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BETR Goes Multi-Currency

February 21st, 2019 No comments

Today I am excited to bring you news about a potential game-changer for the BETR ecosystem. I cannot over stress how important I think this is for the tokenomics of BETR as a whole.

A recurring question that I had throughout the ICO and after relates to the volatility of tokens against other crypto and fiat and how we handle this in betting.  If I place a $10 bet at 2/1 and then when I win I expect $30 back.  And my perception of $30 is related to where I perceive value.  

While there is a correlation between different sources of perceived value the reality is that in today’s world fiat currencies ($/£/EURO …) still sit at the top of the tree, followed by other assets (eg. gold) or cryptos roughly in line with their size. With the crypto crash of the past year this has hit home to many who were venturing into a new frame of thinking – their perceived wealth took a hit because they denominated it in one or other crypto which lost value against the “real world” fiat currencies.

Enter the paradigm of tethered currencies such as Tether (USDT) which are supposedly secured by “real world” wealth and stablecoins such as debt backed Maker Dai – all striving to somehow achieve a stability in crypto wealth while remaining independent of the thing they are in parity with.

At BETR we are fortunate that our problem is somewhat smaller (in risk scale anyway) in that the length of time for the average bet is relatively small and any stability around the coin only has to survive the time that the bet remains un-resulted. 

So … we have a problem with a potential solution.  

Enter multi-currency betting

We need to stabilise the exchange rate around a bet but ONLY for the period of the bet resulting.  We also need to do this in a way that is robust and secure and it needs to have sufficient collateral to work.  By backing all bets onto a BETR denominated layer pool (remember that “global liquidity pool” we talked about in the ICO?) we have a controlled environment.  We know the ratio of tokens available for exchange hedging against those committed to lays – in real time.  We know the exchange rates on exchanges against existing crypto pairs – in real time. We know the lifetime of a particular bet. We can calculate the volatility of these pairs.  So – we can provide a robust foreign exchange mechanism.

Today we introduce native ETH betting secured by the BETR liquidity pool of peer-to-peer layers. From a betting perspective the change is small – you can now bet in either BETR or ETH.  If you bet in ETH you will be paid winnings at the correct amount in ETH.  Simple. And it works.  Seamlessly.

Looking to the future and this brings an exciting addition to our platform.  We are working on adding cross-chain crypto currencies such as EOS and LTC to the client and hope to have more news on these soon.  We are also, as a part of this change, moving to a technical architecture where we will be able to migrate the core systems from Ethereum if this is the right way to go.  We have been looking at alternatives for some time but the optimal answer is not yet obvious.  And finally – we are in a position where we can relatively easily put in place exchange agents with crypto currency including local tethered coins with local payment presences.

How does it work?

A bettor simply chooses the currency that they wish to bet in.  The system is now multi-currency – bets are be stored in any one of the supported currencies and mixed on the bet history (and of course in the underlying smart contracts).

Every bet is recorded with a fixed exchange rate which is used to calculate the winnings (if applicable). The bet is laid against the peer-to-peer layer at the BETR amount according to this rate.  From the layer’s perspective this is a BETR bet – layers will always lay in BETR and the underlying escrows will always happen in BETR – this is fundamental to the concept of BETR.  Affiliate payouts and any other rev shares will also remain in BETR. The underlying liquidity pool remains in BETR.

Liquidity Management

The nett effect of this will be that net losses in other currency betting will require further BETR being used in the system.  These will be sourced from treasury reserves and by buying on exchanges.  Ultimately this leads to an influx of liquidity to the BETR system.

The truth in response to Mr Ehrlich’s fictitious allegations

November 13th, 2018 No comments

Hilly Ehrlich has, over the past 5 months, subjected me personally to an onslaught of emails, calls and meetings instigated by him with the sole purpose of his and his friends’ personal financial gain.  These came to a head on Friday morning with the release of an article on a supposedly independent industry blog that simply puts Ehrlich’s allegations forward as the truth with no attempt at any pretence of journalism or fact checking.

