Crypto gambling guide
The emergence of Bitcoin in 2009 and cryptocurrencies, in general, rocked a lot of industries, opening up new opportunities for their development. This is largely due to the technologies underlying the functioning of cryptocurrencies, such as blockchain and smart contracts. However, practical value is not the only reason that has sparked a keen interest in Bitcoin and other coins from their ever-growing number of fans. Cryptocurrency is also a valuable asset and a means of payment, transparent and free from manipulation due to its decentralized nature, for which some even call it the new money of the Internet. And what industry needs transparency more and is tied to money more closely than online gambling?
How cryptocurrency transforms online casinos
The benefits of cryptocurrency for playing online casinos are so fundamental and significant that it's amazing how the online gambling industry existed and even flourished before the advent of Bitcoin.
Transaction speed
The vast majority of online casino players use payment cards (VISA, MasterCard) for deposits and withdrawals. Replenishing a casino account in this way, funds usually come almost instantly, but when it comes to cashing out winnings, the player may face an unpleasant surprise in the form of a long delay. Payment card providers can delay payments for up to a week if they find it reasonable. In the case of cryptocurrency, there is no one on the way from the casino to the player's crypto wallet, so no one can deliberately detain your money. From a technical point of view, the speed of cryptocurrency transactions depends on the speed of confirmations in the network of a particular coin. For example, Bitcoin is more "heavyweight" and with an average load of its network, it can take about an hour for funds to be sent or received. Fortunately, most crypto casinos accept altcoins, which provide almost instant transfers at any time of the day and night (Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, etc.).
Funds safety
It is quite obvious that to make a deposit using a payment card, you need to specify all the information on it, which will then be saved in the online casino database. Despite the fact that modern online casinos use multi-layered means of protection, there is a theoretical likelihood of hackers stealing payment data. In the case of cryptocurrency, when making a deposit or withdrawal of funds, the user provides only the crypto-wallet address. Thus, if by some miracle hackers managed to get this address, it would be impossible to use it to steal the funds. Moreover, the owner of the crypto-wallet can generate as many unique addresses as needed and use a new address for each transaction.
Anonymity
Back in the early 2000s, when the Internet was just beginning to appear in the homes of ordinary people, the thought of sending personal data somewhere on the network was alarming at the very least. Nowadays, going through the procedure of confirming the user's identity on sites where payments are regularly made for many has become a common practice. However, there are people who still choose to stay as private as possible using the Internet. This position is absolutely understandable and everyone has such a right, but on some sites, in order to have access to their full functionality, identity verification is mandatory. Such sites, unfortunately for gamblers who prefer anonymity, include online casinos. In the overwhelming majority of cases, this is not a whim of the casino management, but a requirement of regulators who monitor the activity of licensed gambling sites. The main reasons for such monitoring include combating money laundering, preventing tax evasion (honest online casinos pay taxes), and controlling the age of players.
Due to the fact that cryptocurrency is a relatively young financial phenomenon, its regulation is still far from being fully developed and can vary significantly in different countries. In addition to this, if regulators can easily track the movement of all funds of each user through conventional systems for online payments (payment cards, PayPal, etc.), then with cryptocurrency it is many times more difficult, and in some cases impossible.
Thus, crypto casinos can afford to not require any personal data from the user, while having a license, which allows them to operate legally. However, not all crypto casinos are anonymous. You can filter the list of sites at the top of this page to show only anonymous crypto casinos.
Games diversity
Almost all online casinos do not create games themselves, but buy them from third-party developers, which significantly reduces the cost and time for creating a gambling site. It also ensures that the casino will not manipulate the outcome of the game in any way, because the source code of the games is stored on the side of the developers, who in turn must be certified by higher authorities (including the government). Using this model, everyone wins: casinos focus on organizational issues, game developers have a market, and users can enjoy hundreds of different games, staying on one site and being sure that the result of the game is fair. However, with the advent and popularization of cryptocurrency, online casinos have begun to develop their own games more often. Firstly, it is easier to integrate the cryptocurrency payments functionality into games, and secondly, users are attracted by exclusive games that are not available on other sites. Moreover, the concept of the game may be the same, but the implementation differs from site to site.
Provably fair
When a crypto casino decides to start developing games on its own, the most important is to ensure players that they will not be cheated. In this case, the provably fair algorithm comes to the rescue. With its help casino users are able to personally check the result of each bet. Moreover, everyone can provide their own key phrase ("seed") and when it combines with the server seed, forms a random number, which will become the result of the bet. Thus, provably fair crypto casinos overperform the usual licensed online casinos in terms of fairness.
