While everyone agrees that the Betscorum Betting Exchange on itself is an excellently designed product, it currently clearly lacks volume and overall activity because of different reasons which make using it in a consistent way quite impossible. I always try to think in solutions and want to pitch an idea that might help fix current issues with the platform.
Problems With Betscorum
It's an understatement to say that there has been little to no adoption of betscorum the past couple months. There are only a handful of people actually using the exchange and even worse, many of the bigger sports bettors are actually giving up and are running away from the platform. (SBC / TBC / @kirylt / @vasce / @ufuk).
Right now things seem to be stuck in Catch-22.
For the platform to attract new users it needs higher liquidity and better odds, but more users are needed in order for the platform to have better liquidity and Odds the way things are going right now.
Currently, there simply is very little incentive to use betscorum. More casual bettors who just want to instantly place bets are mostly able to take tiny amounts (<1$) on odds that are often worse than what can be found on the regular betting markets and using betscorum comes with the inconvenience of having to buy SCR which is highly unstable and might be worthless over time. (Everyone in crypto ironically would agree that most Altcoins are undervalued, but at the same time most will eventually be totally worthless in the future). More sharp bettors who want to take bets and are willing to offer really good odds on the other side most of the time won't see them taken up by anyone.
There are and have been many community initiatives to try and help betscorum off the ground. (5k promo | #match-my-bet channel | Free Bet Giveaways | 50% Off Promo | Fortunabetting | @waveyourflags Bet Bot! | basic odds offerings ... While all of these do help, they don't really fix the issues and are generally very thankless jobs mostly because the devs themselves don't seem to be doing anything at all to help betscorum adopted aside from mostly empty words. Actions always speak louder than words and so far @betty has been implemented which is an account that offers some basic odds for ~10$ max mostly to not make betscorum look totally abandoned. There was a 300SCR contest for the best tipster which was more aimed at the betting platform and it is hard to actually recommend betscorum to anyone right now making the affiliate program worthless (Leaving aside that SCR needs to be bought at a higher price to make anything from the affiliate program). This seemingly lack of care for Betscorum by the devs has been very frustrating and works discouraging.
Possible Solution
Sure we are currently in a crypto bear market making overall interest in crypto is rather low right now and there is little to no marketing budget with the price of ETH having crashed, but this does not mean there is no way to make it all work. I still like this project as a Sports Bettor seeing huge potential and it's so frustrating seeing the first movers advantage completely being thrown away.
Bookmakers make a huge amount of profit and I believe there is a model that the scorum team could fairly easily implement (I'm not a coder so I might be wrong) without a big cost that would greatly help the entire platform forward.
Basically, all bets on Betscorum consist of 2 betting options.
When you request 2.000 odds on the home team, 2.000 odds will automatically be offered on the x2 for others to take. With this setup, it is possible to implement Dynamic Odds very similar how the more advanced Asian bookmakers who are able to offer highly competitive odds do it.
The way they operate is by offering 1.952-1.952 odds on 50%-50%. If money comes in on one side the odds automatically move to let's say 1.930-1.973. Early in the week, the amounts that can be bet are low and odds move quickly. As time moves on the limits increase. They are quite good at setting the initial odds and this is a very cheap way for them to correct any clear mistake they might have made since sharp early bettors will bet on those quickly. This system also helps them to balance their books and make a profit since it incentivizes bets on both sides.
Dynamic lines on Betscorum
I don't think it can be that hard to implement dynamic lines on Betscorum. If the offered stake on one side at certain odds is taken up, cancel the bet on the other side and automatically offer new bets on both sides with altered odds according to a pre-determined plan. Start it out with low juice, tiny limits and the same odds on each match leaving it up to betscorum users to set the odds correctly.
It could look something like this
There is no work involved in setting the odds and the bets can be put up early in the week on Monday. For example, early limits 1 SCR and each bet moves the odds -0.02 (or a certain %) and slightly increases the juice. On Tuesday the limits can be increased to 5 SCR, Wednesday 20 SCR , Thursday 50 SCR, ... I haven't done exact numbers yet since they are a bit complicated and this is just an idea I believe could work right now.
What does this do
One of the major selling points of regular bookmakers is that they are able to lure in a lot of players with bonuses. Betscorum is unable to do this in the traditional way but with this system, it could be an equivalent making it into a race to catch the juicy odds once they are released. Since the limits are so small early on the cost of this is also very limited. It can also be an excellent way to link the blogging platform to the betting exchange with post announcements that odds on a specific league have been released. The post-earnings can be used to counter the early edge that is offered to the ones who are actually using the exchange.
Something like this would also give a good argument to promote Betscorum to other sports bettors and give them a reason to try it out. Since everyone mostly bets the Favorites and the Overs, it could offer great odds on underdogs and unders on gameday with better limits making the platform more attractive to sharper bettors also.
Dynamic odds also assure that there are always decent odds available on the platform and since bets will come in on both sides. Setting the edge at a fair 2% would mean that the ones who want better odds need to improve upon the odds offered on the other side. This should make Betscorum the place with the best odds on the market.
So far it's just an idea, let me know what you think or if something is unclear in the comments!
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