New smart phone app idea

theneed2rock

Hi,

I'm looking to develop a new app and wanted to get some feedback on it.

The idea is around friend betting. The way I see the app working is a person creates a bet (on anything they want, be it sports, world events, personal bets) and sends it to their friends. The friends receive the bet via push notification (can also be sent to their Facebook, Twitter account). The bet can be taken by 1 friend or multiple friends. The bet is policed by the 2 parties so when the bet is up, the loser agrees to pay the bet via Paypal method.
I have a budget to start developing this but before I do I need to do more market research around the idea.

Do you think this is something people would use i.e do you think people would bet with their friends?
Does anyone have any experience of developing/using a similar type app?

The Apprentice

No but getting to pay on agreement is a big no no .. especially when it comes to gambling.

Get the money first..

MOH

You'd really want an escrow service to hold the money until the bet is resolved.

Although then the problem is who decides who wins the bet? What happens if there's a dispute? You could just refund the money to everyone if all parties agree to do so, but then you're kind of back to square one.

Also, who's going to pay the Paypal fees?

It's an interesting idea, but without someone neutral policing each bet not sure how it can work.

Actually, that's an idea - each party agrees odds, pays up front, money goes into escrow, and all parties nominate an additional friend to act as arbitrator. It's up to them to adjudicate the bets and disburse the winnings.

Not sure if there's any legal ramifications, but the biggest problem will be getting people to trust you with their money.

Gloomtastic!

Smells good!

Even if they agree it's a draw, you get your percentage before they get their money back.

listermint

isnt this like betfare?

Yurple

It sounds like a great idea but i do not think the Apple Appstore allows anything to do with real money like betting or gambling

hopefully it will change soon

JustAddWater

Yurple wrote: »

It sounds like a great idea but i do not think the Apple Appstore allows anything to do with real money like betting or gambling

hopefully it will change soon

Paddy power have an app and I'm sure ladbrokes etc all have 1 too

The Corinthian

This was done about 12 years ago via the Web. If I remember correctly it fell apart when people started creating bets on things that were untenable in terms of public morality - specifically people betting that everyone on the Kursk would die. The backlash pretty much killed the site.

RATM

The Corinthian wrote: »

This was done about 12 years ago via the Web. If I remember correctly it fell apart when people started creating bets on things that were untenable in terms of public morality - specifically people betting that everyone on the Kursk would die. The backlash pretty much killed the site.

Shortly after 9/11 Intrade.com ran a prediction market where you could bet on when you thought the next terrorist attack on US soil would take place. But they didn't do it alone- the request to run the market had come from the Dept of Homeland Security who were trying to tap into 'the wisdom of crowds' to get a forecast of how imminent the danger was. It was a neat idea as they found that although there was some completely blind betting by the public the big money was been laid by those in or close to the intelligence services who were using their unique positions to assess risk and hopefully make a few quid in the process.

But then the news networks publisied it widely and Intrade were forced to withdraw it. Which was a pity really as it could have proved to be a very useful tool in predicting future events.

OP if I want to bet with a friend on say, Liverpool V United I don't need an app to do it, I just call or text him on the morning of the game. So I'm not really sure what you're getting at here when friends have a wager. Unless you're talking about one friend in the group offering a ton of mates different bets, the details of which are then centralised on this app ? If so then couldn't a person just offer odds/bets to their whole circle of friends (or a selection of gambling ones) in a message on Facebook.

Your system seems to go one step further and takes the money, places it into escrow and then pays out the winner later on. Now things are complicated becuase an escrow service will add 2% or so to the price of the bet. So if I win a tenner bet I get paid out €9.80, a little bit annoying. But it also begs the question of where your profit is going to come from ? Because I doubt people are going to pay your a penny for it- if I bet a mate a tenner I expect to get a tenner if it comes in. Bookies are different in that they have an over round factored into their odds which where the sum of all odds is more that the actual statistical chances of each event occurring- this is basically their profit margin.

