Two HN commenters with different views about a certain event want to make a wager. Neither knows nor trusts the other. Seems like the perfect opportunity to use a "smart contract" to guarantee the eventual winner will in fact get paid. Anyone out there who can facilitate this? Thanks.
Seems like the difficult part would be for the contract to determine a definitive outcome. Is the wager a true/false Boolean? Can you get the answer from some 3rd party API?
Yes it is a true/false. No there isn't an API, however the bettors could probably agree upon a set of verifiable websites, the result would be true if one of those sites confirmed it.
several verifiers, great! just seems that at some point, the admin costs of involving multiple verifiers would outweigh the cost savings compared to a basic escrow service.
Thanks. I guess that given so much hype about blockchain (especially ETH) and ability to create smart contracts, there would be a startup (or many) that was already all set up and ready to go for something like this. I know there's already blockchain-based sports betting, this isn't much different.
The Long Now Foundation might be an option, but I think that they accept bets only under certain conditions.
Otherwise, you can lock the money for a long time with a block chain but you don't have reliable way to insure that the right person will get the money without a third person as a judge and effectively money depositor.
