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STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: Zoomabet

20 word description: Zoomabet is a free online virtual money betting platform and community that gives users the opportunity to bet on anything they wish.

CEO’s 100 word description: People love to bet. They enjoy the thrill of winning, even when there’s no money involved. Zoomabet has created a social network that also serves as a smart betting platform allowing users a way of recording and sharing their bets while ensuring a reliable outcome.

Zoomabet has developed its own unique algorithms to accurately judge bets that are posted on the site and fairly determine the winners. Zoomabet’s judging system distinguishes the site from other online betting platforms. Zoomabet users can post text and video bets on virtually any topic from sports to politics to personal bets, and can share these bets with their friends and other members of the community. Members can receive alerts regarding bets posted on their topics of interest. In addition, users’ betting history is displayed on their profiles and for every bet won, they earn ZoomaBucks which they can use to win prizes on the site.

Mashable’s Take: Zoomabet is another one of those sites that lets you predict the future for your chance at the top of the leaderboard. I’m an avid casual game player, and there’s nothing I like better than having a top score displayed for all the world to see, so I understand the mechanisms that support a betting site that doesn’t have real cash rewards. There are prizes, however, that are awarded through Zoomabet’s lottery.

But let’s back up to the basics for a moment. On Zoomabet, the bets are user-generated, and are based on current and upcoming events. You can bet on anything, from weather to a sports game outcome. You can create a bet, or join an existing bet (subject to approval), all of which are categorized in the Zoomabet system. This makes it easier to search.

The social capabilities surrounding individual bets and users on Zoomabet are also quite refreshing, as discussions can be formed around a given topic, and users can even initiate chat sessions with each other. You can subscribe to a user’s actions and set up alerts for users you’d like to track. There are a number of ways in which users can get in contact with each other, so you can share media (i.e. images) or just shoot the breeze.

All the networking and communication options that surround the bets on Zoomabet allow each event and subsequent bet to become a mini resource full of user-generated content. Other networks, like Squidoo, have managed to harness this potential in a more direct manner for end users’ self-promotional (SEO) purposes. It will be interesting to see if Zoomabet eventually treks in a similar direction.

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