Request for feedback: Working on a betting website for eSports

Show Bootstrapped
#1

Hello everyone.
We are a small team of ex-gamers who still in love with esports. Somehow we found ourselves making cash-bets on events and matches. We are small team of developers, designers and internet entrepreneurs so we decided to create a website that would offer online betting and do it better.

We’re working on beta right now. So here is coming soon landing http://cyberbet.ninja Is it clear what are we working on? Maybe you can chime in with a suggestion?

#2

Hello,

Site looks good and professionally made. I did get it without much reading.

How are the legal implications? Is that like sport bets?

#3

Hey, yes it will be like sport bets. We’re in the middle of getting a license and looking for ways to make it legally available for US/CA.

#4

Someone told me that most ecommerce comapny won’t touch betting. Have you got an ecommerce company lined up?

#5

No we don’t. I didn’t catch your thought. Would you mind to explain it?

#6

I understand a lot of ecommerce company won’t process payments related to betting. So don’t assume finding a payment processing company will be quick and easy. Maybe I am wrong. But (assuming you plan to take payments online) it might be an idea to start looking for an ecommerce company now.

#7

Ps/ ‘Even a losing could be a victory’ doesn’t sound right.

‘Even losing could be a victory’ sounds better.

#8

Yeah. You’re right. But we’ve got it covered. Thank you for the edit.

#9

http://www.dailydot.com/esports/match-fixing-counter-strike-ibuypower-netcode-guides/

#10

Thanks. I read it yesterday. Another issue to rethink and to solve.

#11

Hi Yegor,

I spent about a 18 months building a new platform for peer-to-peer betting a while back. The business started out with a sports focus but later pivoted to gaming, so I’ve been where you’re going. I’ll just throw a few of the questions and challenges that you’ll spend a lot of time thinking about in a business like this:

  • Licensing: Expensive and time-consuming. Where you choose to license is important because different jurisdictions have different requirements and different waiting times, but the time to collect all the due diligence and administrative waiting will be months or years.
  • Administration: Because of the level of regulation, you’ll have lots of eyes outside the company peeking into your operations. I spent months working on reporting and accounting support between the up-front development and chasing ghostly bugs.
  • Fraud: If you’re not from the gambling industry, find someone who is to lead this. I’ve heard horror stories, and it’s not something for newbies to attempt without guidance. At a minimum, you’ll need to engage with a payment processor (possibly several) who will work with betting companies and a company that can help you verify the identities of your customers (KYC).
  • Marketing - In sports betting at least, the sums spent on advertising and player incentives are astronomical. In effect, you buy players at a premium and hope that you’re able to lock them into your site enough to earn back your CAC.

Based on my experience, you simply can’t bootstrap a business in this industry. The inflated costs of operations (due to regulation), marketing (due to competition), and expert personnel (because there’s always someone out there with deeper pockets) just puts this out of reach for most founders who’d rather not take funding.

I will admit though that betting on eSports is relatively new on the scene, so it falls into a gray legal area right now - especially with respect to the US. You might have a temporary opportunity to side-step some of what I’ve said above, but that won’t last forever.

Drop me a PM if you want to talk any further. Happy to tell you what I know.