Firstly, I strongly and vehemently refute each and every one of Ehrlich’s allegations. Not a single allegation he has made has any factual basis and they constitute harassing and libellous behaviour on his part.  I have not and will never disburse Foundation funds or assets for any reason other than in pursuit of the goals as set out in the White Paper.  We have released software and will continue to do so, in line with the stated aim of the Foundation and any funds used are deployed solely in the pursuit of these goals.

I have evidence of all of the above together with detailed and substantive responses to every single one of his allegations – these are with our lawyers and they are advising on the correct legal action.

Over the past 10 days I have been dealing with a demand letter from Hilly’s Estonian lawyers.  It threatens to go and lodge criminal complaints in Estonia unless I pay him EUR 500K of foundation funds. I am simply not prepared to do that.  I offered to respond with detailed responses to their complaints, but they were not interested in hearing any responses – just in supplying the bank details so that I could settle the money to them.  The end result of my refusing to bow to this blackmail was the article in Calvin Ayre and whatever complaints they may have lodged with the police.  I am quite prepared to defend each and every one of these complaints and will of course deal with this in the correct and legal manner. Bear in mind that anyone can allege anything and lodge a complaint with the police and then say they have done this – this action lends no validity to their claims.

The article in Calvin Ayre has left my reputation tarnished and caused severe damage to the BETR Foundation – all without any balance or presentation of the other side of the story. Quite how any blog masquerading as a news source could publish such one-sided stories is beyond me.  But anyway – here it is – the truth.

I have known Hilly for many years.  Indeed, I regarded him as a friend.  We went on a trip to Jerusalem together. I rode camels.  We did stuff that friends do.

In 2016 I started thinking about how the sports betting industry could benefit from the new smart contract blockchain systems such as Ethereum and how I could apply these new technologies to bring out some cool technology.  I wrote a basic white paper on sports betting and showed it around some of my industry friends.  I talked about my ideas in social gatherings – some of which Hilly was in.

In 2017 I witnessed the growing interest in ICOs.  Surely with a decent idea and prototype technology I could also raise some funds and pursue my blockchain ideas?  I got out the white paper and started refining, building the token model and putting together a game plan to put sports betting onto blockchain.  I shared my ideas with Hilly and he asked to be included – said he could raise all the money.  It all sounded like a good idea – we agreed a piece of the founder tokens for him and we moved forwards.  By the end of the early stage seed round he had raised $110K and I had brought in $340K so we were ready to put the ICO marketing and machinery in place and go for the main raise.  Hilly was also a part of the main raise – bringing in about 20% of the overall funding. Everything was great.  We concluded the ICO in January 2018 and I set about putting together the business.

My initial intention with regard to development was to have an outsourced partner (in Estonia) who would develop the product.  About 2 months into that development I took the view that this was not going to work and had to terminate the agreement and put in place a team that I could run.  I have developed software for the past 30 years so I knew I could deliver.  I had no confidence that the Estonian team was delivering.  It was the smart choice in terms of delivering on our ICO promises. The downside was that I would personally be far more involved in development and would have less time for other aspects of the business, but I felt that this was the right path.

I was lucky to tap into talented engineers who had worked with me previously and together we established a great team.  I wrote a significant part of the code, and we were able to get a product out for the World Cup which was our stated goal. We also put in place some supporting resources to take care of other aspects of the business.

Unfortunately, despite achieving success for the business, Hilly started to turn against us.  He had other ideas in mind it would seem, both for the product direction – in this regard we followed the timeline and published goals in the white paper – and for the company which he seemed to think did not require any staff.  Hilly has no idea how to create a successful software product – has never done so in the past. Which is why I took responsibility for delivering our product – delivering successful software products is not new territory for me.

When the crypto markets suffered a bear market in the middle of this year our token price was hit – along with pretty much all others and the major cryptos such as Ethereum (which we had taken in significant quantities during the ICO).  Token holders were suddenly in a position where the price which had traded north of the 10c ICO price was plummeting.  Believe me – I was as unhappy as anyone with this, but it was out of my control.

Hilly’s solution was seemingly to bail out his friends at the expense of other token holders. It has come to our knowledge that he has used Foundation assets, to which he had access, in order to do this and we are going to turn to the police with this evidence.

