In case you have been living under a rock or are encamped in a 1950s bomb shelter, not only is online gambling extremely popular, but the latest wrinkle is depositing and withdrawing of funds through BitCoin and Cryptocurrency casinos.
Yes, most of them will take cash too, but there are plenty of advantages to gambling with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
For example, there are normally zero transaction fees, either for a deposit or a withdrawal. And another is that when requesting a withdrawal, typically you are paid within 10 minutes via blockchain transfer, whereas when you deal with gambling via credit cards or other means, typically a withdrawal can take 3 to 5 days.
In addition, since Bitcoin and cryptocurrency transactions bypass traditional banks, there is no reporting to pesky government institutions like the IRS.
So how do you find legitimate Bitcoin casinos?
Well, unfortunately, you have to do an extensive search via the Internet, and then once you find some suggested casinos, then you actually have to go to the casino’s website and search through all the gritty details.
This last part is especially important because anyone can suggest a Bitcoin-type casino, but once you actually go through the fine details, you may find that some of them are terrific but others are not so good.
Possible sources for you to consider
The first source we spotted, which came up number three on Google’s search algorithm, which speaks quite a bit for its reliability is an India website called Firstpost.com.
Note that this is not a gambling website, so there is no obvious bias in their article, “10 Best Bitcoin Casinos and Crypto Gambling Sites in 2022″
So after reading about the top features of the casinos and some information on their welcome bonuses, we dug into the first recommenced casino on their list, which was Bitstarz.
So we went to the Bitstarz website, a casino licensed in Curacao, and read about the details of Bitstar for ourselves.
It turns out, not does Bitstar have over 2,900 games, but they do an extremely good job of explaining how cryptocurrency works with the casino, how to buy bitcoins, how long it takes for deposits and withdrawals to take place, and interestingly, that not only are there no fees for playing with Bitstar at the casino, but there are no withdrawal limits.
This in itself is very interesting, because most casinos have a withdrawal limit of so many thousand Euros equivalent per month and then you need to wait for a week or a month depending on the casino before you can withdraw again.
All 10 of the casinos in the Firstpost.com list checked out as viable options so we recommend that you check them out for yourselves.
We did however learn two rather unique things in checking out the various casinos they recommended.
First, all 10 are licensed in Curacao which is mildly troubling, because South American Casinos do not do the very best job of regulating the online casinos they license.
Second, we discovered that because casinos have a financial partnership with their game providers, many game providers do not allow you to play via the use of Bitcoin.
So while you may see a casino listed with a couple of thousand games, be sure and read which games are restricted, as the number may be far fewer.
Since we prefer to play at Malta Casinos, which are regulated more thoroughly, we then did a Google search for Malta Casinos that allow Bitcoin.
Several came up, and we experienced nothing but frustration. Then we read an article from two years ago that indicated there was not a single casino regulated under the Malta Gaming Authority that accepts Bitcoin or Euro Currencies.
So we extended our search. Via Simonsblogpark.com we discovered that casinos in the Isle of Man Accept Bitcoin, and since they are also on the UK’s whitelist for online gambling, we assume most UK casinos accept bitcoin as well.
It turns out that it is not so simple. While it is technically legal for UK casinos to accept Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, they must meet the UK Gambling Commissions’ anti-money laundering requirements, which many casinos fail to do.
We tried the Herald, a Scottish newspaper from Glasgow that listed 8 different casinos supposedly in the UK, but it turns out after fact-checking that the closest casino on their list to the UK was in Gibraltar and all the rest were in Curacao.
The same applies to Canada. We reviewed over 5 different websites that supposedly referred to Canada but in actuality, they were almost all from Curacao, although we also located one online casino based in Panama.
It seems that gaming officials in Curacao, and Panama, and we presume the whole of the Caribbean do not care so much about money laundering, so that’s the reason almost all of the online casinos that accept bitcoin are located within the Caribbean.
True, some casinos may accept Bitcoin as a means of deposit, but to be called a true bitcoin casino, you need to be able to gamble with the cryptocurrency you deposit and
also, be able to take out payments via cryptocurrency as well.
The moral of the story with regard to bitcoin casinos.
- First, it appears that bitcoin and crypto casinos are far from prevalent.
They only seem to be available in a few countries. - Second, read the fine print. As we’ve already pointed out, just because a casino accepts cryptocurrency, that doesn’t mean every game is available to play. It seems many providers of the games want to be paid in cold, hard cash.
One of the risks of cryptocurrency for the player is that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can drop as much as 10 percent in a single day. And it seems that many game providers do not want to put up with a fluctuating currency.
There are many websites out there that tout cryptocurrency, but by all means, read the fine print.
There can be downsides to gambling with cryptocurrency as well as advantages.