Is gambling with Bitcoin a good idea?

If you have been purchasing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies over the years you will have likely felt the rush of seeing your profits rise sharply and also the lows of a fall in price.

Many view the purchase of altcoins or leverage trading as gambling with Bitcoin. However, if you are proficient at such methods you can increase your holding.

Unfortunately, despite the success stories on the internet, very few are successful.

Another option, perhaps, would be to visit one of the many dedicated Bitcoin gambling websites.

As with much of the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry there is plenty of hype about the possibilities of disruption to the gaming industry. While many of the new sites on the market focusing on this currently may look fairly amateurish they do have benefits over the traditional monopolies.

Gambling with Bitcoin on cryptocurrency sites

The first and most obvious benefit of using cryptocurrency on gaming websites is that they can avoid the restrictions on payouts that the far more regulated gaming industry currently suffers from. Payouts arrive to the customer in a much faster fashion.

Further to this, whereas regulated gaming sites are forced to provide stringent ‘know your customer’ (KYC) protocols, the new cryptocurrency gaming websites are not under such restrictions. This provides people with far higher levels of privacy. Banks are also unable to track where your money is going to and from.

Due to the borderless nature of cryptocurrency these new websites also mean that anyone, anywhere doesn’t have to face the local restrictions that governments may have put in place. The US is still suffering from archaic laws on gaming restricting many top poker players from playing online should they live in certain states.

However, there is inherent risk in allowing just anyone onto such sites, so despite the borderless nature of Bitcoin many platforms block the IP addresses of certain nations. The majority of cryptocurrency users though know how to skirt around such issues.

The final benefit that new cryptocurrency gaming websites advertise is around the notion of provably fair odds. In essence this means that a player can know for certain via mathematics that the odds set out by the casino or online gaming website are accurate and can be verified. This is a very popular selling point of the new up-and-coming cryptocurrency gaming sites.

The benefits come with risks

So far, so good for these new gaming websites that allow gambling with Bitcoin. Yet, legitimate fears can be raised. Firstly, the security and proficiency of these websites can be questioned. In 2015 one user was able to exploit the random number generator of Primedice allowing the attacker to earn themselves $1 million.

The new Bitcoin gambling sites have so far been able to escape the reach of regulators in most nations unlike the traditional industry. One exception to this rule is Japan which is adverse to such sites, no doubt in part due to previous experiences in cryptocurrency with the collapse of MT Gox.

For many online gaming sites they must be regulated by some authority. In the UK, licenses are obtained via the UK Gambling Commission. However, sites can obtain licenses from less strict nations and operate legally. There is consequently much more safety in using a traditional gaming company that operates under strict regulations.

While many cryptocurrency enthusiasts are adverse to regulations they provide a level of safety and security within the gaming industry. The wild west of burgeoning cryptocurrency gaming websites will either have to cross this bridge or attempt to avoid it all together.

Conclusion

Those involved in cryptocurrencies are generally aware of the risks. Whether that be the fear of losing their cryptocurrency or the risk of the volatile prices. As such, it is not surprising that the possibility of further gambling with Bitcoin is an attractive prospect.

However, the traditional gaming market still maintains a strong grip over this market that has yet to be pressured. Should another price spike occur such as 2017, it could be expected that profits will seep back not only into altcoins but also these new gambling ventures.