Hilly accused me of many things – some of which are aired in the Calvin Ayre article.  They are all simply fabrications – I think sometimes he believes his own story – regardless of the truth.

There were legal letters sent back and forth – I offered on many occasions to sit with Hilly but he was not prepared to even meet without a guarantee before meeting that I would “make reparations”.  I refused to meet with a pre-ordained outcome that I believed was fundamentally wrong. In all these discussions I consulted with and agreed responses with the Foundation board and stuck to open and proper governance – a process that Hilly appears to have no idea about.

I will continue to fight to do the right thing for all token holders.  We have a tremendous product and much more to do and I truly believe that the token price will recover with usage and utility which is what it needs to do – to move out of trading land to where the price reflects its real utility. I am immensely proud of the product and the great team who have put it together. Stay strong BETR!

Categories: Arthur, Technology Tags: ,

Million Euro Winner on Slots.Cafe

June 23rd, 2016 No comments

Slots Café and White Hat Gaming are pleased to announce an epic win on the NetEnt progressive jackpot network.

On Thursday 16th June 2016, Dennis from Warwickshire, a Slots Café (www.slots.cafe) player, hit the Arabian Nights jackpot, winning €1,021,289.86 after only registering his account a few hours earlier and depositing just £35!

slots-cafe“Wow! I can’t believe it’s true!” said Dennis, father of a 1 year old daughter. With another child on the way in the next few months “All I can say is a huge thank you…If you were here right now I would kiss you…I am just happy for my children more than anything!” . Whilst still getting over the shock of winning Dennis is already thinking about a secure future for his family and starting his own business.

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Categories: Arthur, Technology Tags:

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

October 1st, 2014 Comments off

Some two and a half years ago I was, to be honest, nervous when Bwin-Party announced that their then newly acquired social subsidiary Win would be releasing a social sports betting product.  Social sports betting was, after all, the main game of 2BET2 – my sports apps business.

2bet2 for serious sportstersRoll on a few years and (more than a year later than predicted) they roll out sportster on Facebook.  Now – let’s gloss over the first obvious fact – that they purloined our tagline for their name.  We used the word Sportster from day one. Now I know its just an english word, but really – could they not have been more original?

The product is OK.  Its a flash based game and covers football.  That’s football in the European sense of the word – don’t go here expecting any sports from the American side of the pond – they don’t exist.  So be it.  Bet types are fairly simple although perhaps they get better as you progress through the game.  So far – nothing game changing.

2BET2 sports selection2BET2 Sports Selection

 

 

 

 

Compare European football with the selection of coverage from 2BET2 and you get an idea of what you are missing on Bwin’s effort.


When Bwin partnered with Nordeus I was anticipating something more in line with Nordeus’s market leading fantasy sports products but it seems this was not to be.  Honestly I think that was a mistake on their part – there has to be space in the market for a more fantasy/betting blended game.

2BET2 Turbo Bet

 

 

 

Another feature which they copied invented? was the addition of virtual sports based on real world events and odds with a “proprietary result prediction engine”.  Quite frankly an exact copy of the 2BET2 Turbo Bet option.  Yes – we take real world events and odds, schedule the events for the next few minutes, and randomise the results.

Really the only difference between the Bwin/Sportster version of virtual events and 2BET2 Turbo Bet is the name, and the broader selection of sports available on 2BET2.


I wish BWin-Party all the best with their product.  They presumably have budget to promote it and no doubt will get some traction.  God knows they need it to work – their core gambling games have been declining over the past few years.

Meanwhile we here at 2BET2 headquarters are working on the next iteration of 2BET2.  Expect something different.  Something game changing.  Something that BWin Party will take longer than 2 years to copy.  We are currently in the early development and fund raise stage for the new initiative – it’s going to be huge and that takes money – but it promises to be sensational!

Until then – adios!

2BET2 Sports Apps

2BET2 Sports Apps – the future of social sports

2BET2 sports selection

Categories: Arthur, Technology Tags:

Musings on Bitcoin vs iCoins

March 7th, 2014 Comments off

I have been interested in the movement of money for most of my professional life, and initiated a number of businesses to ease payments in the digital world from Earthport – LSE:EPO (CTO/Founder) through to iCoins more recently.  The quest is always the same – how to move money between interested parties – whether from individual to individual or from customer to merchant – quickly, seamlessly and robustly.  By the latter I mean that transactions must settle and risk to all parties should be minimised.

