Crypto currencies in gambling

Kryptogambling is one of the areas of the gambling business that is strengthening not only its position among players, but also a number of problems for regulators. What its features and prospects are and what expectations experts place on it - read more about this in the material.

Territorial distribution of the segment

The main crypt currency in the gamblings is bitcoins, which are accepted by casinos instead of the traditional currency. It is not difficult to guess that digital currency payment in online casinos is most common in countries with loyal laws regarding the crypt market and gambling business. These include the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Greece, Poland and Belgium. However, players attempting to pay in cryptocurrency from countries that are subject to a ban may be blocked by the operator after calculating the IP address.

Most often, foreign casinos use BitPay services to convert digital currency into fiat currency, but there are online casinos that accept crypto currencies directly. However, during the conversion of digital currency into the fiat programme Know Your Customer (KYC), which is available in some countries, the operator identifies the transaction participant, which can be followed by deanonymisation. Therefore, in countries where, for example, the BTS is limited, participants will prefer not to cash out their currency and may only use it to save or pay for services. Also in connection with the anti-money laundering programme, some abusers may use more complex but also rare Zcash and Monero tokens. However, according to a number of experts, cryptogambling will begin to crowd out old payment methods this year due to the greater security of transactions, which is ensured by blockcheck technology. This may be particularly relevant against the backdrop of increasing cybercrime. For example, Levon Nikogosyan, General Director of PartnerMatrix, already expects that the use of digital coins will become a trend in the next four years.

Volumes of the foreign market and first known attempts at introducing gambling

It is known from the information available on the web that some operators in Las Vegas, where the first were the Hotel D Casino and The Golden Gate, have ATMs to exchange bitcoins for real money. In other words, you can only use them when you need to get the standard currency, the dollar.

According to Greg Stevens, head of The Golden Gate, lawmakers were not particularly favourable to the direction of the introduction of this innovation in ATMs:

"I don't think the National Gambling Council or the Nevada Gambling Commission would be ready to deal with bitcoins at this stage, but I know that the Gambling Commission is keeping this issue under review and evaluating the prospects.

According to CryptoGamblingNews, the total value of the sector was $161.83 million. The most popular asset was a FUN token from FunFair Technologies. The market capitalisation of the most expensive WIN token amounted to $36.1 million. Daily turnover of coins, of which there are only 22 in gambling, was $3 million.

It is possible that other popular cryptographic currencies are also involved in legal online cryptogambling transactions. According to Statista, Tether, Bitcoin and Ethereum are the most popular buying cryptov currencies as of September 2020. With the 24-hour trading format, the volumes attracted by Tether's purchases amounted to $47.18 billion. The volumes of the VTS block-type currency in 2020 increased to 285.06 GB, whereas two years earlier they were 184,622 GB. However, the report from Block Builders.de. indicates that VTS trading volumes fell by 37 per cent at the end of summer. The value of the third most popular currency in 2020 was $431 per token, while in January 2018 it was $1100.

According to a study by Rutgers University staff on the popularity of cryptovoltaic currencies among regular players, the increased risk of getting into the group of problem gambleers is directly related to the involvement of participants in cryptovoltaic operations. Problem players, for example, are more likely to use the services of the crypt market. However, the authors of the survey, Devin J. Mills and Leah Knower, found that gambling in land-based casinos, on the contrary, helps reduce transactions with digital currencies.

It is possible that players use bitcoin casinos as they are not under the control of the regulators due to conditions of anonymity, which means that they offer more advantageous conditions to participants, which include no commission or transaction limits. It is reported that transactions on VTS are usually carried out within a few minutes, which also attracts foreign gemblers, unlike standard money transactions where there are intermediary structures in the form of banks requiring additional commission.