not rush the transition.
You’ll be integrating blockchain into essential parts of your business so messing with the
process isn’t wise.
Nowadays there are a lot of blockchain platforms and solutions that are running on different
consensus mechanisms and have been designed for different purposes. Most of them are
reducing costs, as you don't need to pay for transactions, or for the code execution.
We still wouldn’t recommend a full integration to businesses that are already struggling to
stay afloat but those who have the budget planned out aren't likely to suffer any real
problems with this one.
Price To Pay

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There’s also the challenge of choosing the right stack and, if that fails, finding a way out of
the wrong one. Making do with imperfect technology isn’t a new challenge for tech
companies so this isn’t a dealbreaker but it’s important to be ready for the problem.
In short, if you have a sub-optimal tech stack, your app will likely be less polished than
desired, whether in terms of speed or design or overall performance. This will likely damage
the user base but small hiccups are easily coverable by offering players free incentives.
From “extra credit” for playing to promo-codes, a well-placed bonus will easily persuade a
hesitant user to keep playing. It’s an elegant and cheap solution to a big problem.
To minimize the risks of choosing the wrong tech stack, it's important to pick the correct
development approach. The best option is to find a trustworthy expert and to spend some
time on planning and defining the blockchain architecture, as well as the core features. E.g.
if the solution is planned to be non-tokenized, it's better to choose blockchain with a
consensus that is running at a transaction level, for example R3 Corda or Hyperledger
Fabric.
Choices, Choices
Ethereum is an open-source blockchain platform for development of decentralized services
featuring smart contracts functionality. It has multiple token standards along with native
cryptocurrency called Ether. This might all sound quite difficult but, in practice, Ethereum is
one of the most accessible and versatile options on the market right now. Ethereum gained
its popularity in different fields, such as finance, trading, supply chain management, and, of
course, betting and gaming.
Ethereum1
Part 3. Blockchain technologies for
betting apps

Blockchain technologies for betting apps
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With the help of the smart contracts, Ethereum is trying to solve the trust issue among
bettors and bookmakers, by keeping track of all bets using a blockchain. So, right away,
we’re talking about a core issue that concerns absolutely all betting app businesses.
Smart contracts are in place to assure that you get what’s yours. When using a smart
contract you can be sure that the other party doesn’t back out of your contract or
agreement, even if it was simply verbal.
Effectively, this not only guarantees payout but also speeds them up by removing the
human element from the process. With smart contracts your winnings will be sent out as
soon as the match/game is over.
1
2
3

Blockchain technologies for betting apps
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Right now, EOS.IO’s biggest advantage is its speed. Much faster than the other leader -
Ethereum - this blockchain is perfect for building blockchain-based gaming solutions. It also
deals swiftly with the stereotype of blockchain being slow, which could have been a hit to
publicity otherwise.
If you’re willing to truly innovate and actually create the core of your betting app using
blockchain, we highly recommend EOS. It’s still in the process of growing but it’s already
promising and a good choice for those with ambitions.
The very architecture of EOS is rooted in scaling, oriented for huge operation speeds (up to
100,000 per second). This plus the low latency make it great for apps that already have an
established userbase.
It’s also important to note that EOS.IO doesn’t take any fees, which makes it great for your
payout infrastructure. Considering the beneﬁts, we’d call it a suitable choice for integration.
Tron is the most popular betting and gaming blockchain framework. It’s aimed at eliminating
the market centralization and unfair fees that come with deploying your betting app to the
app stores.
With no middlemen and a direct relationship between the platform and the player, TRON is
poised to turn the betting market on its head. It’s innovative and reasonably fast at 2,000
transactions per second. A good ﬁt for smaller betting apps that want to grow and improve.
EOS2
Tron3

Conclusion
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Although we’ve presented quite a lot of information, the full scope of what blockchain can
bring to your betting business is hard to cover in one publication. We highly recommend
you read more on the topic and keep your hand on the pulse as new advancements arrive
quite regularly.
And if you’re thinking of starting your blockchain and betting journey, there’s no time like
right now. Come to Incode Group and get a free consultation. We’ll help you deﬁne the
ways to improve with blockchain and then gladly lead the project to success.
Part 4. Conclusion

Incode Group is a Switzerland and Ukraine-based provider of unique software development
outsourcing services of any complexity with 100+ technical experts. We are a one-stop
service provider, creating high-quality and reliable blockchain, web, mobile and cloud
solutions that work sustainably under high load.
We can tackle any task from a full dev cycle to concept creation & patching up a pre-
existing product to perfection.
business@incode-group.com
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How Blockchain Can Revitalize the Betting App Industry

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