Blockchain Gambling Sector Analysis

Contents

Key takeaways

The percentage of value generated from the top 10 wallets for each gambling dapp considered varies from 5% to 80%.

Three of the most popular gambling dapps on TRON experienced a downward trend.

Nevertheless, the best gambling dapps such as 888TRON demonstrated it was possible to build a successful product – both in terms of active wallets and value – by focusing on UX and smart retention mechanics.

Despite the weak overall performance of the gambling category on EOS during 2019, the monthly value generated by the most popular dapps’ top 10 wallets increased during 2019.

Ethereum dapp dice2.win is the most consistent in terms of the percentage of its value generated by its top 10 wallets.

Introduction

Gambling dapps are typically the first products launched on any new smart contract mainnet. There is also no doubt that the gambling category is one of the biggest categories which DappRadar covers. Currently, we track 976 gambling dapps.

When talking about the success of such gambling dapps, one particularly significant metric to consider is the value associated with the top wallets. This reveals some surprising trends.

Gambling value trends – top wallet activity

At the blockchain level, the strong increase experienced in daily active unique wallets for TRON and Ethereum seems counter-intuitive to the sharp decline in daily value.

To attempt to understand this better, we need to consider the performance of individual dapps.

One particularly significant metric, especially for gambling dapps, is the breakdown of how much of their value comes from their top wallets. As with offline gambling, the industry is driven much more by the activity of high net worth gamblers – the so-called ‘whales’ – than by a large number of low-value gamblers.

An overview of how this metric changed during 2019 can be seen as we track the percentage of monthly value generated by the top 10 wallets for six popular dapps. Each dot is a month, with the light/darkness of the dot representing the month; lightest being January and darkest being January 2020.

What’s remarkable about this graph is just how much this metric changes over the months. Of course, there can be many reasons for such trends.

As super-users of gambling dapps, whales are very sensitive to changes in dapp features and/or the opportunity to win large amounts. In addition, whether or not they are actively in contact with each other, they are highly likely to act in unison to react to any changes in a dapp or the launch of a new dapp they consider offers better opportunities.

In that context, successful dapps will typically generate a high percentage of value from its top wallets, hence a decline in this metric is often (but not always) a negative sign.

TRON dapps – top wallet activity

Looking specifically at three of the most popular gambling dapps on TRON, a broadly downward trend is clear.

This was particularly notable for RocketGame, which launched with a very high percentage of value generated from its top 10 wallets but saw this fall away to under 25% by January 2020; not a good trend.

The trend for 888TRON was more complex, as it grew its percentage of value generated from its top 10 wallets during the first half of 2019 only to see it crash in from November to less than 10%.

However, this was in part due to an increase in overall wallet activity, which diluted the influence of the top 10 wallets. Indeed, 888TRON also experienced strong growth in value during November and December.

The reverse was true for popular gambling dapps WINk.

Rebranded from TRONbet in July 2019, the move coincided with a doubling in the percentage of monthly value generated by its top 10 wallets.

One reason for this was the rebranding of WINk also saw the release of the WIN token, which is available for trading on multiple exchanges, including Binance. However, total value also declined significantly during this period, with the value from the top 10 wallets merely declining less quickly than the overall audience, hence the rise in the percentage of the value they generated.

EOS dapps – top wallet activity

Despite the weak overall performance of the gambling category on EOS during 2019, two of the most popular gambling dapps experienced strong growth in terms of the monthly value generated by their top wallets.

In part, however, this situation was also driven by a steady decline in overall wallet activity, especially in the second part of the year. This had the effect of increasing the relative value of the top wallets, so this trend can’t be considered purely positive.

For example, during this period Dice saw a decline in daily value, especially from November onwards, while BigGame experienced a strong rise, particularly in December and into January.

Ethereum dapp – top wallet activity

When it comes to gambling dapps on Ethereum, dice2.win isn’t always the most popular title in terms of active wallets but it does consistently generate the most value.

Compared to dapps running on other blockchains, it is the most consistent in terms of percentage of its value generated by its top 10 wallets as well. To some degree, this is a byproduct of Ethereum’s proof of work consensus model, which restricts product design.

Another reason for dice2.win’s high level of value generated from its top 10 wallets is it attracts a relatively small (if steady) number of daily active unique wallets.

Conclusions

Considering the percentage of value a gambling dapp generates from its top 10 wallets highlights some significant trends.

Despite TRON having the biggest user base within the gambling category, the value generated by the top 10 wallets of its most popular gaming dapps declined during 2019.

Conversely, EOS gambling dapps show an accumulation of value while Ethereum dapp shows consistency within value created by top wallets.

Developers are going to have to spend more time and resources creating higher quality experiences that can attract and retain existing users, especially the whales, who spend the most and hence provide the majority of profits.

The best example of this during 2019 was 888TRON, which recovered and grew its audience in the second half of the year, as well as seeing strong growth in its value total across the 12 months.