When comparing traditional land based casinos to online gambling it would appear that the internet has the upper hand. Internet casinos do not have to maintain a large physical facility, do not have to hire and pay lots of employees and spend millions on advertising to attract players. In the United States online gambling is in a legal grey area. While online gambling is not illegal in and of itself it is illegal for banks, credit card companies and third party payment processors to facilitate gambling related transactions. A few years ago Neteller executives were arrested while traveling through the United States. Thousands of American players had their funds frozen for months.
Despite the legal problems internet gambling in the United States is a $406 billion dollar a year industry according to the American Gaming Association. For many American players using bitcoins has been a good solution. So exactly what are bitcoins? Basically bitcoins are a cyber-currency that has no central authority. Bitcoins are exchanged just like real currencies and exchange rates vary. Bitcoin transactions are relatively anonymous. In the past bitcoins have gotten a bad rap because of their association with black market websites like Silk Road.
When gamblers go to a casino they must exchange their money for chips. This is designed to make a player spend more money because chips do not resemble cash. Some online gaming experts say bitcoins can have the same effect as chips in a casino. Kevin Meehan, one of the operators of the bitcoin gambling site BitSaloon, sees the similarities but believes bitcoins are much more versatile. Meehan stated “Bitcoins already act like the chips/credits you see on other sites, but inherently have more value since they can immediately be taken off of a wallet on a gambling site and used at places like WordPress, Reddit or other vendors accepting BTC.”
It has been noted that several bitcoin gambling sites are more transparent than their traditional currency using counterparts. Gamblers can follow the transactions of a specific bitcoin site by following the state’s transactions on their bitcoin address. This has enabled some bitcoin sites to say they are “provably trustworthy.” Some sites publish how they operate their random number generator. The concept of bitcoins is relatively new. Justin Pincar, from BitSaloon said “My personal take on it is that people don’t view it as real money yet. We have seen people raise their bets based on the amount of time they’ve spent on the site, which makes sense, as they’re building trust that we’re legit.”
Currently there are no internet bingo sites using bitcoins. Once the technical and legal flaws have been worked out gaming experts expect bitcoin use to increase. Withdrawals using bitcoins can be done in a matter of minutes as opposed to traditional withdrawals that can take days or even weeks to process.
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