FAIRLAY.COM - the future of reliable information.

[fairlay]

Update 21.02.2015
we have extended our sport section tremendously and we are now by far the biggest Bitcoin betting exchange with total liquidity of several 1,000 BTC in sports.

additional noteworthy:

• Betting exchange - bet against users, not against the house
• 0.00% fees on sport bets
• we have strong market makers that provide better odds than pinnacle with about the same liquidity
• no account needed
• API for market makers and other professionals or hackers: fairlay.com/api

read more here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=673475.0



Update 31.10.2014
We are proud that we have now liquid markets with several hundert predictions on:
Politics: https://www.fairlay.com/event/category/news/politics/
Bitcoin difficulty: https://www.fairlay.com/event/category/bitcoin/difficulty/
and all kind of sports:
https://www.fairlay.com/event/category/soccer/

Update 01.10.2014
We invite market marker to use our new API! https://www.fairlay.com/api


Update 25.07.2014
Today we added a new feature: you can now place a bet/prediction without an account.

Update 23.06.2014

We have a couple of predictions on the auction of the silk road sized coins:
For example will the lowest price of a Block be < $450?
https://www.fairlay.com/event/category/bitcoin/price/


Update 05.05.2014

We want more prediction on our Bitcoin and news related events: https://www.fairlay.com/event/category/bitcoin/ and https://www.fairlay.com/event/category/news/
Thus we start a promotion today: If you place a prediction on a event and the prediction is matched fully and you write a short comment (on fairlay) why you placed this prediction (for example mentioning a statistic or news) then we refund you the prediction amount up to 0.01 Bitcoin per prediction and up to 5 prediction per user. (Thus you can place in total predictions for 0.05 BTC and get it refunded directly after placing it) Plz link to your comments in this thread and give us a Bitcoin Adress - so that everyone can see that we do the refund. Of Course you can keep all your winnings on fairlay.

We limit this promotion to 0.5 BTC.


UPDATE 01.05.2014:

Fairlay - the future of reliable information.

Fairlay seeks to crowd-source information by providing a totally open prediction market. Functioning more like a conditional betting exchange, Fairlay not only allows users to bet but to see public confidence on various bitcoin and altcoin related events, as well as sports, and general news. By using Bitcoin to allow users to demonstrate where their confidence lies regarding specific event, Fairlay can aggregate the wisdom of the majority.
There is a huge potential in he possibilities of an open prediction market. Bitcoin could be the technological enabler for that. Fairlay sees a prediction market as a great tool to evaluate risks, hedge risks and aggregate information. Why do we have lots of different numbers for weather forecasts or as election predictions? Fairlay believes that a working prediction market could aggregate all data into the best available forecast. If someone has newer or better information he is able to bet against the current prediction, improving the forecast and get rewarded in the process.

About Fairlay
Fairlay was founded in 2013 and is a London-based prediction/betting market. It specializes in getting reliable information for everyone. For more information, please visit https://fairlay.com .
After a very successfull beta challenge, where Fairlay was able to acquire over 1000 users, tracked over 8000 bets and had over 50 events to bet on, Fairlay just announced betting with real Bitcoins.
Fairlay will focus on predicting the Bitcoin difficulty, compare: https://www.fairlay.com/event/category/bitcoin/difficulty



UPDATE 21.03.2014:
We are online now and you can bet with Bitcoin!
Earn BTC for suggesting a bet: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=433086.msg5825323#msg5825323[/b]

UPDATE
We are online now - register for free, get 50,000 credits - win your share of 600mBTC, compare: https://www.fairlay.com/highscore/[/b]




Hi - we are a Berlin/New York based developer team and after 6 month development we announce www.fairlay.com - the Bitcoin betting market!

We soon (4th of Feb.) Sorry will be mid Feb. start with an open Beta. You can bet with free testnetcoins Credits and the most successful will be rewarded with $500 in BTC.
Early sign-ups will start with 20% bonus.

First bets will be offered on BTC price, difficulty and altcoins.

We are happy to get feedback or suggestions for bets!


EDIT:

Seak peek on fairlay.com
Bet overview:

Betting form:

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[fairlay]

Any concrete bet wishes?

temperature in new york? How much funding will ethereum receive? Next Difficulty?
Market Cap of Dogecoin?

