Puntpal

PuntPal, is the trading entity of the Ireland registered company, Puntpal Ltd. It provides an international betting brokerage service that allows gamblers to trade bets on a wide range of sporting and other events.

Puntpal attempts to bridge the gap between the traditional bookmakers and internet enabled betting sites. The book-maker is an assured market maker always there to match a bet. Peer-to-peer betting sites are dynamic in nature connecting gamers, giving them better odds than the bookmakers and are more nimble to change in market perceptions.

There was a need for a solution that marries these two concepts and gives a seamless interface where customers choose between these two options and match their bets. Unlike existing exchanges that bypass the traditional bookmaker to provide a bet matching service for gamblers only, Puntpal actively encourages the participation of both bookmakers and gamblers alike.

Key features include:

1) Advanced Bet Search

Two types of searching are implemented on the site. Key word search of events or outcomes and Tree navigation. The keyword search on the database (XML files) is optimized for an accurate search. The Tree/Category search is drill down search categorized event wise.

2) Several advanced features for users including customized my page (with one-screen access to all information from favourite events, bets laid, accounting, total exposure etc.), private invitation only reserved betting, partial matching, real time fund allocation, hedging, and odd comparator (best odds across the system including bookmaker odds).

3) Web-enabled desktop Version for Bookmakers with multi-level security access allowing them to calculate their exposure at any point, manage accounting and reporting them to calculate.

Technology Used:

The complete exchange is built on an IBM Netfinity Server platform with IBM WebSphere Advanced Edition V3.5 and IBM Universal Database DB2 V7.1. The business logic and the presentation layer for the exchange are encapsulated through a Unit and Container based subsystem framework. The complete solution is implemented through Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) and builds on a session-less bean interface for communication with JSP scripts. The session-less beans are designed to be wrapper interfaces for the entity beans in the framework.