Cryptocurrency Gambling and Bitcoin Casinos on the Rise

With low costs and fast payments, gambling sites using cryptocurrency make a great investment opportunity.

Gambling is a growing industry and when it comes to profits online casinos are a big part of the equation. As technology evolves, gambling sites are constantly improving their software, features and offers, attracting more and more players.

The constant need for better and safer payment methods has contributed to the appearance of cryptocurrecy, and now there is a growing demand for bitcoin casinos, especially in countries where real-money gambling is forbidden.

In terms of gross winnings, the global online casino market is worth around $30 billion and is expected to grow. Bitcoin gambling only accounts for a small part of that income, but experts have pointed out its great potential.

The potential of bitcoin casinos

The number of people who prefer using bitcoins instead of traditional currency is growing, and many of them are dedicated gamblers. Statistics show that half of the transactions made via the bitcoin network were being used to place bets on SatoshiDice. This is one of the oldest bitcoin gambling sites, and its creator Eric Voorhees was clearly very inspired when he started it.

SoftSwiss CEO Ivan Montik gives us an idea of how much demand there is for bitcoin casinos. “We’ve got about 400 requests for the launch of a bitcoin casino in the last six months. We constantly have three to five casinos in the set-up phase, and could have had more if we had more resources,” he told reporters.

Just like the traditional gambling industry, the bitcoin casino market has its own high-rollers.

“On one client website, launched just about a year ago, there are single wagers reaching 200–400 BTC. The total amount of bitcoins wagered on all of the sites operating with the SoftSwiss platform is equal to $10 million per month,” he explained.

Cryptocurrency has also penetrated the world of mobile casinos. Although there is still a lot of work to be done in this area, bitcoin users do have the option to gamble on the go.

Gambling without banking

Even though there is demand for more bitcoin casinos, the success of this new industry depends on a number of factors. For example, SatoshiDice cannot offer its services on the US market, because of the strict American gambling laws in place.

At present, playing internet casino games is only legal in three states and while several others are considering legalizing this activity, anti-gambling groups and certain politicians are pushing for a nationwide ban.

However, some entrepreneurs are not discouraged by America’s rules against using wire transactions for gambling. Managed by poker player Bryan Micon, Seals with Clubs is openly allowing US gamblers to play using cryptocurrency.

“It would be trivial to circumvent some ban. Seals is open to the world. There’s no banking at all done on the site. It’s a pure bitcoin poker site, so this is a totally brand new thing. It’s only been a few years for the legal world and there’s nothing at all that says anything about this protocol,” Micon argued.

Using cryptocurrency has revolutionized the world of gambling, and constant innovations are helping the industry grow. SatoshiBet founder Adrian Scholz said dice was not popular among gambler before bitcoin casinos came along. Now it can easily beat roulette and blackjack.

Launched in 2013, Cloudbet is a sportsbook and casino which allows players to make deposits, place bets and withdraw funds instantly. The company is preparing to expand its range of products with a mobile sportsbook.

Limited by legislation

While the industry is constantly developing, there are still a lot of challenges to overcome. One of the biggest risks, experts say, comes from the fact that cryptocurrency is still very unstable. This is mostly because the market size is still relatively small, causing the value of bitcoins to fluctuate.

On the other hand, Scholz believes legislation is the biggest issue. He said major operators start out by saying they are willing to introduce bitcoins, but end up backing out of the deal because of the unclear state of the currency.

For Mike Hadjuk, founder of Infiniti Poker, security is the number one concern. “Nobody is impermeable. Even the Pentagon can get hacked. To me that’s our number one concern,” he said in an interview.

For instance, Seals with Clubs lost about 42,000 passwords last December, when the website was hacked. Micon says the team learned from this experience “No one lost their coins. We were able to drastically improve up to and beyond industry standards for our password table,” he added.

Lawmakers and public authorities still frown upon alternative currency, because the market is not regulated or controlled, but this is precisely why players prefer it. As long as there is demand for bitcoin casinos, this fresh industry will continue to grow, much to the delight of thousands of users across the world.