Augur Could Beat all Gambling Restrictions for Online Gambling in the Future

In the fall in the USA, Augur will be allowing participants to wager money on any future event they choose. It is believed that software will be setting the odds, collecting bets, and dispersing the winnings. This should give Sportsbook operators in Nevada food for thought. They say that an estimated one percent of each pot will be used to keep the system running.

Augur is not a fully-fledged casino. You are not able to play lotto running, roulette, or poker on the platform, which could be tricky. However, it is great for sports betting.

The novel thing about Augur is it will not be controlled by any person or entity, and it will not operate off any person's computer network. All money in the system will be on a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. This means that credit card companies and banks will have no need to be involved. Should the system run afoul of regulators, and if it is successful, they will find that there isn't any company that they can sue. There will be no computer hardware they can pull out of the wall, nor any CEO to jail.

This is certainly a new legal territory. Should Augur catch on as a tool to be used for anything from stock prices to basketball games, can government do anything to stop it?

Understanding Augur

Augur is a marketplace that is peer-to-peer and decentralized. This is a new type of entity that has been made possible by breakthroughs in computer sciences recently. These platforms facilitate the exchange of services and goods between strangers on a platform that is not administered or controlled.

Augur's software will be run on Blockchain. This is a concept that was introduced during 2008 when Bitcoin was invented. Essentially, it is a database that is shared for the execution of trades powered and maintained by the users.

Augur will be utilizing a ground-breaking project called Ethereum which expands on this concept. Ethereum actually lets Augur's complete system be operated live on blockchain. This means that the processing power and software that involves the functioning of Augur will be distributed between thousands of computers. To destroy Augur would involve the unplugging of every computer of all participants worldwide who are participating in the Ethereum blockchain.

Augur's developers work for a San Francisco based non-profit. They attend conferences, have legal representation, and they talk freely about what they are up to with the reporters. Augur has even commissioned a cheesy promotional motion graphics video that is favored by new tech startups.

Approximately half of the about $600,000 that was raised by Augur's development team has come from Joe Costello, a successful tech entrepreneur, who was once the 'top pick' of Steve Jobs to become Apple's CEO.

Twenty-year-old Pomona college dropout Joey Krug, the lead developer of Augur, does not use the word "gambling" to describe their venture. He and his five team members call Augur a "prediction market." This term emphasizes information that is generated when a lot of people have a mutual financial incentive and feed their expertise into a sophisticated algorithm.

The Augur developers hope that using their platform it will be possible to use Google search for looking up future events. The developers feel that this will usher in a better world, with more informed policy decisions and much less malinvestment.

Augur also serves the purpose of cost-effective savings as well as convenience to gamblers. The restrictions on gambling usually serve to protect government revenues mostly at the expense of the gamblers. State sanctioned casino operators pay very high taxes and the state run lotteries usually fleece the customers. There isn't any logical or moral case for the government's restrictions on gambling, because there is no third party that will be harmed when consenting adults place wagers on the future.

Augur has the potential to make a safer world because they take away a market share of gambling from industry criminals.