Yes, this is a problem of all cryptocurrencies, but there isn't any good solution for that problem other than adding a support for some stable coin like Tether. Many exchanges do that because they don't have a bank account, which would let them accept real fiat money for cryptocurrencies. Maybe some wallets support multiple cryptocurrencies and some of them are stablecoins, but generally, if you need to interact with blockchain of any cryptocurrency, you need to use native currency. For some, it is because that is the only currency there is on that cryptocurrency platform and for others that is a only currency that miners only accept. For example, you can't send ERC20 tokens on Ethereum without paying the fees in ETH. The price volatility is because cryptocurrencies are still too small, there aren't enough people to get it more stable because there is always some people who could dump their coins at low price. Another reason for it could be that it is so easy to do with cryptocurrencies, but so much difficult to do with fiat money.
Fees on Byteball are super cheap, usually a transaction cost on Byteball is less than 1000 bytes, which costs around $0.00005. You are not betting against the bot, you are betting against other people who have offered those odds. The odds difference between what is shown on OddsChecker and BB Odds is not because bot fees, but because these are the odds that other users have offered. Also, the whole premise of blockchain is not cutting the costs, it is to get rid of the middlemen who block you from sending the money or who could deny payout to you even if you won by having the funds in smart-contract, not in hands of middleman. If you think that these odds are horrible (which they aren't) then you could offer better odds yourself, if you were sure that 2.06 was too low odd for Atlanta Braves to lose against Boston Red Sox, you could have gone to bet maker mode on BB Odds and offered the odds that you would think are fair, if you have money deposited to bot, next time anybody thinking that Atlanta Braves will win would have taken your offered bet.
Betting on Byteball has evolved a lot and what you are describing is the foundation of sports betting and how it can be done with the help of Sports Oracle bot and direct chat with somebody you know. The next layer on top of that was Sports Betting Bot, which takes care of the issue of finding the other counterpart and lets people just put up the odds and anybody could take them via the bot. It is exactly the exchange what you are describing, but it is even better because you don't have to pick any single offer with best odds, it will automatically compose you the smart-contract with the best odds depending on the amount you want to bet on. Third layer is the web interface of BB Odds, which makes using the bot even easier because you can see all the bets at once, you can change the odd formats and lot more, it's basically a gateway to Sports Betting bot bets without the need to navigate in the chatbot. Since you missed the difference of all those 3 things, I guess I can agree that the funnel of directing the users to right services could be better, but if you are interested to read more about the evolution of sports betting on Byteball then you can do it there https://medium.com/byteball/new-tool-makes-the-byteball-betting-bot-more-user-friendly-and-enticing-to-both-cryptocurrency-7191f14a7460
This one just feels like you are nitpicking on random things. Do you really think that if the chat response that is in black color and a link color that is blue doesn't make it clear that users can click it? Because that what links do on web and on chats, they are in different color than rest of the text and you can click on them. Also, open up any other chat app and you will see that there is a button(s) next to the text box where you can type and when you click on it, it offers you other stuff that you can insert into the message. Anybody familiar with any chatting app should feel home with Byteball app because it works like rest of the chatting apps. This is one of the core difference from other cryptocurrencies, which build different UI for different services, on Byteball, all apps work similar way, as chatbots. And some like Sports Betting bot even have web interfaces if chatbots are still too revolutionary for you.
Thanks for your reply and some additional insights.
These bets don't have to be offered by bots, anybody can offer those odds. but these are not offered by Byteball Foundation, there is no central bookmaker, so anybody can offer any odds they want and if there is nobody offering any better odds then these are the odds they see. Other betting sites can offer odds with small margins because they have lot of volume to cover their risk, but Byteball or any other cryptocurrency betting doesn't have that many users or volume yet. So, yeah, it's like catch-22 issue, but I don't see what is the solution here, how to you motivate more people to risk their money if there is not even enough of volume to cover the risks? I mean, am I been able to convince you to offer odds in bet maker mode? Probably not.
And I actually don't understand this thing about the lower odds. If you are so sure that the team is going to win, it shouldn't matter for you if the odds are 1.4 or 1.5, you still going to win 1.4x times the money you had if that is a sure win. Your alternative is to use the regular betting sites and in some cases, you don't have that alternative at all because you might not have access to these sites. Just like a lot of people don't have bank accounts.
great.
Well, the way you set up the bet with a person you know is just an example what the platform can do. So yeah, it is for more advanced users who know what they are doing, but that is also a reason why there is Sports Betting bot, which is built on top of it and takes a way all that frustrating part of finding other counterpart and pairing with them. Anybody can build on those features another services that focuses only making bets with friends, but if there isn't enough people for existing Sports Betting bot, there is no motivation to streamline the way to make bets with friends. That feature is for advanced users, everybody is better off using BB Odds and Sports Betting bot.
Most likely, new technologies like blockchain will be accepted more buy new generation and they are very familiar with chatting apps (many don't even have computers, just smartphones), but maybe until then, websites like BB Odds need to be built along with the bots. And about that smart-contract thing, that is much easier to read that any Ethereum smart-contract and once you understand it, it is just as easy as scrolling down the Terms of Use page and clicking "I accept".