❓3.0 Problem Overview

What is the problem with sports betting?

● Excessive risks for sports bettors ○ Exploitation of identity/information ○ Regulatory repercussions ○ Total irrecoverable loss of funds ○ Vulnerability to manipulation ● Unpredictable risks for corporate and private bookkeepers ○ Regulatory repercussions ○ Government confiscation of funds ○ Frozen assets ○ Security vulnerabilities Sports betting has a bad rap. Simple analysis traces the industry’s clouded reputation to the regulatory practices that drive sports betting underground, and the inevitable problems that result from systems of trust enforced only by greed and fear of violence. The reputation of bookkeeping (and gambling in general) and problematic efforts at regulation are mutually reinforcing. When government impose regulations they inadvertently drive betting underground. When underground markets become violent or result in tragic economic losses, the justification for regulatory control of a purportedly dangerous industry becomes self-fulfilling. Some governments, knowing that betting activity will continue — even if it is declared a crime — allow licensed betting. Governments charge fees for licensure and regulation and tax the industry and any winnings. A so-called "sin tax" justifies excessive government confiscation and control premised on the notion that extragovernmental sports betting is inherently dangerous and constitutes a moral vice. The first irony is that this political competition for control over gambling income — the question of "who will be the house" — inevitably corrupts the politicians and government officials who benefit from the "vice" that they purport to regulate. The industry becomes “pay to play” for entities to participate and compete, leading to oligarchy. A second irony is that regulation is inevitably ineffective, resulting in legal loopholes that are used to bring products and services to market anyway, often at a high cost to efficiency. This waste of resources would better serve economies, and ultimately, communities, in other areas of production. The third irony is that the regulation itself produces a combination of corrupt and dangerous markets: the legally regulated one and the underground one regulated by vigilante practices. The result is moral hypocrisy on the part of regulators, an arbitrary and unpredictable mishmash of inefficient local regulatory practices and the flourishing of underground markets which are, indeed, more risky both because sports bettors and bookkeepers risk criminal prosecution and because they have no recourse to the law when one party fails to deliver what they owe. Government regulation is a protection racket In short, government regulation of sports betting is a racket. Government regulators make money by providing "protection" to citizens, sports bettors, and legitimate bookkeepers. But the protection offered is only necessary because the underground markets are defined by the government itself as illegal, the participants defined as criminals, and their everyday practices require participants to rely upon a delicate balance of "trust," on one hand, and the threat, and potential reality, of severe violence on the other. Even when government regulation of sports betting is a well intended effort at protection; it is a racket, nonetheless. Worse yet, governments are not only confiscating winnings to pay for “protecting” citizens from dangers and corruption — the government officials, themselves, are corrupted by their incentives to collect taxes and maintain power, thus facilitating the dangers that perpetuate the narrative and their role as protection. Centralization as the core problem ● Trust requirements ● Centralization of power, control ● Non-distributed systems Winc agrees: the current state of sports betting is terribly risky, expensive, corrupt, and dangerous. But it doesn't have to be this way. Winc has identified the elements crucial to a safer, more secure way to practice sports betting. Winc, furthermore, has designed a system that brings this better way to the whole world without borders. This is a big deal. Illegal sports betting in the US and China combined totals a trillion Dollars in illegal bets. Despite efforts at heavy regulation, people are betting anyhow. And they are doing so in an insecure and unsafe manner. Winc provides a global solution to a vast array of localized problems in sports betting markets.