Metabet is a web app under the umbrella of Algoneer that allows users to bet on the oucome of major sporting events using the algorand blockchain, via the algo token and any deeply liquid ASA token, its final form will be an thoroughly automated cloud based betting program.
Currently Metabet is a semi-automated crypto sports betting app built on top of the Algorand blockchain, it allows users to bet on the outcome of major sporting events, via the algo token and any deeply liquid ASA token, by simply sending their bet to a teams respective account, there are no odds and users are betting against eachother, the losing teams account is drained and the winnings are distributed according to how much % of the winning pool a winning user betted.
For example:
User 1 - Bets 9 algo on Team 1 | User 2 - Bets 1 algo on Team 1 | User 3 - Bets 50 algo on Team 2 | User 4 - Bets 7 algo on Team 2
Team 1 is the winner and the losing pool is 57 algo, 90% of the winnings go to User 1 and 10% of the winnings go to User 2, so User 1 will be sent 60.3 algo and User 2 will be sent 6.7 algo. Users 3 and 4 lose their bets.
In its final form will be completely automated cloud based betting program, that will allow users to place bets with a simple qr code.
The Metabet story begins about a year ago Nov 2021, a few months after creating the Algoneer project I realised the "store of value" low volume token idea on its own wouldn't cut it, so I polled the algorand community on discord and asked what they would like to see built on top of the algorand blockchain, the most popular answer's were a sports betting app and a mixer, so I decided to build it.
I knew I wanted to build the app on top of the algorand blockchain, so I started by learning the basics of the algorand blockchain and the Purestake Algorand API, I then decided to use the Django framework for the app's architecture and Django's templating system in combination with a Bootstrap Template for the frontend, with the Heroku cloud platform for hosting the app, Heroku was chosen because it was free(at the time) and easy to use, I also used Route 53 for the domain name, APScheduler + Python to fetch and manipulate the event account data, and PostgreSQL for the database to store the event account data.
Theres a first time for everything and I had never run an app before so heres what I learned.
Currently the Django app is only used to serve the static front end, which is generated by a local python script that builds the entire front end from 3 csv file's containing Team data, "Main" data, and Event data, also it minifies the HTML, CSS, and Javascript, and backs-up the entire thing before it is pushed to heroku.
Then after an event has concluded we have a seperate manually run python script that calculates and distributes the winnings to the winning users, and deletes the event from the database/frontend and redeploys the app to heroku.
This architecture is not ideal and requires some repetitive steps for an administrator and will be replaced with a completely automated system in the future. We are working on the automated system now, and it will be be fully automated from the csv file's to the payout's, dynamic content, event deletion, redeployment of the app, and everything in between, also the marketing can be automated via automated social media posts containing the event promo and the QR codes for the event, so users won't even have to visit the site they can bet directly from their social media feed using the QR code/ team account address!
Although Metabet has been shelved for the time being, The future of Metabet is bright, we are currently working on the automated system, and we have laid some expansion plans if Algorand reaches its full potential as this app is entwined with the Algorand blockchain, so if Algorand succeeds, so will Metabet.