ZenSports to Create Decentralised Sports Betting Marketplace for Anyone to Create and Accept Bets

Sports betting is a $120 billion industry, but in countries such as the U.S., where sports betting is popular, it’s likely to grow to $300-$400 billion in five years. At the moment, though, there are three major problems impacting online sports betting: outdated payment systems, resulting in high fees, delays, and potential fraud; limited types of bets on offer; and odds that are stacked in favour of the sports book.

That’s where ZenSports comes in. According to its whitepaper, it’s a P2P sports betting marketplace where anyone can create and accept sports bets with anyone else in the world, without needing a centralised bookmaker, right from their phone.

Over 1,000 online sports betting products are in existence, with 40 of them only accepting cryptocurrencies. Yet none use smart contracts or peer-to-peer (P2P) betting to deliver a better user experience.

ZenSports is aiming to change this. By using crypto, the blockchain and smart contracts it is delivering a decentralised sports betting environment. Built on the ICON protocol, and as an ICX token (rather than an Ethereum ERC-20 token), the platform is developing a trust-less system that lets the marketplace settle bets and disputes.

According to ZenSports, it doesn’t get involved with the making of any bets, adding: “Makers can create any type of sports bet that they want, with the ability to self-report betting results. Takers can accept any bets offered by makers, as well as dispute results that they don’t agree with. Disputes are resolved by a voting marketplace, with penalties being assessed to the Maker or Taker if they’re on the losing end of a dispute.”

It offers bets to be created in the following sports National Football League (NFL), National Basketball League (NBA), England Premier League, Germany Bundesliga, Italy Serie A, France Ligue1, Span La Liga, UEFA Champions League, Major League Baseball (MLB), National Hockey League (NHL), NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball (CBB), NCAA Division I Football (CFB), and the Professional Golf Association (PGA).

At present, the platform’s app, available in the Apple App Store and Google Play, is only available using fiat. Its crypto and smart contract version will be available soon.

From 1st December it will be running its public sale, ending the 5th January, 2019. This is available to accredited investors in the U.S. and accredited and unaccredited investors outside the U.S., subject to Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) procedures.

The ZenSports token is called SPORT. It is this which powers the platform’s ecosystem in various ways. These include placing bets on the aforementioned sports, getting paid for bet winnings, pay betting fees, earn dividends and passive income from betting fees paid by others, escrow fees and payouts for disputes, ownership percentage for voting eligibility, and for future services to be offered such as betting on margin, access to premium content, etc.

The public sale will be sold in four tranches, with each tranche only open for a specific amount of time. With each successive tranche, there will be a higher price charged per token compared to the previous tranche. The hard cap to reach is set at $12 million. However, if this is reached during the first tranche then the remaining tranches will not be offered. During the public sale, only ICX will be accepted for investments.

Find out more about Zensports, read their white paper and check out their token sale.