The Decentralized Casino Thesis: WINR’s Moment of Truth
Crypto casinos are capturing the iGaming market at an incredible speed, primarily driven by crypto’s superiority as a payment asset.
However, aside from payments, most crypto casinos still operate similarly to their web2 counterparts.
They have custody over their users’ assets, and deposits and withdrawals go through approval processes. Games run on centralized databases, and so on.
All crypto casinos aren’t, however, created equal.
WINR Protocol is a fully decentralized and transparent iGaming infrastructure running on its own WINR Chain, a high-throughput Layer 3 blockchain based on Arbitrum Orbit.
It enables developers, operators, and players to interact with each other trustlessly via purpose-built smart contracts.
WINR isn’t just a casino; it’s a new paradigm, a technological foundation that all frontend operators and game providers can leverage to erase the suspicions of fraud and unfair practices that have long plagued the iGaming industry.
How WINR Seeded the Trustless Casino Layer
WINR was initially deployed on the Arbitrum public blockchain in spring 2023.
As stated, WINR isn’t an actual casino itself, it’s the underlying infrastructure that can power an infinite amount of casinos and onchain games.
That’s why it’s not possible to talk about WINR without discussing JustBet, the first and so far foremost frontend on WINR built by the same team, initially launched to the public in May 2023.
By the summer of 2024, verifiable random function (VRF), smart accounts enabling one-click non-custodial bets, and a complete SDK were already live. There was still one significant step to take: the launch of WINR Chain.
The public beta of JustBet on WINR Chain went live in August 2024, with the main launch following in early September 2024.
The chain was designed with a focus on three core pillars: speed, reliability, and cost-effectiveness.
WINR contributor @onchainjack outlined the two main reasons why transaction-intensive use cases, such as gambling applications, require their chain: they must sponsor gas fees on behalf of users to provide a frictionless experience, and they need their blockspace to handle the transactional load.
The Stack That Makes Trustless Gambling Click
With its live chain, WINR offers a comprehensive infrastructure for decentralized gambling.
The chain provides a public ledger for gambling, assuring both developers and players that every transaction is immutable, fair, and protected.
Additionally, the high throughput of the chain ensures lag-free gaming, maintains a high customer experience, and has ultra-low transaction fees.
WINR VRF creates the most provably fair iGaming experience by generating randomness with response times under 300 ms, ensuring unbiased and instant game outcomes for players.
For players and investors, WINR offers a chance to get exposure to the industry of online gambling by either owning and staking $WINR or providing liquidity to the decentralized bankroll with various tokens.
The $WINR token isn’t just a typical governance token; it both accrues 20% of protocol revenue and serves as the player incentive currency within the ecosystem.
Frontend operators building on WINR can completely focus on marketing and customer acquisition, while WINR provides all the backend operations.
WINR’s Growth Curve So Far
WINR’s metrics through the first few months were very impressive, with over $100M in volume wagered before year-end.
Part of the volume growth can be attributed to aggressive rakeback campaigns that undoubtedly attracted users to the exciting new protocol.
The growth has since subsided, and for the last three months, the volumes have only been approximately $ 1.5 M monthly.
Building a fully autonomous and decentralized casino on a blockchain is a complex endeavor, with core infrastructure updates taking considerable time and delaying the start of full-scale marketing efforts.
A couple of weeks ago, the WINR V3 went live, bringing the most comprehensive version of JustBet to users by ensuring seamless and reliable basic functionalities, such as instant payouts, security systems, and bridge and login processes, among others.
Recent developments also include the launch of on-chain-tracked affiliate systems, which accelerate user acquisition, allowing creators to earn up to an 80 % revenue share.
What’s Next on WINR’s Roadmap?
WINR not only utilizes the properties of crypto to streamline payments, but it also changes the game completely by decentralizing all the operations of an online casino.
It has hinted at very interesting future products, such as AI-powered betting agents and AI dealers for on-chain casino games, which could further enhance WINR’s disruptive capabilities in the competitive iGaming space.
Last autumn, the protocol and its app chain were tested under an intensive transaction load during rakeback campaigns.
It appears that most of the lessons learned from that period have been applied in practice, with core infrastructure updates ensuring the future stability of the protocol.
What still lacks is the horizontal scaling of WINR with new frontends and games, as JustBet remains the center of the WINR ecosystem for now.
Ultimately, the success of WINR relies on the willingness of external casino and game providers to build on top of the protocol, a prospect which is still a long way away.
However, the team has demonstrated to be at the forefront of iGaming innovation, although development has perhaps been slightly slower than expected.
With the V3 live, WINR can be expected to release new products, increase volume with affiliate marketing, and show the benefits of decentralized gambling to the world.
