SBC News Darius Eghdami - FansUnite - Social Betting: Why Virtual is a Reality

Darius Eghdami – FansUnite – Social Betting: Why Virtual is a Reality

darius
Darius Eghdami

FansUnite was started by three sports fans in Canada, and intends to be a site for fellow fans offering transparency, fun, and top wagering advice via its social betting platform and community.

FansUnite  utilises virtual currency meaning, should they opt to, users are able to bet on sports without the risk of losing any actual money. A place for gamblers of all types to hone their skills, and interact.Team SBC caught up with CEO, Darius Eghdami to talk about all things FansUnite, as well as social betting and Bitcoin.    

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SBC: Darius, could you please describe to our readers what it is FansUnite offers, and how it differs to other betting operators?

Darius: FansUnite gives users the opportunity to practice and bet on sports without the monetary risk.  Our community is comprised of users that exchange ideas, discuss upcoming games and share betting strategies so that they can be confident with their picks.

We differentiate ourselves by giving users access to thousands of handicappers, with full transparency behind their betting history, for a fraction of the cost of what most individual handicappers charge. We also separate ourselves by providing our community with PickTracker, an analytics engine we developed that identifies strengths and weaknesses that help users critically examine their betting patterns, as well as their peers’.

SBC: The monthly Revenue Share scheme seems an attractive and innovative inclusion. Could you tell us a little more about this, and how it’s been going since its launch?

Darius: The entire premise of our site is to beat the books together.  The idea behind the Revenue Share is to give back to our community. Since launch, the top users each month have been unbelievable in sharing and contributing their thoughts and bets, so giving them a percentage of our subscription revenue is a great way to thank them.

Although the revenue share scheme is a new initiative, we’ve set up the structure to give each of our top 5 handicappers, 5% of our monthly subscription revenue. As our community continues to grow, we hope this will be a sizeable pot for each handicapper where they could potentially make a living off FansUnite.

SBC: Which sports are proving the most popular to date, and are there any plans to establish a presence in any new markets?

Darius: FansUnite is a Canadian based company, so a lot of our users place bets on the major North American sports. NFL betting is massive as well as college basketball, come March. While football (soccer) is the most widely bet sport on our platform, we have a great community focused on Tennis, Rugby, Aussie Rules and more.

The fastest growing sport is eSports, as we’ve seen a massive emergence in this market over the last 12 months. This is a space we definitely want to increase our presence in, and it’s been remarkable to see the recent growth in not just bettors, but viewers and players as well.

SBC: You previously founded CappersDelight, and worked at KPMG. How did the idea for Fansunite come about, and what convinced you to run with it?

Darius: CappersDelight was an amazing experience as it really highlighted the areas of the betting industry that we wanted to change. We ran CappersDelight for a couple years where we were just another handicapping service, hiding our full record and charging high subscription fees while our members had to ride the ups and downs of an individual handicapper. Coupled with the ongoing issues of transparency and verifiability, it confirmed to us that the traditional handicapping market was in need of massive changes.

We ran with the idea of FansUnite as we wanted to try and bring the suspect betting services out of the shadows by ensuring that the records of all members on our platform are transparent, available, and verifiable. As avid sports fans and bettors, we couldn’t think of anything cooler than building a platform that increased the profitability for sports bettors.

SBC: Are you anticipating an increase in the number of betting operators that accept Bitcoin? What are the advantages, and difficulties, of this form of currency?

Darius: The Bitcoin industry is a very interesting one, as the older community doesn’t really understand what Bitcoin is, and the younger guys are starting to become wary of it. That being said, the thought of a reliable crypto-currency that allows an individual to remain anonymous can be very advantageous.

The team are big supporters of Bitcoin and would love to see it become a mainstay in the betting industry. We’ve been fortunate enough to team up with Nitrogen Sports in the running of our streak contests, which has been great. Unfortunately, I do not see Bitcoin becoming an accepted currency for the major sportsbooks. I think the smaller players will pick up on Bitcoin as a way to access a new user base, but I think the major ‘books will continue to avoid it as there are just too many uncertainties that accompany it. Although there are always fluctuations in currency value, Bitcoin is subject to extreme variances, which I think will continue to scare many sportsbooks.

SBC: Any final thoughts to share?

Darius: FansUnite is building a community of profitable sports bettors by accessing the large betting community with access to modern technology and analytics. It makes sense to provide transparent and verified data. We want to make sure our users feel comfortable with our offering and give them the best chance to succeed in sports betting.

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Darius Eghdami CEO – FansUnite

fansunite

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