Decimal structure
Although not the most important, but still a pleasant factor in the convenience of cryptocurrency for playing in a casino is its decimal structure. For example, Bitcoin can be divided into parts up to 0.00000001, which are called satoshi (after the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto). This allows players to place micro bets, which is still fun, but without the risk of losing a significant amount. In addition, it provides space for experimentation with various gambling strategies based on mathematical algorithms, which are especially popular among dice players.
Crypto casinos for USA players
Cryptocurrency is of particular value for the online gambling industry in the United States, both for players and for the casinos themselves. Since regular online casinos are banned in most of the US states, some desperate gamblers are forced to look for workarounds. Most often, they use VPN services to spoof their real location and disguise themselves as a resident of another country to access the desired website. This approach rarely ends up with something good, because at the slightest suspicion, online casinos may request confirmation of the player's identity. Of course, when a discrepancy between the information provided by the player and the reality is noticed, his account will be closed without a refund. Even if the user manages to avoid the verification procedure and receive the winnings to his bank account or PayPal (the most popular systems for online payments in the United States), the state financial monitoring will most likely be interested in the source of these funds, especially if the amount is rather large. In the case of crypto casinos, things are less straightforward.
The US government is aware of the existence of cryptocurrency, and they are slowly but surely taking steps towards the formation of the necessary legislative framework around it. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that in 2020, cryptocurrency is not officially banned in the United States. This state of affairs opens the door for crypto casinos to a huge solvent market, where they can attract thousands of new players. Moreover, players themselves are happy to be attracted, because using cryptocurrency for betting is perhaps their only way to participate in gambling.
It is worth adding that not every crypto casino accepts players from the United States. The reason for this may be the conditions in the license of a particular casino, or it may simply be the unwillingness to lose regular players if the US policy towards crypto changes in the future. However, there are three reliable ways to find out if a crypto casino accepts US players:
Top cryptocurrencies for gambling
According to the CoinMarketCap website, there are more than six thousand cryptocurrencies, and these are only those that are included in the database of this resource. Of course, crypto casinos cannot support that many coins, but this is not required. Most players are guided by two factors when choosing a cryptocurrency for gambling: how convenient this coin is for making payments (transaction speed, support by crypto wallets, etc.) and its liquidity in the cryptocurrency market. Thus, we can distinguish five coins that have certain advantages in use for betting:
Recently, there has been a trend among crypto-casinos to implement the CoinSwitch plugin, which allows players to make a deposit with dozens of different altcoins. And no additional actions from the user are required.
Most popular crypto casino games
At the dawn of crypto gambling, the number of games in the assortment of crypto casinos could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Nowadays, almost any gambling game can be played using cryptocurrency. However, most crypto casinos target certain games that are in the highest demand among their audience.
Dice
Dice was the first game available for betting with cryptocurrency, not least because of its simplicity. After funding his account with bitcoins, the user selects the probability of winning or the multiplier of the bet, after which the system generates a random number. If this number is in the range corresponding to the player's choice, he wins. With such a basic concept, dice technically is very easy to implement. The creators of the SatoshiDice website took advantage of this in 2012, giving the general public the opportunity to win some bitcoins (or lose). Because of no alternatives, the site quickly became extremely popular, which gave a powerful impetus to the development of the crypto gambling industry. After a while, due to the lack of updates and growing competition, SatoshiDice began to lose its audience, giving way to more advanced projects, but the cryptocurrency dice game retains its popularity to this day.
Roulette
Classic never gets old and so does roulette. Even though it is comparable to a dice game by its simplicity, roulette has a unique vibe that thousands of online casino players have managed to fall in love with. Roulette was one of the first games available for playing with Bitcoin and over the years of development of the crypto casino industry, it has transformed to meet the diverse needs of players. There are several types of roulette implementation in crypto gambling:
Slots
The process of playing crypto slots can be compared to modern computer games: a huge variety of different mechanics combined with stunning graphics give players an unforgettable experience, and the lucky ones get significant winnings. This is why slots make up the bulk of the game range of major crypto casinos, but this trend has only started to gain traction in the last couple of years. The vast majority of online casino slot games are purchased from third-party developers and the technical part of such games was not initially optimized for working with cryptocurrency. It should be noted that slot providers are large companies that have been working on the creation of casino games for decades, and around which an impressive fan base has managed to form during this time. The active growth of the crypto-gambling industry forced slot developers to find ways to cooperate with crypto-casinos so as not to lose a promising market with a solvent audience. Nowadays, using cryptocurrency, you can play slots from such legendary developers as NetEnt, Microgaming, Yggdrasil, Play'n'Go, Habanero, Quickspin, and others.
