BuddyBet, the world's most social betting platform, has received $3 million from private investors to fund the next phase of the development of its P2P betting platform.

After the successful launches of the B2C sports betting offering on www.buddybet.com in October 2012 and the integrated monetization of conversations on third party websites in February of this year, BuddyBet now aims to disrupt the status quo in the gaming industry by introducing a user-friendly way of monetizing online and mobile games.

By combining the concepts of P2P betting and online gaming, BuddyBet allows gamers to raise the stakes by placing bets against their opponents. This strategy adds to the user's gaming experience and, more importantly for games developers, provides a user-friendly solution for monetizing their games while maintaining a more pure, uninterrupted gaming experience than what they produce through other monetization methods.

BuddyBet has already gathered momentum in the sports media industry through a fruitful partnership with DSG, which has seen their platform integrated across more than 180 websites including Footymad.net, and they are now parlaying that success with an extension of their platform across the much larger gaming industry.

Initial traction with gaming sites shows that allowing gamers to participate in skilled betting challenges against opponents makes games stickier, therefore increasing time spent playing the games or on the website and increasing brand loyalty. Using a proprietary automated skills matching engine, BuddyBet matches players of similar ability levels to ensure bets are placed in a fair situation and add to the competitive element of the game.

Research conducted by Digi-Capital in the 2013 games investment review estimates that the online and mobile gaming industry will be worth $83 billion by 2016. However, social gaming investment plummeted last year by $1 billion, making monetization of social gaming a current and contentious issue.

"Games developers, big and small, all face similar challenges when it comes to monetizing their games," said Jarrod Epps, CEO, BuddyBet. "For huge brands with dedicated communities it's easier to charge a high retail price. However, online and mobile developers targeting more casual gamers must turn to alternative methods such as banner advertising and freemium models which annoy their audience and often drive users away."

We believe that skill game betting is an effective way of monetizing games without the negative implications for a pure and user-friendly experience that occur with other popular monetization methods. BuddyBet offers a fun and effective way of allowing gamers to support their favourite developers, and this latest round of funding will be crucial to our effort to fulfil this objective."

About BuddyBet

BuddyBet combines social networking with online betting; offering sports fans, gamers and social bettors the chance to challenge each other to P2P bets or make bets against groups of rival fans for cash, virtual money or forfeits. Users can bet on the BuddyBet website or via customised versions of the product on other websites and mobile games. Integrating BuddyBet's skilled betting platform brings proven benefits such as increased stickiness and a user-friendly monetization strategy for sports media and gaming websites.

The first BuddyBet site was launched in August 2012 by Jarrod Epps, CEO, who started the company to solve the problem of settling long-standing bets agreed between friends and to add a fun and social element to online betting. You can find out more online at b2b.buddybet.com.