This against a background of credit cards being “ruling the roost” with all their inherent flaws, unsuitability for online transactions and high propensity for fraud.  Clearly there has to be a better way.

The currency of the internetiCoins took the approach that the interfaces to the physical world could be independent of one another, and that stored value should always be underpinned by value in the same currency in any one of many treasuries (financial institutions). To a large degree this mimics the real world.  We further saw that transactions should/could be anonymous at the time of transacting, but that sufficient audit trail should be provided to satisfy authorities concerns over money laundering and the use of the system to perpetuate crime.

The system was well engineered.  It mimiced to a large degree the real world in that it left the responsibility for looking after value and dealing with end users in the hands of the existing players, but it extended the field to include not just financial institutions, but any party who acts as a source or destination for customer funds. So it was possible to send funds instantly from (say) your Skrill wallet to (say) your wallet on Neteller. Or from Pokerstars directly to Ladbrokes to facilitate that urgent bet. Contractual arrangements were put in place between all parties in a way that could evolve and grow without the system becoming unmanaged. In a way this “feature” was an achilles heel as well.

Unfortunately we ran out of funds to commercialise iCoins.  So while the systems are all completed and were deployed in a number of scenarios, the company has had to be mothballed.

BitcoinThen along came Bitcoin.  On the face of it it offers all that iCoins offers.  But it seems tidier.  End points can hook on without any contractual obligations and “money” just flows. Money is worth what it trades for – a tidy model and with the inherently limited supply of BTC a very stable model in the long term, albeit with massive volatility in the short term.  Money is stored in client side wallets – in other words wallets that are on your device be it a computer, phone or whatever.  Client side wallets in my view provide a double edged sword – while they are more secure against theft (ala Mt Gox) they are also susceptible to failure – hardware/software failure or simply lost private keys.  So with the client side wallet the currency is inherently deflationary in that coins can be lost.

Some of its features also lead to concerns.  While there is a transaction trail (good thing), there is no standard or legal identification of end points along the trail, making it tricky to satisfy regulatory AML concerns.  And the latter is a bigger problem in that there is no control over the probity of the end points, or contractual relationships with end points. Now, with the failure of Mt Gox, we see what can happen in this scenario. In many respects they behaved as an unregulated poorly managed wild west bank – placing few controls on treasury funds and allowing the bandits to make off with the money.  Arguably they would not have reached the level of insolvency that they did had they been properly regulated (although recent events in the banking world question this assessment). In any case we now see the result – the largest “bank” in the Bitcoin world is no more and gone with it are the customer funds.

Having said all that – this is no dissimilar to the US monetary system in the 19th century.  There were bank failures, insolvency and theft there too. There was volatility. The list goes on.

So – in the end – where are we?  BTC has gone through a test  phase now – has seen a significant acceptance, and is now going through the failure of an end-point.  Unfortunately that was the largest end-point which doesn’t help!  End result – end-points will be regulated entities such as wallets and the like and eventually perhaps banks.

Is iCoins a better model?  In a lot of ways yes, in that it complies with AML and provides the exact same feature that everyone likes about BTC without the drawbacks.  It provides anonymous but traceable, instant, simple, secure cross wallet/treasury/currency transactions without trying to be a currency in its own right with all the downsides of volatility and market acceptance.  iCoins can be based on any currency with an exchange rate, so we could have independent coins, indeed we could integrate BTC, but we also offer all the advantages of BTC without forcing a new currency on the world.

Too bad we ran out of steam.  Perhaps it’s time for a rethink!

Categories: Arthur, Technology Tags:

Prof Nelson Rose on Gambling in the USA

May 16th, 2012 No comments

How We Got Here & Where We’re Going

            The United States is about to join Canada and the rest of the world on the greatest expansion of legal gambling since New Hampshire rediscovered the state lottery.  But this time, it is going to be online.

