As we witness the growing influence of big data – in research, marketing, politics, healthcare, sports and gaming (and the careers that follow) – blockchain and cryptocurrency have emerged as signposts pointing the way to the future. Consider the case of Cylus Watson. It wasn’t long ago that Watson, a former professional poker player, parlayed his knowledge of predictive analytics into a new source of income: Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS). DFS offered short term, low buy-in gambling that attracted Watson. Soon, he was entering tournaments for big prizes. One of those was the DraftKings Millionaire Maker, a fantasy baseball tournament with a top prize of $1M.
On the same day he learned about the tournament, Watson entered the maximum 500 lineups at $20 each. It came down to the bottom of the ninth of the final game of the day, but within just a few hours after submitting his lineups, Watson had won the tournament, placing three of the top 10 finishes, taking home $1 million. After the federal government reduced the ceiling for prize winnings in DFS, Watson ventured into the world of cryptocurrency – banking on the Ethereum platform.
It’s a bet he believes will pay off due to Ethereum’s exclusivity and the future of “smart contracts” – financial actions (purchases, trades or bets) executed on blockchain when pre-set conditions are met, similar to a stock or commodity trigger. The decentralized blockchain also offers verifiability and protects against deception and fraud. It even allows crowd-sourced bets or “markets” to be made independently, potentially making the central sportsbook or traditional bookmaker obsolete.
“Thought the market was undervaluing the concept of blockchain and smart contracts, something I felt like the public would eventually understand and adopt,” said Watson. “I saw the Etheruem platform as the best way to get exposure to the market value of smart contracts.”
After launching a new career as a blockchain investment manager, Watson joined the advisory board of blockchain-powered sports data aggregator BlitzPredict. He is a passionate believer in the Las Vegas-based company’s frontrunner approach to capturing the sports gambling market through the security that blockchain and smart contracts offer. As an investor analyzing blockchain-based companies, Watson recognizes that the integration of blockchain and sports gambling will be a driving force impacting the future of a newly-legalized industry.
BlitzPredict is a global platform that opens a new world of opportunity for sports bettors by making betting more efficient. Using smart contract tools and blockchain technology, users gain access to the best lines available in the market at the time of a bet. BlitzPredict offers access to advanced analytical models and a suite of customizable tools powered by smart contracts. It records all betting predictions to the blockchain, time-stamped against true market odds, preventing those predictions from being later altered in an attempt to dispute a bet or falsify one’s percentage of success.
“It’s great to see guys like Cylus, who are brilliant analytical minds, gravitate to cryptocurrency and blockchain,” said Bret Richey, CEO of BlitzPredict. “Having him on our advisory board gives us unique insights into where our service platform should go and makes us a smarter company overall.”
While the development and mainstream adoption of blockchain on a mass scale will not happen overnight due to its complexity, distributed ledger technology (DLT) has the potential to eventually rival the Internet, and one day enable a fully decentralized version of the global web. The security provided by decentralization will be the driving factor in the use of blockchain technology in sports gambling, an industry where trust is in short supply.
The career of Cylus Watson is one example among many that is indicative of the momentum gathering behind blockchain and cryptocurrency as a service platform and a financial asset category. In fact, 20% of all hedge funds launched in 2018 were focused on blockchain technology. Last month, the international investment bank Morgan Stanley publicly recognized that cryptocurrencies have constituted a “new institutional investment class” since 2017. The banking giant also expressed optimism about the future of DLT, describing it as making the world “better.”
As a member of the advisory board for BlitzPredict, Watson brings the analytical perspective of the professional sports bettor, together with an appreciation of the game-changing power of predictive technology powered by the blockchain, to help deliver a new level of service and security to a rapidly-growing industry.
