Fantex<\/a>, a company that set up an online betting game. The difference is that they used players rather than teams. They used National Football League players, who received money from the betting while the company received a fraction of the bet.<\/p>\n\u201cI was a little bit panicked,\u201d he said of the discovery.<\/p>\n
He talked with Furman professors about working on the game as a summer research project.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was different, a different form of summer research,\u201d Smythe said. \u201cIt was related to a lot of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition, Kaonga\u2019s idea was different from other online gambling and fantasy sports games, Smythe said. \u00a0In fantasy football, the player creates a team of the players he wants. And most gambling is match by match, game by game. Kaonga\u2019s game instead is based on existing teams and their seasons.<\/p>\n
Smythe\u2019s first recommendation was that Kaonga undertake more research to determine if any other programs like his were available. He found some that were similar but none were really the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that is attractive about this is it\u2019s just like a stock market,\u201d Smythe said. \u201cIf a team loses a key player, the likelihood of winning goes down. If a company produces a bad product or loses a CEO, the stock price can go down.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, \u201cin pure gambling, you can lose everything,\u201d Kaonga said. \u201cWith this game, that\u2019s not possible. Even if you lose all the games, you can lose only up to a maximum amount. If all the games are lost, that would be 50 percent of the investment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re setting it up to take the gambling edge off it,\u201d Smythe said, adding that it will be based on a team\u2019s skills\u201d rather than pure luck. Initially, the beginning of season will begin with something similar to an Initial Public Offering, where game owners set an estimated value of the team and investors bid on buying shares, or certificates, of the team.<\/p>\n
It also will be set up so \u201cinvestors\u201d can win or lose on each game, and a secondary market will be developed to allow trading.<\/p>\n
One plus for an investor is that he could get all his money back if the team he is investing in should upset a No. 1 team, Kaonga said.<\/p>\n
The game is expected be in a testing, or simulation, status by next summer, probably using the five World Cup soccer teams, Smythe said. The investors, using virtual money, will be students in Furman\u2019s business and accounting department. Links will be provided to team sites and other sports sites and information on the teams will be available.<\/p>\n
\u201cGenerally what matters is getting information about the teams and players,\u201d Kaonga said. \u201cWe can pretty much play this game in any league.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like buying stocks, players will buy certificates that can be traded with others playing during a certain time window. They will post trade orders just as those buying stocks do. In later simulations, the creators of the game could even introduce short selling, which occurs when an investor thinks the value of a team will drop for some reason.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe become the match makers. We create a market. We fully expect some people to just buy a team because they know it,\u201d Smythe said.<\/p>\n
That also is much like the stock market where some investors buy stocks of companies they do business with or about whom they have heard good things, he said.<\/p>\n
During the testing phase, \u201cwe\u2019re trying to learn whether or not\u00a0it really follows market dynamics,\u201d Smythe said.<\/p>\n
Kaonga\u2019s short-term goal is to see if the game works and if people remain interested in playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a market, but it has characteristics of its own,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Smythe said he would like to see the game become a business. \u201cThe biggest obstacle is if somebody in the market develops something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
That is a possibility, Kaonga said, because his soccer-trading market \u201cdirectly competes with the gambling sites and the stock market. But if he and Smythe can pull it off, \u201cit could be lucrative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smythe said the game could be used in investment and market classes at Furman and could be based on any sport.<\/p>\n
Kaonga, with a goal of becoming an entrepreneur, expects to return to Zambia but could stay in the United States for some years before returning. He anticipates the game could work well in developing countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes it interesting in very poor countries,\u201d he said. \u201cInformation about sports is what you have a lot of. Companies, not so much. Companies also can lie\u201d while sports team results are out there for all to see.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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