Bitkup: A Fun Community World Cup Prediction Pool

Competition structure and scoring

The FIFA World Cup runs in Brazil from June 13 to July 14. It is made up of 32 teams playing 64 games.

Bitkup users predict the score of each match and receive 3 points if they guess the correct score or 1 point if they get the score wrong but the result (Team A/Team B/Draw) is right.

So if you predict a game will end 2-2 and it ends 2-2 you get 3 points. If it ends 1-1 or 3-3 you get 1 point because you predicted the result would be a draw. If it ends 2-1 or any non-draw you get 0 points. There is also a bonus bet to predict the overall winner for 10 points.

So far there is around 3500 m฿ in the pool, which will keep increasing until kick-off. The operators are taking a 20% cut and the top 20 users will share the rest as winnings on this payouts scale.

Bitkup is just the first example of this model we will see with crypto. In fact, there are already platforms being developed for groups of friends to run crypto betting pools on anything into which a few people or a few million people can enter.

Review

Bitkup is a good start to this but I have a few gripes. It’s not clear if the score used for grading knockout games will include periods of extra time. Their terms and conditions suggest it will but this is not standard in correct score soccer betting.

Edit: Bitkup updated this based on my suggestion, now matches will be scored based on full-time results not including extra time or penalties.

I would like to see more social features like a community chat box.

Edit: This has now been included.

The site often throws up an error and does not record your predictions after you press the “All in” button, meaning you often have to enter your predictions again.

The operator’s cut of 20% is WAY too high. As the Bitkup team has had to build everything from scratch they still won’t make their money back on this first endeavor but they now have a platform on which to offer further pools in the future. The operator cut will get lower and lower when there is competition, down to 1% and then eventually 0% house edge.

You can see how I am getting on in the competition by checking the Bitkup leaderboard for the user name “BitcoinBettingGuide”. If you want to make bets on individual games we recommend Cloudbet.

Bitkup is yet another example of how the gambling industry pushes the envelope of technology and censorship resistance moving the crypto ecosystem forward!