We are in the middle of what I call the Third Wave of legal gambling.  This is the third time that legal gaming has swept across both Canada and the U.S.

The First Wave started before either country existed.  Lotteries in England helped finance the first settlements.  In the colonies, government-approved and private lotteries were actively encouraged.  But great scandals–mostly privately run lotteries where the operators absconded with the loot–led to lotteries being banned by most state and provincial constitutions.

The Second Wave began with the opening of the Western frontier, where gambling was tolerated, and often expressly authorized.  The Civil War devastated the South, and legal gambling is seen as a painless tax.  But by the 1890s scandals and a reawakened morality once again led to a crackdown.  The Louisiana Lottery, “The Serpent,” led to the first strong U.S. federal anti-lottery laws.  By the turn of the 20th century, all state lotteries had been shut down.  Casinos and racetracks soon followed.  Even Nevada outlawed casino gambling in 1909.

The Third Wave started with the Depression.  In 1931 Nevada re-legalized casinos.  Every year since, there has been an expansion of legal gambling.  Racetracks reopened in the 1930s; low-stakes charity bingo spread in the ‘40s; social games in the ‘50s.  Then, in 1963, New Hampshire Legislature authorized the first state lottery of the century, labeled a “Sweepstakes” and tied to horseraces to avoid 70 year-old federal anti-lottery statutes.

U.S. federal laws are designed to help the states enforce their public policies toward gambling.  The federal anti-lottery laws were enacted in the 1890s to help states like New York keep out The Serpent.  But the prohibitions were so great, states had to ask for exemptions once they started running their own state lotteries.

In 1961, Congress enacted the Wire Act, designed to cut “The Wire,” the telegraph that illegal bookies used to get the results of horseraces before their patrons.  Betting on horseraces is obviously legal in many states, so, like the federal anti-lottery statutes, the Wire Act applied to state-legal gambling that crossed state lines.

As with state lotteries, when states started authorizing remote wagering on horseraces, the federal laws had to be changed.  Congress first enacted an Interstate Horseracing Act.  In December 2000, it amended that Act to expressly allow states to decide for themselves whether they would let their residents bet on races by phone and computer.

There is only one other federal statute that could apply to state-legal gambling.  When the State Lotteries of Delaware and Oregon began taking bets on National Football League games, Congress passed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (“PASPA”), preventing new state-authorized sports betting.

The history of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (“UIGEA”) is well known:  A failing politician, Bill Frist (R.-TN), used his position as Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate to ram through a bill that he hoped would boost his chances to become President.  This was in October 2006.

The largest publicly traded company taking online bets from the U.S., PartyGaming, home of Party Poker, believed the UIGEA made their activities illegal.  The announcement that it was cutting off its major customer base resulted in a 60% drop in the price of the company’s stock.  Other publicly traded online gaming operators were hit as hard:  The UIGEA was like a terrorist attack, instantly wiping out more than $7 billion on the London Stock Exchange.

The UIGEA did not actually change any substantive state or federal anti-gambling laws.  It did create a new federal crime, but only for operators who were already violating American anti-gambling laws.  And it called for new regulations on payment processors.

Those regulations actually turned out to be quite useful for legal businesses, such as skill games, fantasy sports, free alternative means of entry poker and pure intra-state gaming.  The last turned out to be the most important.

The federal Department of Justice (“DoJ”) has been waging a war of intimidation against all Internet gambling, but especially Internet poker.  But the DoJ is missing the two essentials for a successful prosecution: a statute that clearly makes the activity illegal and a defendant who can be brought to trial in the U.S.

For a statute, the DoJ has been relying upon the Wire Act.  Using a law designed for telegraph wires on horseraces against Internet poker is like using stone tools to perform brain surgery:  It might work, but it is awfully messy.

The DoJ took the position that the Wire Act covered all forms of gambling, even state-legal gaming, so long as a wire crosses even temporarily into another state.  But courts, including a federal Court of Appeal hearing consolidated class actions brought by losing players against MasterCard, ruled that the Wire Act applies only to sports events.  And now a new federal statute, the UIGEA, expressly stated that intra-state online gambling is legal under that statute, even if wires cross temporarily into other states.

