New business idea/how can I make this work

[Donedeals]

Wheather you think this is morally correct or not please help me with this....

How can you create an online gambling site/ medium for xbox live and ps 2.

What I'm proposing is a way for you to make a bet with the kid in whatever game your playing. Basketball,Baseball,Doom, and whatever else. I know that Microsoft and PS2 would try to shut it down but do you think it could work?

Let me know your thoughts. I have no idea how I would start, but it never hurts to ask. I'm sure there would be a quick resale on this if a handful of you would like to partner up and build this up.

Thanks,
Adam

[Kyle]

betting on games isn't unheard of atleast. I've heard of people placing bets on counter-strike games before. As for Xbox and ps2 I've never heard of it, you'd have to look in the legality of it, if you live in the US you have to be 18 to gamble. It's not a bad idea, but I imagine it wouldn't be easy to get running.

[wajo]

I saw an ADD on ebay a while back, the guy was selling software to play xbox 2 and win money..it had passwords access after money was paid..
i think it was like 50% towards the winning payment , and 50% he kept..
So the idea has been done for XBOX 2...thanks, warren.

[GriZzly]

It sounds like a great idea, and I don't see any reason why Microsoft or Sony would object as it doesn't negatively affect them and it is completely legal. In fact it would be beneficial to Microsoft and Sony as it would encourage consumers who don't really want to buy their products for fun, but could be persuaded to buy a console if it came with the possibility to make money by gambling. I think you could set up a leage/tournament site and post fixtures for members with different games featured.

[Stamps]

It sounds like a money maker if done right, we all know how many gambling sites there are already, most of which run automatically. All of which require just some software.

You would most definately have to be oversease as online gambling is still considered illegal in the U.S. Second thing you would have to do is ensure all it's users were 18 years of age. Which may require modification of either the system itself or it's software(Xbox live).

Second thing is you would need massive servers to hold all the play, a gambling site that crashes in the middle of 100 pot is bad news .

[akula]

Brilliant idea and worth doing.

1) Avoid nasty regulations by NOT acting as a casino. Don't tally odds or extend credit to players. Just set up a site where people can place private bets amongst each other. Do not take responsibility for players defaulting on losses. *Do not collect escrow. (I'm not sure about this one). You'll just need to see the criteria for what requires a gambling licence and what doesn't.

2) You'll need a way of monitoring the games. Technically, I'm not sure how that would work. If it requires hard core XML programming or something - go for the cheapskate option and have an honor roll system. Then upgrade to something more suitable.

Act quickly.

[Donedeals]

Akula,what do you mean honor system?

I think this is where I'm stuck. How can I create a program that know's who won the game? Do you know where I could even talk to some developers( x box live)

Does it make sense to contact a game design company? I just don't even know where to start. I know that it will be a fun process, but I also don't know anything about online gaming software and how it all works.

I will have to do some major research on this one. If anyone finds any links or info please email me dealdone@comcast.net.

Thanks Y.E.,
Adam

[akula]

Akula,what do you mean honor system?

I think this is where I'm stuck. How can I create a program that know's who won the game? Do you know where I could even talk to some developers( x box live)

Does it make sense to contact a game design company? I just don't even know where to start. I know that it will be a fun process, but I also don't know anything about online gaming software and how it all works.

I will have to do some major research on this one. If anyone finds any links or info please email me dealdone@comcast.net.

Thanks Y.E.,
Adam

Look, don't do any research. It'll only tell what you want to hear.

1) Go to the next games trade show.

2) Get an introduction to speak to some games development sweatshop.

3) Go and talk to the developers. Strike a deal.

If you can put a coherent plan for commrcialising the service (i.e. manage the marketing risk), I am sure you can pursade a games development studio to come up with the technology. (i.e. manage the tech development risk).

Honor roll system is having one of the players assigned as a moderator who'll have the responsibility of physically typing what the score was on your website. That's very basic technology.

1)Set up a blog.
2 Every new post describes the begining of a new tournament/match
3) In the comments section, one of the players can input what the score was.

Our blogging application would do a great job of facilitating this for you. Unlike some other platform (Wordpress) you can develop fully featured websites with our blogging application, to give your service more depth and flexibility.

[DaVinci]

Great replies here let me add this:

Online gaming is huge as we all know. FANTASTIC IDEA that people could bet an dplay each oter for money. JUMP on it.

A couple of points:

Get a great domain:

I own

LiveDuel.com

and

duelster.com
(copy and paste domains to see temporary sites)

If you would do it for money: (which I guess is the whole novelty of it) Move to the caribbean. But there are all kinds of alternative online currencies.

I would love be part of your idea team or help out in any way including, selling, leasing, investing...whatever with my domain name(s) and or design and marketing.

Congrats !

[blizzuntz]

You definitely need a middle man, like some type of paypal system that would overwatch the exchange. Maybe that is what is needed first and is probably the money maker. I used to play Socom 2 online and remember logging off sometimes because of the server traffic. Need huge servers. Another problem is hackers, those kids online used to be able to cheat so much because everygame had its glitches and that could easily scare bets off. basically all my mumbo jumbo points at is there needs to be a big brother over watching the whole thing.

Great idea

[kevinliles]

I hope that works out for you.

[Donedeals]

I will defiantly start looking into a moderator system. This is the only way to acknowledge the winners. I am going to the game show in May to find some programmers to make this work.

I was also thinking of Paypal type system where it would deduct it from their bank accounts. I need to come up with a solid way to make sure everyone betting is over the age of 18. Some system to verify id's/ages.

I need plenty of help and am looking for a solid team to make this work. Anyone interested let's do it. Email me dealdone@comcast.net

What do you guys think of these domains?

www.gamebet.com
www.betmeonline.com

[Donedeals]

Never mind they were availiable a couple of days ago and I lost them. Fudge!

I am coming up with a new list and will post them soon.

[Day2]

Neat idea. Really ROUGH to make happen in the US due to legal considerations.

Had a few discussions with a company who was doing a similar thing-- skill based games (checkers, tetris) where the players wagered small sums of money (the winner got a chunk of what was wagered)...

They had to jump through a LOT of legal hurdles. For example, each game had to be EXACTLY the same... So if two people were doing head to head Tetris, the company had to ensure that the pieces that fell were the exact same (in the exact same order). The game also had to effectively cache locally to insure that one person did not receive any benefit over another due to connection speed, etc.

With games like FPS games, you have a random spawn point, varying internet connections, lag spikes, etc... Not to mention people who cheat/hack the game.

In short, I wouldn't take a single step on this idea until you buy a few thousand dollars of a gaming lawyer's time. I suspect that if this was legally feasible, the guys who make the FPS games would've done it by now.

I'll try to dig up the company that I'm talking about (I might even be able to call them to find out who their lawyer is).

[Donedeals]

Great suggestions, I would love to speak with their lawyer. Do the us rules still apply if you’re in the Caribbean?