← Back to portfolio
Published on

The dawn of the serverless casino is nigh

Upcoming white label casino platform FunFair is powered by Ethereum — a new technology that has created the possibility of self-contained, completely transparent casinos. Set to go serverless soon, FunFair and its ilk are in prime position to disrupt online gambling as we know it.

Trust has always been one of the biggest concerns for online gamblers, but now startups are emerging which will render the concept moot.

Imagine a casino platform built and sustained by a network of independent nodes, where no one individual has an advantage both in terms of odds and the flow of funds involved. This is what rising blockchain technology Ethereum provides. However, while its native currency Ether seizes the headlines, it’s the possibilities of the platform itself that will reshape the gambling world.

JPMorgan, Microsoft and Intel joined the first wave of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) earlier this year, a newly created body that connects firms to blockchain vendors. This, coupled with the rapid rise of Ether itself — it’s surged an eye-popping 4,500 percent up in the last few months alone –  reflects substantial interest in the platform from major tech players.

Coming to the fore amongst early adopters of Ethereum is FunFair, a casino platform founded by games veteran Jan Suz. FunFair raised $15.4m in the first phase of its recent Initial Coin Offering (ICO), an event cryptocurrency startups use to begin generating coin.

As of May of this year, over $380m has been invested into ICOs, much of which was raised with nothing more than a white paper and a cryptocoin. FunFair’s ICO created over a billion tokens of FUN — the currency that will power the new casino, in just the first phase of funding. The tokens will be possible to exchange for multiple fiat currencies, with value set to increase should the platform see increased adoption.

“Unlike other companies, we have much more than a white paper and a dream for our token creation event,” commented Jez San, CEO of FunFair. “We’ve already developed real, playable casino games that prove our model works. Our vision is a limitless universe of transparent, secure casinos that can be easily created by anyone, anywhere in the world.”

FunFairs’s Ethereum platform will be offered to casino providers as a white label, provably fair, decentralized casino. This will allow existing and new operators to create their own branded casinos on the platform. The site is already showcasing intricate 3D game demos, giving potential developers a taste of what’s possible on its open-architecture network. A ‘fun fair’ of gambling games will eventually feature, ranging from classic card, table and slot games to exclusive titles developed by individual operators.

Every single game on its platform will be ‘provably fair’. Contracts between player and operator can be public, right down to the mathematics crunched to determine winnings. Gamblers will be able to verify the fairness of each outcome and confirm whether they should have been paid. Games built on FunFair run directly in the browser on desktop and mobile devices without requiring an app download, eliminating one of the major pain-points of player onboarding.

FunFair’s tech looks set to tackle endemic issues in the cryptocurrency blockchain gambling sphere, such as fairness, slow betting speed, and poor game experience. The firm’s innovations have already created a substantial reduction of online casino overhead costs, which may be just what it needs to attract the big-name operators crucial for future success.

In a blockchain decentralized system such as Ethereum, no particular individual or entity can have an advantage at any stage of the process. However, there can be slow block confirmation for each individual bet, with users typically waiting up to a minute to lay bets. This has proven costly for player and operator alike, incurring ‘gas’ costs and causing stifled gameplay. It is cited as an argument for how unsustainable blockchain casinos are.

FunFair’s patented payment system takes the transactions “off chain”, meaning that each payment (bet) can be made without waiting for block confirmation. The firm’s patented “Fate Channel” technology opens a State Channel — a “dedicated highway”, solely between two parties, allowing secure and immediate payment and therefore, relatively instantaneous bets.

In addition, Fate Channel has truncated standard transaction costs from 10 percent to just 0.1 percent. Although payment technologies similar to it already exist, FunFair are the first to deploy one at mass scale. Mechanics like these could prove key to survival for firms operating in this highly competitive market.

Singapore-based FunFair has a presence in the UK and wants to work with regulators to create a legal infrastructure around cryptocurrency gambling. Lack of transparency regarding licenses is a key issue with Bitcoin casinos, with many sites created and run by anonymous parties. A firm getting full legislative recognition could have enormous implications for the entire sector. However, the success of FunFair ultimately rests on convincing casino operators to license its platform.

Time will tell how players, developers and operators alike will adapt to Ethereum blockchain gambling. Overall, the sector innovations could allow established betting and casino sites to leverage their player base and gaming expertise on the foundation of more secure and less costly technology solutions provided by Ethereum pioneers like FunFair.