For-fun betting sites like Gottabet and PicksPal, which combine social networking with betting, are gaining popularity.
The success of PicksPal in particular has been stunning. Friends group together and bet on the winners of upcoming sporting events, or more detailed things like the number of touchdowns in a given game. A small percentage of users on PicksPal tend to be correct in their bets so often that the company started selling their predictions last year.
It’s no surprise, then, that PicksPal is expanding and launching a pop culture version of its sports betting site. The new site, called PicksPop, allows users to bet on things like “Will Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee get back together?” (pays 100/1), “Will Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt announce their separation?” (also 100/1), and “Will 24 be in the Top 10 for the week?” (pays 1/1). All bets are for points, and each user gets 1,000 points to start. Top ranked users are listed on here.
Like PicksPal, PicksPop is also a social network where each user gets a profile page, can add friends, etc.
The company is based in Silicon Valley and has raised $6 million in venture capital over two rounds of financing. They are backed by Canaan Partners and Bay Partners.
Comments
Sounds like a great idea mike…really like the idea of pickspop and picikspal…both seem great for building a large online audience
It should be noted that it’s not really “betting” as most people think of it (i.e. cash). Instead, it appears that you get a set number of points and you can bet your points on a specific event occurrence. You can then cash out your points for prizes.
$6 million?
For some reason I dont like the design of their site…cant put my finger on it.
Josh - long time no talk!!
There are a couple of things I don’t like about their design… The first is the navigation at the top - the links look like Google Ad links. The other thing that I’m not a fan of is “folder-like” feel of the content in the center of the page.
Also, it looks like TC took down the MyBlogLog sidebar.
Any rhyme or reason for this? Spamming? Personally I thought it cluttered up the sidebar, but at the same time, I love MyBlogLog.
Hi Robert!
Totally agree with the navigation looking like google ad links…quite the turn off.
My Second Life avatar got addicted to virtual gambling on PicksPal. I tried looking for a virtual therapist for him, but they were all busy dealing with people who were hooked on furry porn. Stupid internet.
I prefer the fantasy stock-exchange approach of trendio.com. The 2 websites have the same goals (betting, prediction for fun, social network features) but Trendio’s index of popularity and the possibility to buy the celebrities and other words is funnier in my mind.
The design isn’t great, but it’s not horrible. I think the site looks like fun — I’ll probably end up playing this game more than I use any of those web 2.0 sites. A couple of other celebrity/game sites exist, but this one looks much better.
@Josh
We needed to fix a few software scaling issues plus more hardware is going in now. Michael knows the score and kindly reached out to me before pulling the trigger.
Fafarazzi.com is another one in the celebrity-game space. We’re more based on the fantasy sports model, though.
Josh & Scott - yeah, we’re putting it back up. We’ve had a bunch of server issues the last couple of days that we were sorting through, and we pulled MBL off to see if it was a problem. Don’t think it was.
I think it’s pretty neat. I wonder if they’ll be good at picking the Oscars. The Wisdom of the Crowds thing applied to different verticals is a cool idea if it truly predicts outcomes.
a similar site for betting on Cricket macthes is at http://cric.13links.com
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