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Parimutuel Markets Introduction
Thales' main breakthrough is the ability to offer Parimutuel Markets on the blockchain. In Parimutuel Markets, collateral is placed in a single shared pool, and that pool is awarded to winning participants after a market-settling event has occurred. Market-settling event can be one of the two mutually exclusive outcomes (e.g. Thales Positional Markets), or it can be one of many mutually exclusive outcomes (e.g. Overtime Sports Market with multiple exclusive outcomes). The payoff for these types of markets can be easily understood as the total pool (minus the house fee) shared across all winning positions.
Come on in, the water's fine.
The Parimutuel format is great for creating markets that focus on the price movement of crypto assets, but this is nowhere near the extent of Thales’ power. Thanks to a network of data authenticators known as "Oracles" that publish information to the blockchain, any off-chain event can theoretically form the basis of a custom market or competition.
If the data is available to an oracle and a clear outcome can be defined, then a market can be created with immutability on the blockchain. This outcome can be the arrival of a time based deadline, the winner of a particular competition or a crypto asset reaching a certain strike price to name just a few examples. And this flexibility doesn’t come with exorbitant risk. Since it’s easy to comprehend the limited downside and potential upside of a Parimutuel Market, participation is simple enough to master quickly while remaining unpredictable and fun.