Starting with betting site as a developer

Hey all, I'm new in gambling industry but veteran in development industry. I've spent weeks reading about psychology behind gambling and betting, created various charts and workflow to visualize the process that gambler goes through. Installed various betting apps and tried various betting websites. I was betting for years in the past so I also have understanding from personal experience.

I decided to gather my experience, knowledge I gained, imperfections and deficiencies of existing apps to create new betting app that will focus more on users and psychology than on pure implementation. Meaning that I want to focus on experience, I don't want to create another SaaS product.

The plan is to create betting app as game, with virtual coins so it's legal everywhere, no payouts with simple business model at the beginning "purchase virtual coins". You might be wondering why would people use it?
First of all because of experience we will provide, there is no fear of losing real money, some will play for sheer thrill of gambling, someone for fun and to kill time, others might want to polish their skills while there are engaged gamblers that are motivated by excitement and unpredictability.

I have knowledge and experience to create the product, little less knowledge of marketing, but it won't create a barrier. I'm here for an advice.
How to start? Should I find a partner to work with? Where do I find a partner?

You state much research, but do not state specific legal research.

In my opinion a betting app that requires an original purchase of "virtual coins" by real money in order to gamble will in fact run afoul of gambling laws in various countries and jurisdictions very quickly. To automatically assume it will be "legal everywhere" might be over stating things a bit.

The app very may well fly under the radar for a while, however you most likely will face challenges fairly quickly.

Both ipple and Google are starting to take a much stronger stance and closer look at the apps they allow in their play stores, so be prepared either one could "suspend" sales/downloads for a time based on complaints by users whether with merit or not, while they investigate.

I would think the real monetization would come from offering users real money gambling at affiliate operators, with links from a support site or add-on or fan site etc.

I think the biggest issues will be age based.

Will you limit players to adults? If not this is part of what might lead to complaints reports of offering gambling to children, whether the reports have merit or not.

How to start?
Read a few years worth of posts at the GPWA could be a great deal of help.


Rick
Universal4

Putting aside for a minute the real questions and issues over legality as Rick has laid out......

...and recognizing the question is 'how do I do it?' rather than 'should I do it?...

...plus, we don't know in detail the intricacies of how it operates...

But.....

The main driver for someone to download and get involved would appear to be fear of losing, and the psychology around that.

Of course I'm only in my head and not everyone else's, but speaking as a lifelong punter I don't think 'fear' will be a good motivator here. A generalization of course, but fear of losing (for a punter) more often comes into play when choosing/deciding not to place a specific wager, normally on the back of a losing run and/or lack of confidence in the selection. The punter will still be back again next time with a real money wager....because - at it's core, and for the majority - betting is about winning money.

I said generalization.

Yeah, it also brings into the mix the thrill, anticipation, engagement in the event, etc. But winning the cash is the end goal. Everything else is in addition to it, and sometimes is actually used to validate/rationalize/excuse the betting experience itself (perhaps - maybe often - without the bettor even realizing that that's what they're subconsciously doing).

So taking each point into account.....

"some will play for sheer thrill of gambling" the thrill doesn't come from gambling as such (and the possibility of losing money), but from the anticipation of winning (hard cash)

"some for fun and to kill time" if they can't win money, there are 10 million other ways to play games for fun and to kill time (and a much lesser, but growing number of ways to do that now and make money). That said, yes there might be some traction from this perspective.

"others might want to polish their skills" hmmm, maybe. Arguably. You could say anyone in this position is likely to be someone who's thinking on a more deeper level about their betting and trying to get a statistical edge. So they're already at a more advanced stage than the casual punter. You may get a few that would do that with 'play money' applied to real events, but also there are plenty of ways to try out a statistical approach using historical event data, and a number of ways to do it with real money but low stakes where it doesn't 'matter' if it loses.

"while there are engaged gamblers that are motivated by excitement and unpredictability". Again, if they're 'engaged' punters, their goal is to win money. They'll like the excitement and unpredictability, and often may embrace those aspects as an overall part of the experience (they should do, because unpredictability in betting is something any bettor needs to accept, embrace, and overcome if they're to have much chance of long term success, barring a few exceptional cases), but seeing the team win, the horse home first, the corners exceeded, etc etc all come down finally to 'I won the cash'


Most of this won't help answer the original point of the question, but some might help in aspects of positioning it if the legality aspects (and whatever else might block it) could be overcome.

PS It would be great to see where your research or findings either negate or call into question any of this, although I guess it will not be appropriate to share.

My main inspiration were casino games as Slotomania. So I want to apply the similar concept on betting. Definitely not impossible, just needs to find the right way.

I may be wrong, but as far as I know such casino games are legal, because they are games, they are not actually gambling apps

Organized crime in the 1930-s used peppermint candies for betting. They were exchangable for money, each candy was worth decent amount of money and people were exchanging these for money. Scheme was completely legal at first and used for the slot machine-like things. Finally they probably changed law and shut them down. (My details might be wrong).

Tried to send you a PM but couldn't
Could you pop me a pm please :)

I know exactly what you are talking about and its crazy how many people actually buy coins for slots that don't actually have any monetary value.
I for one am guilty of this as I spend a fortune on app purchases even slots that don't pay out any currency.
I also used to be a game creator for a company close to where I live who supplied HTML & Javascript based slot games to some well known high street names in gaming.

Hi, iam new here but have working in the Social casino app industry for the last 5 years so here's my 2 cents.

The social casino or wider "virtual coins" App market on Google play store & Apple store is extremely oversaturated, competition is fierce and player acquisition/marketing very expensive, so be prepared for a long hard slog & be realistic.

I am about 1 year into my development stage of a web based social casino site based on the "virtual coins" model and have hit many hurdles so far.
However its a learning experience and iam looking into adding other monetization methods.

Any site that takes fees or deposits directly on the site, in many cases will be looked at as "acting in the capacity of an operator".

Whether legal battles or investigations later lead to some governments or licensing or taxing organizations or groups giving the site a pass, by ignoring the possibility or risk of the site being investigated could lead to far more problems then just pretending the risk is not there.

This does not mean it is not settled, or that the individuals taking a look can even agree, but it is not a matter of if but when.

Here are just a small handful of legal opinions, and clearly many contradicts each other.

https://lawstreetmedia.com/news/tech...-for-big-tech/

Quote:

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A “social casino” is an app or website where an individual can play standard casino games online, using real money for more chances to play without the chance to win money or a prize. Recently, social casinos have faced increased scrutiny with seemingly more litigation and attention especially around targeting customers.

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Quote:

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According to a complaint covered in a Law Street Media article, “Paying money in a game for a chance to win more playing time violates the anti-gambling laws of the twenty-five states that are at issue in this case.”

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https://www.sheppardmullin.com/asset...Territory1.pdf

Quote:

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Just because you don't enable cash-outs doesn't mean your virtual currency is compliant with gambling statutes.

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https://www.pillsburylaw.com/images/...0/v2/70676.pdf
https://venturebeat.com/2009/06/04/c...egal-gambling/
https://thelawreviews.co.uk/title/th...ral-gaming-law

Rick
Universal4