Nigel Eccles, the founder of the new BetHog crypto casino, wanna make online gaming fun again.
If you’ve ever heard of Nigel Eccles, you know he has a series of startups in gambling (and music). A self-motivated success story if you may.
He’s a lot of fun himself – he loves his family and his dog, he likes ancient history, and he enjoys running. The guy threw himself a 50th birthday in a ‘20s theme.
Eccles spent 9 years building and improving FanDuel. After the 2018 sale of the 58.7% stake to Flutter for $589 m, then up to 95% for some extra $4.175 billion, Eccles tried his skills at a music startup, fantasy sports platform Darftea in Mexico, a sports groups chat platform, and BetDex (decentralized sports betting protocol).
Here we are today with pigs, or BetHog (a crazy pig is the main character).
The new crypto casino isn’t legal in the US or the UK, but it doesn’t matter actually ‘cause Eccles is not in for the money. He wants a game-changer. And fun.
“We love gambling and we think it’s very fun and social offline. But online, it isn’t. Let’s build a brand that accentuates fun.”
So, BetHog launched in November 2024 in markets all over the world from New Zealand to Canada (except Ontario), Ireland, Latin America, and even Africa. A cartoon pig with a stylish wardrobe is the key character, and that’s how the fun begins.
Drum beats … BetHog raised $6 m in seed funding.
BetHog is built on Solana, a blockchain platform, and it even has a native token – SOL. But this casino also accepts other cryptos, such as BTC or USDT.
“We thought a lot of the games were really dumb and boring,” said Eccles. He wanted a brand that would make people smile. You know, that social element everyone’s craving but no operator really does something about it.
BetHog users can join the fun, engage in player vs player activities, bet on streamers, and simply have fun. Players are literally switching from spectators to participants.
Next, Eccles focused on crypto, which is owned by the consumer, not the government. Plus, crypto users can play from anywhere and avoid all the fuss with account registration.
If there’s something common between gamblers and crypto users, then it should be risk. They both like risk. A “generational opportunity,” says one of the BetHog crypto investors.
BetHog has non-traditional games and non-traditional currency to play with.
Interestingly, the platform isn’t pushing too hard to gain bettors who are new to crypto. As Eccles states, BetHog players are already in crypto, so the real new thing there is original titles. They’re not trying to confuse the user with too many things.
It seems to me that Eccles is trying to build a platform that would easily integrate into that new generation of crypto gamblers. So far, the platform is doing pretty well.
Let’s be honest, BetHog is still at the beginning of its journey, but Eccles is learning the patterns of new crypto users. The new community is expected to be different. So the brand is waiting for people to show up and reveal their interests.
I’ve been around the block for quite some time, and I’m really curious to find out how this adventure will go on. In the meantime, Eccles and his partners are pretty sure this is the next big thing. Their purpose so far is to deliver more exciting and fun games. A dozen original titles are on their bucket list.
Like Eccles said, “in five years, there won’t be ‘crypto’ casinos, because everyone will be using crypto.” Let that sink in.
What he’s trying to figure out now is how to bring crypto gambling to the US and UK. That’s when BetHog will have to deal with education and regulators.
But for now, BetHog is about brand and product. Yeah, and fun.
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