Overtime Markets lets sports bettors play as the house with over 100% gains for some

Sports bettors are finding a new home in crypto with Overtime Markets.

Overtime Markets is a decentralised sports betting platform that allows users to bet on sporting events with no know-your-customer, or KYC, requirements and competitive odds, using blockchain technology and Chainlink’s data feeds.

One bettor, cat42.eth, has netted $53,000 across 1,269 bets with an impressive 60.5% win rate. Meanwhile, another bettor, Dump_on_me, has a 22.1% win rate across 231 bets, resulting in a net loss of $105,000.

Users on Overtime Market have wagered over $27 million, but as the saying goes, “The house always wins.”

True to form, bettors on Overtime have collectively lost $1.6 million so far; however, the key difference with a sportsbook built on crypto rails is that users can be the house and earn a portion of bettors’ losses.

Users can provide liquidity to various markets on Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base. Each chain offers two options for liquidity providers: Single LP and Parlay LP.

The Single LP option allows users to bet on the outcome of a single event, while the Parlay LP option is designed for users who want to create a parlay — a type of bet that requires correctly predicting the outcomes of multiple events. Single bets are generally easier to win but offer lower payouts compared with parlays, which are more challenging but come with higher rewards.

Since its launch just over a year ago, users who provided liquidity to Overtime Markets’ Single LP on Arbitrum have seen a 106% gain on their deposits.

Last week alone, users gained nearly 11%. The highest payout week delivered a yield of nearly 23%, while the biggest drawdown week saw a loss of just under 6%.

The results on Optimism show users gaining 59% with Single LP and 33% with Parlay LP since inception. However, on Base, depositors have experienced losses, with the Single LP down 9% and the Parlay LP down 7%.

This underperformance on Base may be because of its smaller market size, which results in fewer bets. Consequently, one big loss or win can greatly distort the numbers. In contrast, Arbitrum, the largest market, boasts over $1.1 million in its LPs, providing more stability.

Users on the Arbitrum and Optimism markets also enjoy incentives for betting in the form of ARB and OP tokens. For example, users who bet on National Basketball Association playoff games are eligible for a portion of 20,000 ARB and 15,000 OP token rewards based on their total volume.

Those rewards help to give Overtime Markets an added edge for users compared with its Web2 counterparts.

Still, for serious bettors, Overtime Markets is limited in the size of bets it can offer because it is limited by the funds in its liquidity pools.

For example, for Friday’s NBA playoff game between the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers, a user can place a bet with a maximum size of $18,235, while on a traditional sportsbook like Caesars a user can bet up to $1 million.

Ryan Celaj is a data correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at ryan@dlnews.com.