⚾SX Roadmap
Last updated
Last updated
SX has the largest onchain sports betting community in the world, creating a huge opportunity for SX to monetize through the launch of an SX-branded onchain casino. Casino games are some of the most highly-requested features by the SX community and this would open up SX to more types of bettors, stabilize betting volumes in the low summer months, and increase value accrual for SX. It’s extremely difficult to project protocol revenue from casino games as it requires projecting total betting volume from an entirely different product suite. Casino games typically generate a multiple of the total volume and revenue of sportsbooks.
SX pioneered cross-chain betting with the launch of SX Bet on Arbitrum in Q2. Furthermore, SX’s cross-chain liquidity hub and spoke model makes it extremely simple and capital efficient to launch on new chains. SX has begun experimenting with this model, deploying SX Bet on new L2s such as Scroll and Mode. With the recent success of SX Bet on Arbitrum, we’re also exploring public launches of SX Bet on other chains. We’ll be targeting established whale-heavy chains (such as Ethereum, Polygon, etc.) and new fast-growing chains (such as Scroll, etc.) There is a significant opportunity to establish SX as the gamblefi champion of every significant L1 and L2.
SX will be launching the ability to cashout bets before settlement in Q4. Cashout will enable far more betting activity and trading throughout games, as users won’t have to wait until the end of the game in order to access the liquidity of their unsettled bets. It will also enable for real-time mark-to-mark profit/loss tracking of all open bets for users. Cashout on SX will be significantly better for bettors than the cashout offers one would receive on a sportsbook as there’s no extra “cashout” fee. When cashing out on SX, bettors are effectively betting the other side and receiving their stake back, without having to put up any additional capital. With no extra cashout fees and SX’s incredible odds, SX should have one of the best cashout experiences in the world.
SX has established as one of the best places in the world to bet pre-game North American sports (NFL, MLB, NBA, & NHL). However, our live betting offering is still quite mediocre and merely on par with traditional sportsbooks. This is partly by design; we’ve focused on maximizing pre-game liquidity first, where SX has a big competitive advantage. It’s better to be the best pregame betting platform in the world with average live betting than having a solid but unremarkable offering in both. With that said, maximizing live betting will contribute massively to the overall value prop of the platform and overall activity. For context, even with our relatively average offering, live betting still represents roughly 40% of total volume on SX. This will be an area of focus in Q4 and 2025. We’ve begun researching a new order book design to minimize latency and improve execution times to make it easier for both market-makers and takers. With the new order book design will come a simpler API usage and integration process, which will better fit industry standards and make it easier for market-makers to integrate onto SX.
SX’s focus on driving down vig for sports bettors comes with some tradeoffs. One of the major tradeoffs is an increased difficulty in offering the same level of market coverage for recreational bettors. In effect, SX is following a Costco model for sports betting; much better pricing at the cost of limited coverage. With that said, unlike Costco, there are no direct incremental costs to adding more markets for bettors. The cost is more subtle; long-tail markets are harder to market-make and therefore would have much worse pricing than SX’s major markets. This makes the platform inherently less attractive than more recreational-heavy platforms, hurting adoption. With that said, SX is nearing an inflection point where there is enough market-maker interest to seed these markets. Adding these markets to the platform will be an area of focus in late Q4 and 2025.