[georgeb657]

I've signed up, I'm interested in doing some testing for you. In my opinion though, these 'bet on Bitcoin price' sites will die out soon and only real betting sites will continue. If people want to bet on the price of BTC they can just trade it... Sports betting/poker/casino games will go a long way with BTC though I'm almost sure.

[erre]

Done!
i also got a ref link: http://lnc.hr/h5ird , and i got an extra 10% for anyone signing under it  

[fairlay]

Yes - you are right. Betting with Bitcoin on the price of Bitcoin is pointless.
I guess we will write soon a blog artikel why. The easiest way to get the point is to look at the bet "The Price of Bitcoin will be 0 (or close to)." If you win that bet you will win Bitcoins but then they will be worth nothing. You never should bet on a price drop.

We think for altcoins it is a different story. If you strongly believe in the success of an altcoin you should buy or mine it but we think there is a use case of hedging.

But in the long run there is way more. Politics, Weather, basically any kind of uncertain information.

[TheButterZone]

If you Google "hockey", a calendar of all the upcoming NHL games will pop up.

[12648430]

Yes - you are right. Betting with Bitcoin on the price of Bitcoin is pointless.
I guess we will write soon a blog artikel why. The easiest way to get the point is to look at the bet "The Price of Bitcoin will be 0 (or close to)." If you win that bet you will win Bitcoins but then they will be worth nothing. You never should bet on a price drop.

The price=0 edge case is actually the only price to which you shouldn't bet on a drop at any odds; in general betting on a drop is comparable to a put option. Here's a more typical example than price=0:

- Say the price is $1000
- Mr. Bear believes price will fall to $500, but not lower than $200, and has no risk premium; he is willing to bet (say $10 worth of BTC) at 5:1 odds that the price will drop to $500 or lower.
- The price drops to $400.
- Mr. Bear has won (400/1000 * 5/1) * $10 = $20 worth of Bitcoin.

Of course, it's also necessary for the odds to be acceptable to at least one counterparty. This will be the case for any counterparty (assuming no risk premium) that believes the chance of the price dropping below $500 is less than 5:1.

Since there are little options when it comes to Bitcoin options markets as it stands, approximating an options market via a prediction market may be a viable option.

[fairlay]

Thanks for the example!

But there is still a problem. You mentioned it already - finding the counterparty. At normal bets a slightly different evaluation of the outcome chances leads to a bet that seems to both profitable. If Mr. Bear thinks the Tennis Player A will win with 49% chance and Mr. Bull thinks its 51% it makes sense for both to bet on odds of 2.

In your scenario Mr. Bear must be way more convinced that the event (Bitcoin will drop to $500 or below) will happen then the 20% that are implied by the odds of Mr. Bull.

So Mr. Bull must believe it will happen only in 20% or less of the time and Mr. Bear needs to believe it happens in more than 50% (thats not the exact number, but an estimate) of the cases. Only with this huge spread of expectation they will come to an agreement of a bet.
Or do I muss something?

[12648430]

Thanks for the example!

But there is still a problem. You mentioned it already - finding the counterparty. At normal bets a slightly different evaluation of the outcome chances leads to a bet that seems to both profitable. If Mr. Bear thinks the Tennis Player A will win with 49% chance and Mr. Bull thinks its 51% it makes sense for both to bet on odds of 2.

In your scenario Mr. Bear must be way more convinced that the event (Bitcoin will drop to $500 or below) will happen then the 20% that are implied by the odds of Mr. Bull.

So Mr. Bull must believe it will happen only in 20% or less of the time and Mr. Bear needs to believe it happens in more than 50% (thats not the exact number, but an estimate) of the cases. Only with this huge spread of expectation they will come to an agreement of a bet.
Or do I muss something?

I contrived some numbers just to show that a situation was possible; in practice the market would have to find its own values. This type of bet is an assert-or-nothing binary put on the price of BTC (an asset-or-nothing binary call is also possible by betting that the price would be above $x). While it's an exotic type of option, I think the fact that it exists and is traded in traditional financial markets shows that as an instrument it is not fatally flawed, and there may be some demand for it.

[fairlay]

But is it traded in the same currency as the objective?

But you are right... We will offer it and the market will find the numbers...

[12648430]

But is it traded in the same currency as the objective?

