How betting works

FlySports uses pari-mutuel betting, the same idea as a tote at a racetrack. You are not betting against a bookmaker. You are betting against everyone else in the same race, and the winners share the pot.

Pari-mutuel pools#

Every race has one pool of money made of everyone's stakes, split into one sub-pool per fly. When a race finishes, the pool (minus a small fee) is divided among the people who backed the winner, in proportion to how much each of them staked. That is the whole system:

• Back a fly that few others back and your share of the winner pool is bigger, so you win more if it comes in.
• Back the crowd favourite and you win more often, but each win pays less.
• The house never takes the other side of your bet. The money paid out comes from the pool.

Multipliers#

The number next to each fly in the bet panel is its payout multiplier: how many USDC come back for each USDC staked if that fly wins. It is computed live as:

multiplier = (total pool − rake) ÷ pool on that fly

The panel also shows a win chance for each fly. That is a modelled estimate from the breed's tuning and the race card, not a promise. Where chance × multiplier clears about 1.05 the panel shows a small Value tag, meaning the crowd may be underrating that fly. It is a hint for form-hunters, not advice, and the stream itself never shows odds or money.

A worked example#

Say the pools just before lock are:

The total pool is 100, the 6% rake is 6, so 94 is shared among winners. If Cautious wins, everyone who backed it splits 94 in proportion to their stake. You staked 10 of the 30, so you get 10 × 94 ÷ 30 ≈ 31.33 back. If Bold had won instead, the same 10 staked on Bold would have been the whole 10 pool: 10 × 94 ÷ 10 = 94. Those numbers are illustrative only.

The 6% rake#

Before winners are paid, the program takes 6% of the total pool. It is split in two:

• 5% house: sent to the treasury, the house's share.
• 1% rollover: kept in a program-owned vault and used to seed the bonus pool of upcoming races.

The rake is fixed in the on-chain configuration, applied identically to everyone, and visible in every race's numbers. There are no other fees on winnings beyond Solana's tiny network fee.

The rollover bonus pool#

The 1% rollover fund does not sit idle. When it has a balance, the platform adds some of it to the next race's pool as a bonus pool, shown as a badge in the bet panel (“Bonus pool +X USDC”). The bonus is added to the total pool, so it lifts every multiplier a little and winners share it in proportion to their stakes. It is not attributed to any single fly, and the breed rows show bettor stakes only.

If a race is cancelled, or nobody backed the winner, the bonus is not paid out. It goes back to the rollover fund for a later race. The bonus is added before betting locks, so it can never change odds after you have committed.

Lock time#

Each race has a lock slot, a Solana slot number chosen when the race is created (before anyone can bet). Bets are accepted only while the chain is before that slot. A Solana slot is roughly 0.4 seconds, so the betting window is about a minute in this beta. The panel shows a countdown.

Once the chain reaches the lock slot, nobody can bet, and the race is locked to that slot's hash. That hash becomes part of the race seed, and it did not exist when you were betting, so nobody (including us) could know the outcome while bets were open. The details are on Fair play and verification.

Refunds#

You get your stake back in full, with no rake, in three cases:

• The race was cancelled before lock. Only an admin can do this, only before betting closes, and the reason is recorded on-chain.
• The race expired after lock. If a locked race is not settled within the settlement timeout (120 seconds by default), anyone can trigger an expiry that refunds every bettor. It is tagged “expired” on-chain so it is visible and countable.
• Nobody backed the winner. If the winning fly has an empty pool there is nobody to pay, so everyone who bet on the other flies is refunded.

A refund works like a win: press Claim refund when it appears. Cancelled races can be claimed straight away.

Claiming#

Winnings are not pushed to you. After the result has aired you press Claim and sign one transaction. The program checks your bet, sends your share of the pool to your wallet, and closes your bet account so the small rent deposit returns to you. You can claim any time later; the program has no claim deadline, and tokens you do not claim stay in the race vault. Your history, including claimed bets, is on My bets.

Rounding

Payouts are whole token units, rounded down. With several winners a few millionths of a USDC of “dust” can be left in the race vault. It is never more than one unit per winning bettor, and it is never taken from anyone's payout.

What test USDC means#

You get it free from the faucet (500 at a time, rate limited), and when the beta resets, your balance may reset with it. Mainnet with real USDC would be a separate decision after legal review, and is not part of this beta. See the Terms.