Blackjack
It is hard to imagine an online casino without card games aboard and blackjack is one of the most prominent representatives of such games. With an interactive concept that allows the player to influence the outcome of a hand, blackjack is mechanically a little more complex than dice or roulette, but still extremely simple to implement. That is why this card game could be found in almost any crypto casino back in the early years of the industry. Blackjack with a live dealer is especially popular these days, which is also available for playing with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Betting on sports
For any sports fan placing a bet on the victory of his favorite team or just an interesting match means an opportunity to get much more pleasure from watching the game, and in case of luck - some extra cash. Given their immense popularity, sportsbetting is a form of gambling without which the entire crypto gambling industry would be incomplete. Fortunately, these days there are enough crypto-bookmakers providing their services at more than sufficient level to meet the demand of the audience.
Here are just a few of the extensive list of sport disciplines that you can bet on with cryptocurrency:
- football (soccer)
- tennis
- basketball
- MMA and boxing
- eSports
Crypto casino bonuses
As the crypto gambling industry develops, player standards are steadily increasing, so nowadays, to be competitive, it is no longer enough for crypto casinos to simply provide high-quality service. Fortunately, for players looking to get the most out of visiting gambling sites, many crypto casinos have a trump card up their sleeves. Although it is quite obvious that we are talking about bonuses, this topic has its pitfalls, which are better to know about before confronting it in person.
First of all, there are several main types of bonuses that crypto casinos usually offer:
As tempting as all this may sound, behind most of the bonus offers is a condition that makes getting a bonus not as easy as it seems at first glance. In the case of a deposit bonus, before the bonus funds become available for withdrawal, the player must place bets for a certain amount. This is called a wagering (or rollover) requirement and absolutely all crypto casinos with a deposit bonus practice this approach.
However, the amount that needs to be wagered can differ significantly from site to site. For example, the requirement to roll a deposit 30 times is considered a low value, since in some casinos this figure can go up to 60. Most casinos do not display this information in a prominent place in the hope that a potential client will fall for a tempting offer without delving into the conditions. Thus, in order to avoid disappointment, before using the bonus it is recommended to clarify the conditions for obtaining it, which can be found in the casino rules or asking the site support.
We have a complete crypto casino bonuses guide with the best offers in the industry and their conditions detailed overview.
How to start
First of all, it is worth noting that we do not encourage those who have no experience with online gambling to start playing in casinos, because this can be addictive and fraught with the risk of losing money. Rather, this guide is aimed at experienced and conscious players who want to take advantage of cryptocurrency to play in casinos, but don't know where to start. Indeed, at first glance, using cryptocurrency may seem daunting, but in reality, it only requires a few simple steps.
Step 1: crypto-wallet selection
Before purchasing a cryptocurrency you need to get a reliable place to store it, which is a crypto-wallet. There are several types of wallets that are most suitable for regular transactions and are easy to use even for users with no experience:
Step 2: cryptocurrency purchase
After your crypto-wallet is ready to use, it is time to put some coins in it. Fortunately, there are more than enough ways to buy cryptocurrency securely and in minutes.
Here are two of the most common and convenient ones:
After the successful purchase of cryptocurrency, you need to transfer it from the exchange to your personal crypto-wallet for better safety and ease of further usage.
Step 3: making a deposit
Making a deposit is the finish line on the way to playing at a crypto casino. Of course, first of all, you need to create an account, but this is a usual procedure for any Internet user, so there should be no difficulties in this step.
The “Deposit” button usually can be found on the most prominent place of the casino’s website, clicking on which will lead to the preferable coin selection. After the currency for deposit is selected by the user, the address where the coins should be sent to will appear. A unique address is generated for each user, so you don't have to worry that the money will be sent to the wrong account. In most crypto casinos, funds are credited to the balance and become available for play after one confirmation in the Bitcoin network, depending on the load on the network and the selected transaction fee. Many crypto-wallets allow users to adjust the amount of the fee, while in others it is set automatically. It is also important to note that you cannot send another to the address intended for one cryptocurrency because this will lead to an irreversible loss of funds.
Conclusion
In this article, we have considered many aspects and advantages of playing in a crypto casino, which can be useful for both experienced crypto gamblers and beginners in the field of cryptocurrency. Among all crypto casinos, there are also the best representatives, the list of which can be found at the top of the page. And if you still have questions or comments, you can write to us by email.