There’s no arguing that TRONbet.io and its ANTE token took the blockchain gaming world by storm when it launched. Not only did it consistently lead the DappRadar rankings for TRON casinos but ETH and EOS as well, both in terms of active users and daily revenue.
With a small but well-formed games portfolio featuring crypto favourites such as Moon and Dice, TRONbet offered the fast-paced action and the provable fairness that players wanted. Along with a number of complementary gamification extras and mining possibilities, its success seemed to suggest it offered something to everyone.
So, it was fairly big news when, in July 2019, TRONbet was no more and its ANTE token was to become defunct and burned. In its place, WINk.org stood and to much fanfare as well.
What’s new?
As previously mentioned, staking denominations have changed. ANTE becomes WIN. WIN is the first of the TRON dApps to launch its TRC20 token on the Binance Launchpad, offering up 21% of the total circulation in the initial supply.
WIN operates in a similar way as ANTE on the platform, but despite nervousness from some hodlers in the community – reasonable considering the amount of ANTE that had previously been burnt – the transition seems to have gone smoothly. Only available on exchanges and designed to be used on the base platform and separated from other tokens used at WINk, it does tidy platform wagering up somewhat.
Outside of the ANTE/WIN swap, there’s much else for blockchain gamblers to get excited about. Since our review in April this year, Poker has gone from alpha to beta and is now live and seeing solid footfall. Supplementing this is a much wider array of games in its partner Live Casino dApp, but we’ll touch more on the new gaming additions later. There’s also now eight languages, localising WINk to the gambling hubs in the likes of Russia, Japan and Korea and opening fair, fast gaming to a much greater audience.
How does WINk look and feel?
Looks are good and it plays well. Yes, the WINk platform look and feel is effectively the same as TRONbet, but if it ain’t broke, why fix it? Notable additions to the homepage are a beta version of Poker, called RAKE, and a Sports Betting tab. The latter, clearly labelled ‘coming soon’ may be a mystery for now but I’m sure there’ll be many players looking for even more WIN action if the offering is as clean and functional as the rest of the platform.
WINk’s playful logo may not be to everyone’s liking but it does resemble branding that you might find at more contemporary, fiat igaming casinos that target a more youthful audience. You’d assume that it’s looking to a similar audience, those transitioning from the fiat to the crypto worlds, and I doubt they’d feel out of place at first visit.
The homepage has few frills which is appreciated. Land on site and you’re led straight to E-gaming as the primary dApp journey. This is where you’ll find the crypto classics such as DICE, MOON, RING and its multiplayer version DUEL. Each takes the newly minted WIN as a wagering option along with TRX (TRON) and BTT (BitTorrent).
WINk remains firmly focused on gamification as a key aspect of its casino experience. Live bet feeds fall like a waterfall with, at the time of writing, what must be four to five bets per second at an impressive average bet size. Along with the usual live chat tool and various leaderboards, players definitely get bang for their buck.
Longevity is also delivered with WINk’s player levels and ‘Daily Task’ functions. Players can unlock the latter by climbing the level ranks through wagering to level 15, and once done so, numerous daily tasks are available with TRX on offer for completion. Tasks such as “Win 30 times in MOON” reward six TRX, for example, while risking it in-game and winning five times on MOON at 5X will payout its fair dues with 30 TRX.
What about the games?
As mentioned previously, TRONbet’s crypto favourites are there, including a multiplayer title. The major additions to the WINk platform though, are the beta version of poker and a much-expanded Live Casino sub-platform.
Poker, titled RAKE, features nine and six player tables as well as the fast-play heads-up format that fits well with other instant win-style games in the WINk portfolio. Although participation fluctuated fairly significantly while reviewing RAKE, at times there was a good array of tables available and these were generally full which will be music to the ears of the poker pros seeking out the blockchain fish.
The RAKE token is also mined through playing WINk’s poker title. Every stake earns a reward and winning the pot will grant bonus RAKE on top of the usual mining grant. This certainly goes a long way to balancing out a fairly standard house rake at 5% of the pot.
Live Casino has definitely come a long way since our last look. Featuring a massive 61 slots, covering every theme you could imagine, 11 table classics, such as Roulette, Sic Bo and Blackjack, and 39 live dealer titles, real-time casino fans will be covered.
Live dealers is a major step for a blockchain casino. Yes, it can be argued that this removes some elements of provable fairness by bringing in a human element, but the entertainment value and addition of a personal touch to the blockchain will likely cover the downsides for the majority.
In summary, WINk doesn’t let up on the games front. The rebrand comes at a time when its content portfolio can back it up and players new and old won’t be let down.
Anything else on its way?
Sports betting, which has just gone live! WINk has recently enteredthe blockchain sportsbook arena, offering “24/7 betting” and “20+ sports. As blockchain sports betting goes rivals most other offerings out there.
Other ecosystem additions are also set to land soon according to the homepage. Advertising banners will be integrated into the platform and all revenue generated paid straight back to “WIN hodlers”, yet another source of TRON-based crypto for WINk’s players. And for the developers, APIs and other tools covering Windrop pools, decentralised exchanges and social systems will be published to allow for full utilisation of the TRON blockchain.
What’s the verdict?
WINk has the aura of a casino with lofty ambitions. It has the usual crypto gaming favourites locked down for the blockchain market and this is extremely well supplemented with its live casino offering, which will definitely have significant appeal to the more traditional gamer.
With the addition of poker, sports betting to come, a likely growing games portfolio and some best-in-class gamification tools, WINk is definitely at or near the top of the pile when it comes to blockchain casinos, TRON or otherwise.
Its new brand and WIN token give it a fresh start and distance itself somewhat from the TRON hype without alienating the market that has made it. You’d think this has been meticulously planned to target a new breed of player yet to realise the superiority of blockchain gaming. No blockchain casino has quite cracked that market yet, but you wouldn’t bet against WINk being one of the first to do so.
