We post frequent news updates in the world of Bitcoin sportsbetting and sportsbook. Find the latest news posts below:
A while ago, we wrote about Watford FC’s new mega-deal with Bitcoin sports betting site Sportsbet.io. The Hornets agreed on a record multi-million deal to sport the Sportsbet logo on...
The cryptocurrency craze has its fair share of supporters and opponents among sport superstars and organizations. Add the Dallas Mavericks to the first group. With the NBA season to start...
In this month of Bitcoin sports betting news, popular BTC sportsbook and Casino Sportsbet announces a new special promotion for members of the platform that will end up giving away...
While Bitcoin betting platforms have definitely come a long way, there are still sites out there trying to scam users out of their money. One such platform was recently spotted...
Fantasy sports betting has just gotten better thanks to a new partnership between player favorite sportsbook Sportsbet and the people behind Moneyball Fantasy. If you’re a fan of fantasy sports,...
Not long ago, you could only hear the words “cryptocurrency” and “sport” together when talking about Bitcoin-friendly betting sites. But with the meteoric rise of cryptocurrencies in 2018, it didn’t take long for digital assets to emerge from the world of gambling operators and step into the premier sports industry. The latest example to confirm this trend is the case of UEFA Champion’s League team Sporting Portugal (Lisbon), who is reportedly considering launching their own cryptocurrency to raise cash for the club.
Pressed for Cash? Get Crypto
Most people turn to cryptocurrencies in times when traditional financial institutions or the economy fails them. Such was the case in India, China, and now Venezuela, where a severe inflation left the country’s citizens to look for other more reliable ways of storing value. But it seems that ordinary people aren’t the only ones who think this way, as proven by Sporting Portugal’s latest update.
One of the biggest teams in Portugal and a name every European football fan remembers, Sporting Portugal has been a bit strapped for cash lately. The club has been in a rough financial patch for a while now, being forced to look for means of raising money to survive. Only recently, Sporting tried issuing €30 million in bonds with a quite lucrative annual interest rate of 5.25%, just so it can gather funds to pay off a previous bond. However, banks have refused to sell the latest bond issue, leaving the club in a tight spot.
As an alternative solution, Sporting’s management is reportedly looking into launching an ICO (Initial Coin Offering) to help them raise the money to stay afloat. As commented by VP of Sporting Portugal, Francisco Salgado Zenha, the club is “looking closely at an ICO” as it believes it will help them “take advantage of this new world” and raise money for the team.
As with all ICO campaigns, Sporting’s campaign would involve the sale of tokens which could be later used to buy services or products, although no official information is given of what investors will receive as compensation. However, if the campaign fails, management has revealed that they may need to make new decisions that could lead them to sell some of their top players.
Not the First Team
As unusual as it may be, Sporting Portugal isn’t the first team to mull over the idea of an ICO campaign to raise funds. Two months ago, the Brazilian club Avai FC launched its own ICO, selling Avai tokens for various investor incentives.
Moreover, ICOs aren’t the only ways football clubs are getting funded by cryptocurrencies. In August 2018, the Italian club Rimini FC 1912 sold a 25% of its share to cryptocurrency magnate Pablo Victor Dana, which was paid for by Dana’s own cryptocurrency Quantacoin. That same month also brought us the news of a partnership between eToro and 7 Premier League teams, including Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace, which allowed the premier clubs to receive sponsorships in Bitcoin.
October 2018 is a special month for the cryptocurrency sector. Today, on the 31st of October, we’re celebrating 10 years since Bitcoin’s whitepaper was published, triggering the creation and release of the first cryptocurrency two months later. But what’s even more important for fans of Bitcoin sportsbetting is that this month also brought the 5th anniversary of Cloudbet – one of the earliest Bitcoin sportsbooks online. And to mark the occasion, Cloudbet will be running a new special promotion for all registered punters.
Five Years Full of Challenges and Breakthroughs
Even a year in the fast-paced world of cryptocurrency tech companies can feel like an eternity. In the past years, we’ve seen many “promising” businesses kick off with a bang only to fall apart at the first challenge and slowly drift to obscurity. But not Cloudbet, which survived to become one of the longest-running betting sites for cryptocurrency holders.
Cloudbet officially began its story in October 2013 with the acceptance of its first wager in the amount of 0.12 BTC on a Korean soccer event from the K-League. If you need a better proof of how much time has passed since then, you need only to look at the then value of that bet, which was roughly around $24. Since then, over 6.5 million wagers were placed on Cloudbet’s sportsbook, many of them paid out in Bitcoin.
