Gambling with cryptocurrencies have become hugely popular over the last few years. For a lot of gamblers, Bitcoin is the perfect solution when it comes to online gambling and crypto-based games and the statistics around these show that the number of people who use Bitcoin for gambling is rising every day.
Bitcoin is one of the most used cryptocurrencies around the world in any field, and the same goes for gambling. By being able to use Bitcoin, gamblers are allowed to enjoy more privacy-focused gaming, and they don’t have to wait several days for their payments to be processed, in addition, there are a number of promotions and bonuses that Bitcoin users can enjoy while gambling.
Online gambling is one of the biggest industries on the market, and in 2016, the volume of it was more than $45 million. Although Bitcoin is very actively used, it has only captured a tiny part of it as of today. At the same time, the number of people who use Bitcoin while gambling online is rising every day and it does not seem to be stopping any time soon.
There are a number of online Bitcoin casino games at your disposal right now, most of the top online casinos offer them and many people use them. There are many reasons why someone would like to gamble with Bitcoin, and probably the most important reasons are the safety, security, and privacy that it offers.
How does crypto gambling work?
There are mostly two different ways for Blockchain gambling to happen. These include on-chain, and off-chain blockchain gambling. These two are very easily differentiated, off-chain crypto gambling is when the process includes cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, as a deposit method. In most cases, there are third-party wallets used for transferring Bitcoins between gamblers and the company, some casinos even operate purely depending on Bitcoin and use them for payments and withdrawals, some use fiat currencies for exchanges.
For on-chain casinos, however, it occurs on a blockchain with the help of smart contracts. What it does is that it comprises decentralized applications, and the code that it depends on is running on a blockchain network. Generally, it is a lot easier for authorities to go after off-chain casinos, for on-chain casinos, it gets a lot harder.
To say it in the easiest way, on-chain casinos are the ones that are more decentralized and offer more privacy than any other casinos online.
Are there any regulatory restrictions?
There are a number of restrictions when it comes to both, gambling and crypto usage. As of today, the United State of America is one of those places where the world of gambling is very significantly regulated. Most of the regulations in the country come from the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act, UIGEA, which was created in 2006.
As the act says, businesses are prohibited from knowingly accepting payments which are connected with the participation of another person in a bet or wager that involves the use of the internet and that is unlawful under any federal or state laws. Because of this, a huge part of online Bitcoin casinos are avoiding offering their services to the citizens of the USA.
Other countries that regulated crypto gambling are those like The Netherlands, Greece, Belgium, Poland, Italy, The United Kingdom, etc. Also, in many countries, Bitcoin is not even considered to be a legal payment method because of the existing guidelines, which means that it can not be used for gambling. One of the countries like this is Japan, where the gambling industry exceeds the one of Nevada by over $4 billion, it is estimated to be as much as $15.8 billion.
How did Bitcoin become so popular?
There are many other cryptocurrencies on the market, but the most popular one of them remains to be Bitcoin. It was the first one that was created in 2009, over a decade ago, and over the years, it got a huge reputation after 2017, when it’s price hit the highest point.
Other cryptocurrencies that were created after Bitcoin are called Altcoins, and although some of them are somewhat popular, none of them match the reputation that Bitcoin already has.