After the MasterCard decision, Nevada and the American Virgin Islands passed legislation to allow Internet casinos.  Nevada regulators went so far as to begin holding hearings.  But the DoJ wrote them letters, threatening to arrest any licensee who took a bet online.

At least six states began taking orders for subscription tickets for their state lotteries online.  Illinois and New York asked the DoJ whether they could use out of state payment processors.  The UIGEA would allow that, since the customer and operator were in the same state.  But the DoJ’s interpretation of the Wire Act would not.

In early 2011, state-legal Internet gambling looked like it was going to explode, despite the DoJ and the Wire Act.  Caesars Entertainment received permission from Nevada gaming regulators to team up with 888, which had taken poker bets from the U.S.  The District of Columbia legalized Internet poker and other games.  So, Harry Reid (D.-NV), the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, and Jon Kyl (R.-AZ) the minority whip, wrote the DoJ, asking it to reaffirm its position that the Wire Act made everything illegal.

Two days before Christmas, the DoJ issued a formal announcement that it was reversing its position on the Wire Act.  To reconcile the apparent conflict with the UIGEA, prosecutors would from now on limit the Wire Act to sports bets.  It therefore would not be a problem for state lotteries to use out-of-state payment processors.

The DoJ had to also know that this reversal meant Reid and Kyl got their answer: There is no federal law preventing any state from authorizing almost any form of intra-state gambling.  PASPA still prevents new sports betting, but that is being challenged in the courts by New Jersey.

The gambling must be legal under state law.  On April 15, 2011, the DoJ announced the indictment of the principals of the five largest poker sites then taking real money bets from America.  But the Wire Act was never mentioned.  Instead, the UIGEA and federal organized crime charges were based on violations of New York state anti-gambling laws.

Once a state decides to legalize Internet gambling, there is almost no limit to what it can do.  Small states should be able to compact together to create player pools in the millions.  Even without a compact, a state could authorize its licensees to accept bets from foreign nations where the betting is legal, such as England.

In March, the Illinois Lottery starting selling individual tickets online: more than $1.14 million the first week.  Every lottery is now looking to see whether it can join the three Canadian Lotteries that are already operating Internet poker games.  More than half the states allow at-home betting on races.  Nevada has two online sports operators, one accepting credit cards, and will start issuing its first Internet poker licenses this summer.  Landbased operators are paying outrageous amounts for Internet expertise, while social game companies, like Zynga, are openly saying they want to join.

The question is no longer whether Internet gambling will be made legal, or even when.  The question is who is going to ride the Third Wave.

 

© 2012, I. Nelson Rose.  Prof. Rose is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on gambling law, and is a consultant and expert witness for governments and industry.  His latest books, Internet Gaming Law (1st and 2nd editions), Blackjack and the Law and Gaming Law: Cases and Materials, are available through his website, www.GamblingAndTheLaw.com.

 

Eurodns renewal scam – warning!

January 5th, 2012 No comments

Renewing domain names is a commercial transaction heavily weighted in the seller’s favour. When your domain name expires you cannot reactivate it except through your exitsing registry for up to 4 months, and of course you stand the risk of losing the domain name.

I recently had some domain names come up for renewal at Eurodns. The domain names actually expire on 6 January (tomorrow), but I got a number of emails from Eurodns warning about expiry and soliciting my renewal fees stating that the renewal was due 31 December. As I was away I checked the actual expiry date (using whois at network solutions), saw that it expired 6 January and chose to renew on the 2 January when I was back in the office.

Eurodns then chose to charge me Euro 25 per domain name (there were a number of them) for “reactivation”. Their rationale is that they have a cost to reactivate a domain name. Given that the domain names had not yet expired I queried this from their support. Their response was “The expiration date at eurodns is not the same as the expiration date at the registry. The expiration date at eurondns is the one indicated in your domain list “renew before”. As already explained to you there is always a difference between the expiration date at eurodns and at the registry, which varies depending on the tld extension. This is necessary in order to make sure that we can renew the domain.”

