New Betting Exchange Gambyl Taking a Gamble on North American Market
TORONTO — A new website called Gambyl is taking sports betting to the next level.
More than a mere sportsbook, Gambyl is a sports betting exchange, a business model that has been popular in Europe for decades but has just started to catch on in recent years in North America.
So how does Gambyl work?
Gambling 911 recently sat down with Gambyl’s head honcho, Dan Nedelko, at the company‘s headquarters for a wide-ranging interview about the company and its future.
Here is a transcript of that interview:
Gambling 911: What is Gambyl (gambyl.com) and how does it work?
Dan Nedelko: Gambyl operates as a media company, and our inaugural offering is a peer-to-peer blockchain-powered sports betting exchange. This unique approach has several implications. Firstly, the blockchain ensures that every action on our platform is fully traceable and audited. Notably, our blockchain has a distinctive feature—customers can view their own activities and Gambyl's, yet this information remains private and is inaccessible to the public. Our blockchain solution is thus considered semi-private, driven by Digital Asset and the DAML language. Regarding the betting exchange aspect, instead of conventional sportsbooks where players compete against the house and bookmakers, our platform facilitates peer-to-peer betting. This means your bets need to find matches with other players. We operate on a model where only a small percentage of winning wagers is retained to sustain the business. This setup caters to a diverse audience, including professional bettors, high-stakes players and casual bettors alike. The structure resembles more of a PayPal model compared to traditional banks, with a modern and user-friendly approach. For more detailed information, you can explore the following links:
https://gambyl.com/en/betting-exchange/
G9: What is a sports betting exchange and how is that different from traditional sports betting?
DN: In the traditional model, betting against the house poses challenges such as split lines, delayed payouts and the unpredictability of operators entering and exiting the scene. Our sports betting exchange, on the other hand, operates on a player-to-player basis, eliminating these issues. We function as facilitators, much like PayPal in a transaction, retaining only a small percentage of the winning wagers. Comparatively, the betting exchange model is a better business model, especially when contrasted with high-vig, high-rollover and slow payout issues associated with traditional sportsbooks. Seasoned bettors recognize these challenges, which are absent in a peer-to-peer betting exchange. Drawing inspiration from successful models like Betfair's sports betting exchange, we are confident that the emergence of the betting exchange when combined with the blockchain in emerging markets will shape the future of sports betting. It offers a streamlined and efficient alternative, addressing concerns associated with traditional approaches.
G9: Are there any advantages or disadvantages to using a sports betting exchange vs. using a traditional bookmaker or sportsbook?
DN: Just like there is with anything, there are advantages and disadvantages. The one disadvantage is that your bets do need to be matched, and if there isn’t another player to bet against, your wagers are considered unmatched and could potentially be cancelled. Again, it’s a lot like PayPal. We need to find the right type of players, serious bettors that are really interested in lower fees and being taken care of. Kind of like Cheers, where everybody knows your name, and when we do that, we can match wagers. One of the “weaknesses” or a disadvantage of a sports betting exchange is if everybody's betting on one side, then bets aren't matched and then that line is potentially canceled. So, we need to have a volume of players. Like everything in this industry, it’s a double-edged sword—it works as an advantage and a disadvantage, depending on the circumstance. There is a place for sportsbooks, we're not saying there isn't a place for them in the overall landscape. I think there's a place for well-run sportsbooks like the major players that we all know about in this industry, that have been legitimate for decades and we also know the somewhat problematic players in the industry with slow payouts, inconsistent customer service, etc. There is a place for sportsbooks and there is a place for betting exchanges. I think if you take the best of both worlds and really care about the players, you've got a winner.
G9: Where is your company located?
DN: Our company is located in the British Virgin Islands. We’re a remote team located around the world based in North America, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Argentina Venezuela, Portugal and France. We're truly an international organization.
G9: When was it founded?
DN: The company was founded back in 2020, so it’s a relatively young company. The founding group saw an opportunity for a new model in the business, new technologies like the blockchain and also a new look at emerging markets.
G9: What is your position at the company?
DN: I am one of the co-founders and Chief Operating Officer. I have a 20-plus year history in the industry including starting out as an SEO back in the day and have been in the industry in various capacities with too many different groups to mention for the last 22 years or so. I’m having a lot of fun and I am really involved in every single part of the long-term strategy and daily operations. That includes customer service, the VIPs support, product development, product architecture, customer service, marketing, communications, our influencer partners and our media group as well. We really look at this as being a media company first with product second.
