Social Sports

Peer-to-Peer Social Sports Competition & Rewards Platform

Esketchers developed an app that brings sports fans together through friendly competition and rewards. It allows users to challenge friends on live games, lock in predictions, and compete on leaderboards without cash betting.

Outcome: Winners earn coins that can be used to enter sweepstakes for authentic sports memorabilia and exclusive collectibles.

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Results What changed for FistBump

Before

  • ✕Traditional user-versus-house sports experiences
  • ✕Limited social interaction between participants
  • ✕Manual challenge management processes
  • ✕Fragmented competition experiences
  • ✕Limited reward mechanisms beyond game outcomes
After

  • ✓Real-time peer-to-peer sports challenges
  • ✓Social competition between friends and communities
  • ✓Automated challenge creation and settlement
  • ✓Always-available competition through automated opponents
  • ✓Reward-driven ecosystem with sweepstakes participation

THE CLIENT

Social sports competition platform
for fans, friends, and communities

FistBump is a social app for sports fans who love competition and rewards. Instead of cash betting, users challenge friends directly on live games, lock in picks, and climb the leaderboards. Winning earns you coins to enter sweepstakes for authentic sports memorabilia and exclusive collectibles.

Broken SocialBetting App

Platform overview

Fans weren't just making picks. They were trying to challenge friends, lock predictions, track leaderboards, and earn real rewards without a proper system.
Every challenge was manual, slow, and trust- dependent, leading to disputed outcomes, lost coins, and frustrated users.

Thousands of active users
Competing across head‐to‐head challenges and open challenge walls
Verified revenue growth
Clients have seen strong increases in coin purchase volumes
Higher challenge values
Boosts average wager sizes through social competition and leaderboard chasing
Reduced overhead
Automated challenges save the equivalent of multiple full‐time moderation staff

The problem

PLATFORMS FELT IMPERSONAL

Every existing platform forced users to bet against a house or algorithm. There was no way to challenge a specific friend, post a pick to a group, or compete on a leaderboard without cash. Fans had no real social connection, no ability to lock picks directly with peers, and no system to prevent double‐spending or automate payouts.
During live games, users had to manually track results, settle disputes, and handle transfers leading to frustration, lost trust, and abandoned challenges.

No peer‐to‐peer structure

Platforms offered only house‐centric betting, not direct friend‐to‐friend challenges

Manual settlement

Winners and losers had to calculate and transfer coins manually, with no automation

No social engagement

No real‐time chat, no leaderboards, and no way to build ongoing rivalries

The solution

A real-time, peer-to-peer social sports ecosystem

We engineered a highly scalable, live-synchronized social gaming platform that centralizes live sports data feeds, automated peer-to-peer wagering workflows, secure coin transactional architecture, and interactive social features into a unified mobile experience.

Peer-to-Peer Challenges

User sets the terms

Custom challenges on live games supporting Money Line, Spread, or Over/Under mechanics.

Auto-Match Settlement

Payouts without a referee

Instant end-of-game processing driven by automated data feeds to calculate payouts and transfer coins.

Secure Coin Escrow

Coins locked at acceptance

Double-spend prevention by instantly locking both users' coins the exact moment a challenge is accepted.

"Knuckles" Auto-Bot

An opponent, always

An automated house bot that auto-accepts challenges so users always have an opponent to play.

Dual Reward Economy

Coins and real prizes

A coin-wagering loop combined with a separate sweepstakes engine for physical sports memorabilia.

TECH STACK

Every layer was built for real‐time competition, secure coin locking, and automated challenge resolution.

Python/Django

Backend

Powers challenge creation, user authentication, social login, API serving, and secure authorization for the core competition platform

PostgreSQL

Database

Stores user profiles, challenge records, coin balances, sweepstakes entries, and transaction history with efficient connection management.

Docker

Deployment Layer

Orchestrates containerized deployment, automates testing and releases, manages traffic routing, and monitors system health and task queues.

Celery + Redis

Data Layer

Handles asynchronous tasks like payout processing and notifications, plus live WebSocket connections for real-time chat and challenge updates.