Why We Are Betting on the Blockchain, Interview With Azuro’s Paruyr Shahbazyan

Online betting, which has always been popular since its inception, saw a dramatic explosion following the start of the pandemic. People desperate for entertainment, when outdoor leisure and sporting events were closed, turned to online forms of entertainment. Online betting was one of the beneficiaries of this new trend with the sector having grown from **$465.76 billion in 2020, to $516.03 billion in 2021, and the market is expected to climb to $674.7 billion in 2025. However, ask any seasoned online gamer or bettor and they will likely tell you that betting online comes with a host of problems and frustrations for them. These include the lack of transparency and fluctuations of fixed betting odds, bet settlement delays and even winning bettors having their accounts limited due to the success they have enjoyed. For these reasons alone, it makes a lot of sense to migrate betting onto the blockchain. The blockchain, using smart contracts and sometimes oracles, automates the entire betting process and the money flow, that way the funnel is entirely un-manipulatable and transparent. This means that users are paid out automatically, it means they cannot have their accounts limited just for winning too much, and it also means their personal and banking data is not exposed to hackers. The blockchain automatically verifies transfers and activities and it keeps this data on thousands of nodes worldwide, giving hackers limited opportun...