G9: Can you tell us a little bit about your personal background, such as age, education, work experience, etc.?
DN: I come from a software engineering and mathematics background. I have a long story behind that but back in the very early 2000s. I went out west to Vancouver and joined a team that ended up being one of the most impactful sportsbook, casino, poker and horses teams in the industry. I was their first in-house SEO and moved through that organization a bit then moved on to other “household” names in the offshore industry. I'm 51 years old I've got a degree in computer science and mathematics from Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. My professional experience in the gaming industry spans some of the largest names in the industry, both offshore and regulated. I’ve worked with some of the biggest names Gambling 911 readers will instantly recognize, but I've also worked with the Ontario Lottery Gaming Corporation, BCLC in British Columbia and other land-based casinos and government-regulated organizations in North America. I've worked across the industry in both the EU, Canada, United States onshore regulated and offshore licensed operators. I do really enjoy the industry itself, I have a lot of fun and I'm really excited to be able to apply both my work experience and my personal beliefs about online gambling. Gambling is something that so many people do, so let's do it well if we're going to do it. I’m very involved with communications and marketing. Psychology is a passion of mine and I think communicating ideas is super important. With my background I'm able to bridge gaps between technical software engineering and architecture, SEO and business units like marketing, customer acquisition, customer retention and revenue teams. I’m very much focused on developing really deep customer relationships. I love it a lot and this has been a fantastically exciting experience.
G9: Gambyl is currently in a beta or testing phase—what is the timetable for it to be operational for the public?
DN: So we have been in a beta phase for the last three months. We did a major release yesterday. It is operational for the public now, you could go to https://beta.gambyl.com create a free account and use Crypto or Cash-to-Code to get started. Our head of Client Services and our client services team are available on call for VIP White Glove treatment. If anybody has any issues, we’re here to help, even going so far as to set up white glove WhatsApp or Telegram calls to make sure everyone is happy. To be clear, if you’re in the USA, we’re not able to help you for obvious reasons, as we always comply with all regulations and legal frameworks. I guess there is a question about how “traditional” sportsbook licenses apply to a sports betting exchange, but I’ll leave that to the legal eagles on our team. We are taking a philosophy of moving fast and breaking things, we're also building in the open, so we're very interested in hearing both industry and customer feedback on how we can improve issues that are run into. We're in a soft beta, that’s what I would call it. We are going into Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Venezuela as our launch areas with the exchange. We are licensed in Kahnawake, in Canada. We are live now and our timetable is ongoing.
G9: Are you looking for investors in your company, and if so, what kind of financial commitment would we be talking about?
DN: I think we're always looking for partners and partnerships of different varieties. Talking about financial commitment and investments is not something I would ever speak to in this environment. It is a deep discussion because it's not simply about a dollar amount, it's also about the right type of partners. That goes specifically for this case but I think that is a general truth.
G9: Is there anything else you would like to add that you have not been asked about?
DN: I think it's important that the sports betting industry takes a good hard look at how it has operated over the past 30 years, both offshore licensed operators and on-shore regulated operators, and the big M&A corporations that are gobbling up multiple operators and branding with mainstream Media Partners. The gambling industry has long been somewhat dismissive of its players in a lot of ways. It's really time to look at a new way of approaching the entire industry from a more player-centric point of view. I tend to lean back on the PayPal analogy because it really does work. PayPal didn’t work for a long time for various reasons, but when it worked it really scaled up. We all know how it played out for the PayPal mafia and the major players like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. I think the last thing I always love to talk about is the fact that Gambyl is a media company with a product and not a product company with some media. We live in a very different world than we did even 10 years ago. I know many of our peers in this industry are having a hard time adjusting to that but it's a harsh reality and we can see that from individuals becoming media corporations of their own and in their own right. I have a lot of built-in respect for that and also the fact that really a large number of people gamble on a regular basis, it should be transparent and it should be fun and easy. The online gaming industry can enable and embrace that reality or we can fight against it. I think it's time to put down the gloves and really embrace this new world that we live in with innovative solutions instead of fighting it tooth and nail.
By Tom Somach
Gambling 911 Chief Correspondent