Not long after opening, Cloudbet posted a thread on the Bitcointalk forum announcing its platform and opening a discussion board that helped shape and improve the sportsbook over the years. Currently, that thread has more than 260 pages, including 5,000 posts.
Feedback from that forum helped Cloudbet introduce its first major change, setting betting limits at a minimum of 0.001 BTC for most events and a maximum of 50 BTC, limits which remain active to this day. In 2013, Cloudbet also automated its withdrawals to be processed instantly in over 90% of cases, thanks to user feedback, while the next year brought the introduction of the Live Casino and the transfer of player funds to a more secure cold storage.
In the remaining years, Cloudbet kept adapting to market demand, introducing new cryptocurrencies and promotions, as well as localized versions of its website in Korean, Russian, Chinese, and more. With such a track record of listening to what players need, we’re certain that the Cloudbet brand will keep dominating the market for years to come.
Join the Special 0.75 BTC Promotion to Celebrate
To commemorate the special anniversary, Cloudbet is running a new promotion that will take place on the Bitcointalk forum where it all started. The prize pool is estimated at 0.75 BTC and it will be dispersed over 15 members of Bitcointalk who participate in the competition. To become eligible for a prize, you just have to create a meme for one of the five categories given by Cloudbet, which include topics like “Worst N00b mistakes” or “What would you do if you had sold when it was high?”
The first place in each category will earn a prize of 0.1 Bitcoin while the second and third places will get 0.03 BTC and 0.02 BTC, respectively. To learn more about the competition and see the other available meme categories, make sure to visit the Cloudbet sportsbook.
For the most part, Bitcoin bookmakers have operated on the outskirts of the fiat money betting industry, generating only a slice of the revenue older and more traditional bookmakers had. But such trends may soon become a thing of the past as more Bitcoin sportsbetting websites evolve to compete with the best of fiat money operators. And if there’s one name that can prove this, it’s Sportsbet.
Bitcoin Bookmaker Earns €200 Million During World Cup
According to a recent update from Sportsbet – Coingaming Group’s sole betting business – one of the biggest Bitcoin bookmakers online saw an impressive turnover during the World Cup 2018 in Russia. Namely, as director of sportsbook at Sportsbet – Joe McCallum – reveals, the online betting platform generated a staggering turnover of more than €200 million during the competition, thanks to its innovative practices.
If such a number doesn’t look too big for you, you need only to consider other traditional betting markets. For instance, the French betting market – one of the biggest on a global scale – generated a total of over €1 billion during the competition, according to official stats from local regulatory body ARJEL. Out of this €1 billion, France’s biggest online betting operator generated a third of that amount – a figure generated from both online and land-based betting combined.
If you look at Sportsbet’s performance, the operator earned 20% of the turnover of the entire country of France, a place in which a number of local betting brands have been active for years. For comparison, Sportsbet was launched only two years ago, just before the Euro 2016. And not only did the bookmaker generate an admirable turnover during the WC 2018 but it also did quite well after the Cup, with the month of July alone generating €500 million for the site.
Telegram Logins & SOC Coins Drive Numbers
According to McCallum, the main driving force behind Sportsbet’s success during the premium football event is the operator’s recent set of changes. Prior to one of the biggest sport competitions, Sportsbet decided it was time to broaden the scope of their payment options and leave the “Bitcoin-only” label in the past, allowing players to pay with other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum but also Euros and SOC coins. The decision to introduce SOC alone – the coins of the All Football app – helped to open up Sportsbet to an additional 50 million users.
Other changes the bookmaker introduced was the integration of the BTCXE exchange service, which allows anyone to directly wager at the website by exchanging fiat money for Bitcoin without having to go through any online BTC exchange. And to make things even easier, Sportsbet also introduced an industry-first Telegram betting bot that allows users to place bets directly from the messaging service.
Through the Telegram Betting bot, any Sportsbet member can place bets fast, easy, and without wasting too much of their broadband data. Namely, this bot allows users to enjoy a stripped-down version of Sportsbet where they can transfer money, make bets, and cash out without incurring any heavy charges. If you want to see the betting bot in action, feel free to pay a visit to Sportsbet and sign in.
A few years ago seeing a cryptocurrency business strike a partnership deal with a major sports brand like Tottenham Hotspur was unconceivable. And even less believable was to hear that over half a dozen Premier League teams will be accepting Bitcoin online payments.
But luckily, we live in different times today – a time when cryptocurrency-promoting companies can team up with the best in UK football to promote and spread the use of digital assets. That’s exactly what happened this week when e-trading platform eToro signed a sponsorship agreement with 7 Premier League teams that will be paid in Bitcoin only.