But you are right... We will offer it and the market will find the numbers...

It is. A binary option can be cash-or-nothing or asset-or-nothing; betting in BTC on the price of BTC constitutes asset-or-nothing options. I just bring it up because I'm personally interested in seeing more options and there isn't much available, and it seems like it could be done within your platform.

[moocoin]

We just ran the MooCoin beta tournament on TestNet and I would STRONGLY suggest against it.  Consider using an alt-coin for the test, instead.

Here's why:
1)  It's seriously just as easy to setup a Dogecoin client and run that
2)  Users get confused and think you're dealing in real bitcoins.  Especially those for whom English is not their native language
3)  Said users become infuriated when they realize that they can't withdraw the testNet coins to a mainNet wallet
4)  If you're really successful, you'll end up with thousands and thousands of testNet coins that probably came from the faucets, essentially draining the only two testNet faucets out there.

Trying to save you some heartache...
MooCoin

[fairlay]

Thanks moocoin. Yes, have have thought about it and we will not use testnet-coins.
Nur sure what we do instead - maybe we have only "credits" on our site.

[RGBKey]

We just ran the MooCoin beta tournament on TestNet and I would STRONGLY suggest against it.  Consider using an alt-coin for the test, instead.

Here's why:
1)  It's seriously just as easy to setup a Dogecoin client and run that
2)  Users get confused and think you're dealing in real bitcoins.  Especially those for whom English is not their native language
3)  Said users become infuriated when they realize that they can't withdraw the testNet coins to a mainNet wallet
4)  If you're really successful, you'll end up with thousands and thousands of testNet coins that probably came from the faucets, essentially draining the only two testNet faucets out there.

Trying to save you some heartache...
MooCoin

The sad thing is that testnwt coins are supposed to be for testing, and it's the users fault not yours. Not using testnet is just wasting it.

[fairlay]

One important issue that made us come to the decision not using testnet-coins is that there is a lack of reliable faucets.
We would need one that could server 500-3000 user in a short period of time. 

[RGBKey]

One important issue that made us come to the decision not using testnet-coins is that there is a lack of reliable faucets.
We would need one that could server 500-3000 user in a short period of time. 

You could also just give users fake balances they can't withdraw if you're confident with your deposit withdraw system.

[moocoin]

I would just use an alt coin.

[fairlay]

Still tinkering with the UI - but we start very soon!

We have decided to use "BetaCoins" Just some sort of credits. User will get an initial amount and can get more by refferals or by bitcoin purchases. This way we can at least maybe test some Bitcoin transaction without to much risk for anyone.
Does this sound fair to you?

The rules are simple:

1. If you signup during the challenge, you will get a start credit of 50.000 BetaCoins
2. If you signed up previously through launchrock you will get an additional 10.000 BetaCoins credit
3. If you referred another user during the promotion, you will get an additional 5.000 BetaCoin credit for each user, who signs up.


Refer new user - for every referred user you get 5.000 Beta coin.
Wagered all your coins? You can buy more BetaCoin. You get 10.000 for 0.001 BTC

Bet as much as you can and win as much as you can!

The promotion ends on Feb 23. The top 21 user with the most beta-coins will win:
The winnings are distributed as follows:
1. 200 mBTC
2. 120 mBTC
3. 80 mBTC
4-5. 40 mBTC
6 -11. 20 mBTC
12 - 21 10 mBTC

[erre]

betacoin is a "real" coin traded on cryptsy and 50000 betacoin are equivalent to 2 btc  
Pls call your coin "fairlaycoin" or whatelse, to avoid to confond users,
Also, you didn't think that with 199mBTC someone can buy 1990000 of you coins and be "pretty sure" to win the 200mBTC competition? I bet you did..

[fairlay]

Thanks for the Betacoin hint. We will change it.

Also, you didn't think that with 199mBTC someone can buy 1990000 of you coins and be "pretty sure" to win the 200mBTC competition? I bet you did..

It does not sound very appealing to me to risk 199mBTC to win 1mBTC. What if someone else does the same? And: We have right no 1700 Signups. This means we give out 102 Million "FairlayCoins". It is more than possible that one user gets more than 2% of it. It think you don't get an unfair advantage by buying more coins. If you do (and you really don't have to!!!) you should do it manly just for fun.