Why Cryptocurrency and Online Casinos?
Cryptocurrencies have some pretty unique attributes that make them ideal for use at an online casino. Unlike government-issued, fiat currency, they do not rely on a single point of authority. Trust is established through the network itself.
If you want to send dollars, for example, to a casino, you might not realise it but a lot of trust is needed to make that happen. First, you trust your own bank to actually start the transaction. Next the bank sends the money off to either a bank account held by the casino (if your casino is banked in the same country as your own bank), or through numerous banks if they are located elsewhere.
Now, the funds appear in your casino account seemingly instantly. In reality, it will be a few days before the casino operator can actually access the money sent. The bank tells them a transaction is on the way and they trust that their bank is telling the truth. Likewise, the bank itself trusts that the sending institution is also actually sending the money.
All this trust is expensive and time consuming. Cryptocurrencies get around this by relying on the network itself to finalise transactions. They use an elaborate incentive structure that makes them as good as impossible (this has never happened to Bitcoin) to corrupt with false transactions or “double spend” attacks.
Since the network itself does all the work and the network doesn’t care for imaginary lines drawn on maps, cryptocurrencies can travel across borders quickly and cheaply, with absolute finality assured in minutes rather than days. For gambling companies looking to attract a global audience this is very appealing!
Also appealing is the low price of cryptocurrency transactions. For a player to deposit, the casino doesn’t pay anything. The player will pay a small network fee to ensure their transaction is picked up by the network. This means that casinos save a lot of money by accepting cryptocurrency transactions. Visa fees alone will amount to a huge percentage of a traditional online gambling venues annual overheads.
When casinos save money, they can afford to be more competitive in the market. This often results in spectacular bonuses and increased return-to-player ratings on games.
Given that cryptocurrency casinos are so new, they also must try to attract players away from traditional online gambling venues. This encourages them to amp up their welcome bonuses even more. We’ve even seen whole Bitcoin (~$10,000) deposit bonuses in the past!