Sponsorship Rights for BTC
In an official press release from crypto-trading platform eToro, the company announced that it has entered a new sponsorship agreement with seven clubs from the Premier League. Apart from Tottenham Hotspur, other clubs who reportedly partnered up with eToro were Crystal Palace, Leicester City, Newcastle United, Brighton & Hove Albion, Southampton, and Cardiff City.
eToro, which is based in Israel, has entered the agreement through a sports marketing company SportQuake following six months of preparations. Reportedly, the deal will see the Israeli company gain access to a number of assets, including tickets, LED boards, digital rights, access to players, as well as interview backdrops. According to eToro, this is the first instance where a Premier League partnership will be paid in Bitcoin.
eToro’s sponsorship of the clubs is an attempt to bring cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to the world of premium football. Prior to receiving payments in BTC, the seven clubs all set up individual Bitcoin wallets with the eToro online platform. The payments made were trials to see how cryptocurrencies could be implemented by each of the respective clubs. This is also not the first time a Premier League club partnered with a cryptocurrency company. That milestone is reserved for Arsenal FC, which signed a sponsorship deal with CashBet in February this year.
Bitcoin Payments to Revolutionize Football?
According to eToro, Bitcoin could soon be used to pay for transfers of top players. The trading platform has “no doubt” that the world’s biggest cryptocurrency will be able to eventually replace the Pound Sterling in the multi-billion industry of football transfers. Bitcoin is also expected to help clubs fight sales of counterfeit merchandise and ticket touting (resale), a representative from the company told the media in a Monday briefing.
To stimulate the clubs into getting their first taste of Bitcoin transfers, eToro has sent them their first coins in the newly registered wallets. Iqbal Gandham, the company’s managing director for UK who spoke to the Daily Telegraph, confirmed that the clubs received Bitcoin payments in an effort to spark interest. He also told the news agency that Bitcoin could help add more “transparency” to the football industry.
Comments were also given by some of the clubs’ heads who confirmed that the teams are interested in exploring the technology. Tottenham’s head of partnerships, Fran Jones, stated that the agreement was struck because the club feels a commitment to both innovation and technology. Brighton’s chief executive, Paul Barber, also expressed the club’s interest in cryptocurrencies and said that this new agreement will help Brighton understand “the true potential offered by blockchain” more clearly.
It’s been a hard couple of weeks after the World Cup 2018 with no premium football events to watch after the finale on July 15th. Luckily, the wait was short as this Friday brings us the start of the English Premier League which will officially kick off with an exciting match between Manchester United and Leicester City. If you are likewise hyped up for the start of the EPL 2018, you might want to check out Sportsbet sometime soon because the site is giving you a chance to get some free bets for the rest of 2018 by placing a single wager on the Premier League.
Pick Your Champion and Get Free Bets
If there’s one thing Sportsbet proved since its launch is that it is a site that knows how to create very attractive player promos. Namely, the bookmaker’s latest promotion is aimed at all fans of the English Premier League who want to predict a champion for the EPL title. However, the promotion is not only about making a right guess on who will lift the cup this year but also about supporting a team throughout the full run of the competition.
Namely, the premise of the new EPL promo is very simple. Pick one time as the outright winner of the EPL 2018/2018 and place a bet on it. Once you do, every time your chosen team wins a match in the League, Sportsbet will give you one free bet to place on its website. If you pick a strong team and it ends up winning every single match they play, you will get to bank up to 20 free bets, apart from the prize you get for your outright winner bet!
To get started, you simply have to visit the outrights markets of the EPL at Sportsbet and place a bet on a winner of exactly mBTC 10, €65, or an equivalent in any other available currency. Each time your selected team wins a match, the bookmaker will award you with a free bet of mBTC 1 or €6.5. You can win free bets up until the 31st of December 2018, which is the official end date of the promotion. To enjoy the promotion, you have until Round 3 of the Premier League (August 24th) to place your outright winner bet. If you feel up for it, make sure to pay Sportsbet a visit today!
More Bonuses Waiting for You
Apart from the new EPL promo offer, Sportsbet also offers any registered player a couple of other exciting bonuses. For new players who register at Sportsbet, the bookmaker offers a bonus of 3x the stake on your first qualifying bet. To claim this offer, you just have to sign up and place a wager on any sport of your choosing. Once you do, you will automatically be given 3x your stake as a welcome gift within the next 24 hours.
Even as a regular at the site, you can still enjoy some benefits for choosing Sportsbet over other Bitcoin bookmakers. Namely, every day the betting operator lets you grab a price boost for a bet made on any sport, which can be activated by clicking the special “price boost” button on your betting slip. For more information about this offer and any other promo at Sportbet, you can visit the bookmaker.
