Bookie is a decentralised BTC betting exchange built on the Internet Computer Protocol. We enable fast, secure and trustless peer-to-peer prediction markets using ckBTC and a smart contract managed exchange.
Key features: prediction markets, API market maker plugin, email generated IC wallets, fastest ckBTC minting on IC, ckBTC backed free bets, ‘Aura’ reward scheme, and more…
Official Links:
Problem Statement:
The sports betting industry is dominated by centralised bookmakers that offer set odds with a built-in margin, often referred to as the “vig” or “overround”, that in some markets can go as high as 30%. This skews the odds massively in favour of the bookmakers.
Traditional bookmakers go further in their market manipulation by banning winning accounts, freezing payouts and limiting bets in terms of both volume and availability.
Therefore, the current centralised structure of the sports betting industry creates odds manipulation, high fees, opaque practices and the risk of fund mismanagement. Moreover, users have limited control over their own data and transactions.
Bookie’s Mission:
Bookie’s mission is to enable you to make more money by facilitating the best odds at the lowest fees. Bookie destroys the ‘vig’ charged by traditional bookmakers in favour of true odds discovery determined by a fair peer-to-peer marketplace.
Security, transparency and fairness are at the core of our identity. Bookie is built on-chain to ensure our betting process is decentralised, non-custodial and secure. Bet with confidence, the blockchain has your back!
That’s what Bookie is all about — a peer-to-peer betting exchange where YOU set the odds, eliminating the middleman and creating a seamless, empowering betting experience.
See more on our mission and offering in our documentation.
Why Bookie Builds On ICP:
1 - ckBTC
Bookie uses ckBTC throughout the betting exchange for several reasons:
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Secure: ckBTC is truly decentralised and backed 1:1 by Bitcoin (BTC).
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Fast & Cheap: ckBTC can be sent with 1-2 second finality and negligible fees.
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Integrated with ICP smart contracts: Programmability of ckBTC allows Bookie to offer non-custodial prediction markets.
Overall, using ckBTC allows us to onboard from the general gambling community and BTC community by offering the best UX without sacrificing any of the tenants of our GambleFi nature.
2 - No Oracles Needed
Bookie resolves prediction markets by using a secure events API communicating directly with the smart contract managed order books. The IC’s ability to host smart contracts that handle real time data updates ensures that Bookie’s market resolution remains fast, secure and untampered by third party oracles.
3 - Web2 Level UX
The IC’s speed, reverse gas fee model and easy onboarding allow Bookie to live up to user expectations of UX and onboard sports bettors from web2 platforms.
4 - Security and Transparency
Building on the IC enables Bookie to offer self-custody betting and smart contract based prediction markets. As a result, Bookie’s markets benefit from blockchain security and transparency and put players back in full control of their bets.
Technical Overview
Exchange Mechanics:
This section outlines the mechanics behind Bookie betting markets through a step-by-step consideration of the betting process from order submissions to market resolution and payouts.
Step 1: Smart Contract Order Books
Players on Bookie can place bets both ‘For’ and ‘Against’ events at the odds they like and hold as their true estimation of an event’s likelihood.
A player’s bet is split into orders with associated “Odds” and “Collateral” amounts required.
All orders are sent and logged in automated smart contract based order books. These order books manage the bidding process independently to match bets between two counterparties through an auction system. This competition of supply and demand reveals the market’s estimation of an event’s true odds.
Bookie eliminates counterparty risk by ensuring players must submit the collateral amount required for their bet. This collateral is associated with a player’s order and locked on the IC ledger until the market is resolved.
Step 2: Matched Bets
Players’ bets are matched automatically by our order book system should they have the corresponding odds ‘For’ and ‘Against’. Once the bets are matched they cannot be cancelled by any user and the funds are locked on the Internet Computer Protocol Ledger pending market resolution and payout.
Step 3: Market Resolution
Bookie resolves prediction markets by using a secure events API communicating directly with the smart contract managed order books. The IC’s ability to host smart contracts that handle real time data updates ensures that Bookie’s market resolution remains fast, secure and untampered by third party oracles.
Step 4: Final Result
After the event is finished and upon receiving the final result from the Sports Data API, our smart contracts calculate users’ winnings accordingly.
Players’ bets can have three states at the end of a fixture upon which their payouts depend: matched, unmatched and partially matched.
- Matched bets: Winner takes all.
- Unmatched bets: Bet amount refunded to player.
- Partially matched bets: The matched portion is paid out with winnings whilst the unmatched portion is refunded to the player.
Step 5: Payouts
Payouts are processed automatically and sent directly to players’ wallets. This ensures the entire process from placement to payout remains non-custodial and Bookie never has access to player funds.
Onboarding & Key Features:
Email Generated Non-Custodial Wallets:
You can Sign-Up/Sign-In to Bookie simply by using your email address. With this easy onboarding, you don’t just create a profile—you’re also automatically set up with a non-custodial crypto wallet.
Bookie provides a passwordless login experience via magic links and deterministically generates user identities from a securely stored, encrypted seed phrase. This system ensures a stable identity by consistently linking a principal ID to a user’s email, allowing seamless access across devices and browsers.
Key security measures:
- The seed phrase is never stored as plaintext; it is encrypted in the Stable Identity Canister.
- Encryption keys are generated deterministically by a server, ensuring the server never sees the seed.
- Even if the canister or server is compromised, unauthorized control remains impossible without access to a users email.
By separating encryption and storage, no single entity—including us—can compromise user identities, ensuring strong security and stability. This widely accepted sign-up method enables Bookie to onboard players without requiring a deep understanding of crypto technology or sacrificing security or self custody benefits.
Users can also use IC connectors such as Internet Identity and Plug Wallet to log in to Bookie.
Fast ckBTC Minting:
Bookie offers the fastest ckBTC minting on the blockchain.
Players need only deposit BTC and ckBTC is disbursed after 1 BTC network confirmation* from an existing ckBTC pool. As such, players receive their ckBTC and are ready to bet within 10-20 minutes and do not have to wait for their BTC to be fully minted as ckBTC (1-2 hours) before they can begin.
*The processing time of deposits depends on the BTC network speed as well as the deposit amount - smaller transactions require fewer network confirmations and complete faster, while larger deposits need additional confirmations for enhanced security.
ckBTC Backed Free Bets:
Bookie offers Free Bets as part of several promotions (sign-up bonus, aura reward, etc…). These Free Bets are issued to specific principal ID’s and backed by ckBTC held within a canister smart contract. This enables players to place a Free Bet and receive potential winnings with no initial funds needed from their end, all whilst ensuring that Bookie markets and bets remain fully collateralized for all parties.
Aura Reward System:
Aura is a points based reward system, designed to reward Bookie’s most active and loyal players!
Each month, a set amount of Free Bets are available for Aura Rewards. Players on Bookie earn Aura points through betting achievements (e.g ‘Place Whale Bet’,Provide Liquidity’,’Bet On New Sport’, etc…), maintaining a bet streak, climbing leaderboards and sending referrals.
As they do so they build their Aura balance. At the end of the month, each player is rewarded free bets from the monthly pool based on their Aura balance in proportion to the total Aura distributed that month.
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After several weeks of Beta testing, Bookie is now live and offering markets on all major sports and leagues. We continue to build both our Dapp and community and appreciate your support as we do so - much more to come very soon!