So that leave you with two revenue streams. One is advertising and as yet I don't feel that in app advertising works all that well- there just isn't enough space on the screen for a decent sized add. The other revenue stream s potentially quite lucrative if friends are betting on events in the long term. Say for example I bet my mate €20 that ManU will finish above Liverpool in the Premier League and I do this on the first day of the season. We both have to pay up €20 so you now have €40 of our money and you don't owe it back until 9 months down the road. Now if you had 5,000 people in the Irish & UK markets lay that bet or similar on the first day of the season then now you've got €200,000 of other peoples money sitting in your account earning 4-5% interest.If a large amount of your betting volume is long term events then I think you could have a decent income. But conversely short term bets are almost of no use to you, unless of course you charge a commission on winnings, which is something that I personally would find unpalatable but others may not.

You should take a look at prediction markets like Intrade.com too which in my mind are a more interesting form of betting. I've always wondered why Intrade themselves don't offer prediction markets for sport as I feel there is a market there. Prediction markets are a lot more exciting in that rather than betting on X outcome you are buying shares in X outcome that you can sell again before the actual outcome happens. So if you applied the prediction market model to the Premier League and sold tradable shares in all 20 teams then things could get interesting for football fans. For example on the opening day of the season the share price for ManU is 50c per share- i.e. the market is giving them a 50% chance of winning the league outright. I buy in at 50c and low and behold they win their first 15 games and my share price rises to 60c by Xmas. But looiking forward to the next two months of the season I reckon that their injury list is growing, they have some tough away games and the club have no money to spend in the January transfer window. So I sell my shares at 60c each and pocket my 10c per share dividend. Then I go and examine the form and fixtures of other teams and spot that Arsnel have a rake of easy games coming up and they are already out of the Champions League so have one distraction less than other teams. So I buy into Arsneal's shares but as I feel that they're going to rise in the short term. But I am wary that Arsneal always cock up the end of the season so at some stage I'll want to sell those shares and get back on MauU, who traditionally always finish seasons very strongly. So I hope you get my drift of how predicition markets can be a lot of fun over the long term, especially for die hard footie fans who know every detail of every team, they read the tabloids on a daily basis and they know immediately where the latest training ground bust up has been or what rumour is gong around about which manager might be sacked, and who might replace them. For the football fanatic who loves the intricate detail and ups and downs of a 9 month long season a prediction market can offer a fan something that Paddy Power or Ladbrokes don't. In traditional betting I would never back Fulham to win the Premier League but on prediction markets I might buy shares in them a a few weeks at least before taking profit and selling and moving on to the next team. Its very nature means that you open up hundreds if not thousands more opportunities in betting on outcomes. For a traditional bookie the Premier League betting is listed as 20 teams but the reality is 95% of money will go on 3 teams. In a prediction market it is possible to back all 20 teams during the season and make money whereas in a traditional market the punter puts his money on one team at the start of the season- its not very exciting as you might as well just forget about the bet till May. So do take a look into Intrade.com and similar and if there is a way you can apply that to long term sporting outcomes such as football, rugby seasons, Formula 1, etc then you might be onto something. Not only do you have peoples money over a long period of time but you can also take a slight commission (0.5%) of each and every trade.


Overall though your idea isn't bad, but that's provided it can be executed. As someone previously said you'd better check out Betfair as their system allows me to make up odds, effectively the punter can be the bookie. So there probably are groups of mates using Betfair to bet against each other. But if you can bring it to a more social platform, i.e create an app on Facebook where payments take place without the need to leave Facebook then you could be onto something. If you can match that with the competitive element of winning money off your friends then that would add to the fun of it. Things like a analytics page that shows who is winning the most money, and from whom- a kind of leaderboard which plays nicely into the naturally competitive streak of a bunch of lads betting on sport.

phanley

I also have an idea for a betting app using friends although my approach is slightly different to yours.

ssimples09

I think its a pretty good idea...if you can solve the problem of ensuring that people pay up on their bets! I dont know if paypal would be the way to go...with the very real possibility that people will be paying for many items with their phone in the near future I think it could take off!