I find this “explanation” to be simply bullshit. What they are doing is extorting “reactivation” fees from customers when they are left with no alternative. At this stage you have no alternative – its lose the domain name or be ripped off.

I have not had this treatment at any other registry. Shame on you Eurodns!

Unquestionably the dumbest rebrand yet!

November 16th, 2010 2 comments

Online money transfer firm Money Bookers (note how the name actually pretty much tells what it does) is to rebrand itselff as Skrill.  This has to be the dumbest rebrand ever!

Read the story here – for some fresh quotes from some PR hack who must be on some sort of wonderful weird substance :

“Payments have changed as well. It’s not all about shops or even money. It’s about life online and how it’s extended to so many areas. Being safe while you do exactly what you want to do. Freedom from worrying. Being able to give and receive more without having to try harder. Meeting needs in a new way. A way that does more than just meet them. A way that can only be called Skrill.”

Err ….  I wonder.

  1. In my life payments pretty much remain about shops and money
  2. All the cute bits about not worrying etc are what you expect in a wallet – whether its paypal, moneybookers, click and buy or any other one – hardly a reason to name yourself after a rare antartic tern
  3. And no – its not really a rare bird – its apparently the only name they could think of for this online wallet

Britain went through some monumentally silly name changes, from British Steel to the Royal Mail, but I really think this one takes the cake.  And the irony of it all is, in these troubled times, some idiot management consultant/branding expert got paid loads of money to produce this result!

If Moneybookers wants to become cool perhaps they should rather focus on what they do as apposed to what they are called.  If they are so cool then why is there no facebook app (such as Coin jars)?

A simple rebrand doesn’t cut the mustard.  And, no, there will not become a new term “skrilling” for moving money, like googling for searching.  Nice try, but it aint gonna happen.

Footnote:

Thanks to Bob Rains who points out that Skrilla is urban slang for money.  Too bad the wise guys forgot the extra A at the end.  I still think it sucks as a name.

Ponzi Schemes and the US government

October 28th, 2010 No comments

Quick note on an interesting article that I found in the Telegraph this morning.  Is the US government printing money in a manner no different to all the other ponzi schemes out there?  Is this not just the biggest Ponzi scheme of them all??

The following quote is from Bill Gross – MD of Pimco – the world’s largest Bond house (he knows what he is talking about!).

“[Cheque] writing in the trillions is not a bondholder’s friend; it is in fact inflationary, and, if truth be told, somewhat of a Ponzi scheme,” he wrote on his investment outlook, arguing that creditors have always expected to be paid out of future growth.

“Now, with growth in doubt, it seems the Fed has taken Ponzi one step further,” he said. “The Fed has joined the party itself. Has there ever been a Ponzi scheme so brazen? There has not.”

Leave your thoughts in the comment box below – this is a topic worthy of discussion.

Categories: Arthur, Technology Tags:

iGaming Super Show in Prague

June 3rd, 2010 No comments

Had the good fortune to attend the iGaming super show in Prague last week.  Fortune because it was a really good time, I got to see all my good friends again, and also managed to get the word out about our new affiliate system for Mahjong Club.

We launched the new Super Affs affiliate system for Mahjong Club just in time for the show.  Packed with heavyweight reporting, great demographic info and some really cool features like intelligent ad rotation, the system is powered by egass.  In the future we expect to add further brands to the same affiliate system – creating a one stop shop for those affiliates who want something more from their products.

Meeting David Coulthard at the iGaming Super Show

Meeting David Coulthard at the iGaming Super Show

While at the show I met David Coulthard who was the keynote speaker on day 1.  David is well known to any Formula 1 fan, having driven for many years and still acting as an advisor to Red Bull formula one team and a BBC commentator.  He was at the show representing Jet Bull.  He assures there is no relationship between Jet Bull (a gaming product) and Red Bull – despite the abundance of Red Bull drinks at their stand and party and of course his presence at the show!

Outside "U-Fleku" with Dennis

Outside "U-Fleku" with Dennis

Jeanine joined me for the weekend and we saw a lot of beautiful Prague.  It truly is an amazing city and one that is well worth a visit.  I hope we return there next year.

Charles Bridge in Prague

Charles Bridge in Prague