For the first time ever, Bitcoin gambling enthusiasts will be able to not only make a profit by betting on the winning team, they will also be able to trade betting odds for a profit and make a profit acting as the house on a wager.
That’s because Exbit.io, the first sports betting exchange website in the world to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as payment, is officially live.
A betting exchange is different from a traditional sportsbook in that the betting exchange doesn’t make money based on gamblers losing their sports bets. They don’t take juice or vig in a traditional sense. Instead, the betting exchange takes a commission off of winning wagers, usually in the neighbourhood of 1%.
Given that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were designed with the idea of letting peers exchange value between one another without third-party involvement, a crypto betting exchange is about the closest equivalent a sports gambling website can get to that.
Let’s run down the list of reasons why this is big news for Bitcoin gambling.
Bitcoin Sports Betting Without Limits
When you’re wagering on a Bitcoin sportsbook, the sportsbook will limit how much you can bet on a given event. If the event is popular because sharp bettors happen to think that the odds are very favorable, your maximum bet amount will be lower than you probably want it to be. This is because the sportsbook doesn’t want to risk losing big money on one event should sharp bettors walk away smiling at the result.
But limitations don’t just have to do with wager amounts. Sportsbooks will also limit your ability to wager on events that are correlated with each other on the same ticket. For example, lets say LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers are big time favorites against the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals. You think the likelihood of James scoring more than 28 points in a Game 6 victory is very high. Knowing this is likely, you bet on the Lakers to win the game and for James to score more than 28 points. Since those bets are highly correlated, you’re likely to win. Sportsbooks don’t like that idea, so they don’t allow your bet to go through.
While you wouldn’t get away was such a wager on a sportsbook, you can do it on a betting exchange because they’re not profiting off of your losses.
Win as Many Bets as You Want
Bitcoin gambling sites will promote the idea of you getting rich and winning big until you’re blue in the face, but of course, they don’t actually want that to happen. If you become too good at winning your sports bets, the amounts that you can wager may be drastically limited over time, or the sportbook will stop taking your bets altogether. This isn’t something often talked about because casino and gambling promotions can be so loud and in-your-face, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. At the end of the day, sportsbooks are in business to earn money and Bitcoin themselves. They don’t mind you beating the house on a regular basis, but ultimately, they don’t want you to bankrupt them either.
With a sports betting exchange, you’re only really facing off against the market and the exchange is taking a fee when you win, so they actually don’t mind if you keep winning. It means they keep making a profit.
Play Both Sides of a Bet and Win No Matter What the Outcome
Gambling on a traditional sportsbook and trying to win both sides of a bet means betting during the game and watching the odds go up and down. Betting exchanges allow you to do the same thing. The main difference is that you are wagering against other players and not the house, so your opportunity to make a profit is tied to the efficiency of the market as it’s being wagered on more closely than with a traditional sportsbook. This means you have a greater opportunity to profit while a game is in progress.
A crypto-based sports betting exchange is a great opportunity to earn a profit if you’re a sharp bettor. Learning how a sports betting exchange works is therefore advantageous for you. The fact that you can place your wagers with Bitcoin means you have yet another option for earning more Bitcoin.