There’s always a fierce debate over which method of casino play is the best – you’ll get traditionalists insisting that you just aren’t doing it right unless you get suited and booted, head for the biggest, classiest joint you know and spend the evening sipping on expensive drinks and placing bets like James Bond. Some will insist that these people are living in the past and the future is digital, what could be more fun than playing at home, in your pyjamas with the latest graphics to light up your screen? Who needs to go and pull the arm yourself when you’ve got online slots at Betfair to play?
You’ll even get a few people taking the middle ground and backing live casinos as the way forward with the perfect blend of having a physical person playing with you and a relaxed, online environment so you can play at home with no stress. You can now add a fourth method to that list with the advent of cryptocurrency casinos (or cryptocasinos) standing out as an alternative to the traditional online version. You won’t be surprised to hear it, but cryptocasinos trade in cryptocurrency instead of the traditional fare and make it their USP. Rather than betting a couple of dollars or a few quid, you’ll be staking Bitcoins in your games with the transactions not approved by a bank but by the blockchain and marked in the public ledger. There are a few obvious pluses and minuses here which are worth looking at before you decide to immediately jump to opening an account.
The infographic below will go over the finer points but the core plus and minus points can be summed up by the nature of cryptocurrency. The major plus point is that, unlike the standard method of online gambling, the pay out time will be near instantaneous. The transaction just needs to be recorded by anyone currently mining and the blockchain sorts it all out, completely anonymously and significantly faster than it would be if you had to wait for banks to authorise it. The downside here though is that the encrypted and immediate nature of the transaction means it is all but impossible to prevent fraud. This is only compounded by the fact that online casino legislation doesn’t have any specific rules in place for cryptocurrency so the risks can be substantial.
For a more complete breakdown, check out the infographic below!