Online gambling is a massive industry that is projected to see an increase in profits which measures its market value into the billions. However, while it remains a popular undertaking with millions of people each day, it is constantly fighting issues relating to fraud and cheating.

And yet, while this is the case, it's unlikely to stop people from handing over their money to the countless number of gaming sites. Naturally, players from many quarters have called out for an improvement in the sector regarding privacy and fairness.

Peerplays, a global peer-to-peer betting platform built on top of the Blockchain, is attempting to solve many of the industry's issues with the launch of its Peerplays Blockchain on May 30, 2017.

Through the use of Peerplays', soon-to-be-released, decentralized applications scheduled this year, users will have the chance to plug into Peerplays, enabling them to place bets anywhere in the world. Peerplays is built with PPY tokens, which power the betting platform, ensuring holders can take part in all the activities of the Peerplays Blockchain.

Peerplays public crowdfund

In December, Peerplays established a Canadian non-profit organization called the Peerplays Blockchain Standards Association (PBSA) for the purpose of promoting the Peerplays technology. Following that news was the announcement that Peerplays would be holding a public crowdfund in February, which is due to end May 14, to fund the PBSA for continued development and support of Peerplays.

Prior to the start of the ICO, the PBSA had already raised $4 mln in private donations, indicating the amount of support from partners keen to further explore the new technology Peerplays is creating.

With 950,000 PPY tokens due to be released over the course of the ICO, Jonathan Baha'i, president of the PBSA, said to Cointelegraph that they have received a lot of support.

"We are very excited to be building a new technology on the cutting edge of two separate industries," he said. "We [have] got a lot of attention from players in the online gaming industry as well as the Blockchain space, and so far their feedback has been overwhelmingly positive."

The Peerplays Blockchain will launch on May 30 and anyone holding PPY tokens will receive a portion of all fees and profits through the Peerplays Blockchain at frequent times.

Last year, Peerplays announced it was creating an open-source fee sharing module, allowing any Graphene-based Blockchain to distribute profits directly to its token holders, which saw around $500,000 in seed donations raised after selling 20 percent of Peerplays tokens during the first round of ICO funding.

Provably fair gaming

Through its high-speed Graphene program, Peerplays automatically connects players from around the world, which permits online gaming and wagering that is highly resistant to cheating.

Through a series of smart contracts, peer-to-peer wagering is ensured with the contracts escrowing the funds wagered by each player, either through an online platform or a mobile app, before being released to the winner after specific conditions within a game have been met and verified. This ensures a provably fair gaming environment with real-time interaction between users around the world for sports betting, living gaming and lotteries.

Later this year, Peerplays is planning on releasing two new decentralized applications, Peerplays Eight and Bookie, which have been designed to further improve the online gaming environment.

Expected to be released in August, Peerplays Eight is an app that will support on-chain and off-chain gaming applications. It also introduces tournament creation and management smart contracts that automatically settle gaming tournaments on the Blockchain.

"We've had a few thousand people visit our test net and play in tournaments and everyone seems to be having a lot of fun with it," said Michael Maloney, director of intelligence at PBSA, speaking to Cointelegraph.

Bookie, which is a sports-betting application with a user-friendly interface for placing and accepting bets through the Peerplays decentralized prediction market that enables peer-to-peer wagering on sporting events, is expected to be released in Q4 of 2017. The prediction market is also accessible through the Peerplays Blockchain API, which makes it easy for trading and market-making bots to be written and utilized by users.

"Both applications connect users directly peer-to-peer through a decentralized Blockchain network, which has the potential to enable users to bet from anywhere in the world," added Maloney.