Throughout the years since its onset, online gambling has been building up into a major digital industry. For the most part, this is due to the agents involved in the business, as well as their constant tendency for improvement, advancement and innovation. This brought about many changes to online casino platforms which ultimately served players towards getting the most entertaining online gaming action.
Namely, players were able to access more stable and secure online casino floor platforms, play a much wider variety of games and pay for this or get a cashout in a much timelier manner. Regarding the final point, a new payment method has recently surfaced and taken on online casino payments in a storm –the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.
What is Bitcoin?
Around 2009, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin and its entire operating platform – the blockchain, were invented and publicly released by a Satoshi Nakamoto. This is the name used by the person or group of people responsible for its creation, and despite the large amount of Bitcoins in their ownership today, no appearance has been noted.
The cryptocurrency itself is a digital form of payment for an item or a service, performed on its own decentralized, peer-to-peer network. It is not regulated by any government or financial establishment, hence its volatile value on the one hand, and its secure and prompt payment processing capabilities, on the other.
The blockchain takes the role of a ledger, with the distinction that it is not an actual book of financial records. Yet, it still manages to record each transaction that is being performed among two or more Bitcoin accounts, update its records in real time and make all this data available to anyone in the ledger. That way, everyone knows the sender and receiver of every transaction, as well as the amount of Bitcoins involved, all to the purpose of disabling anyone from using a single bitcoin for multiple transactions.
While it might seem to disclose everything, the blockchain basically keeps things transparent but doesn’t provide anyone with any access to someone else’s possessions, be it account or personal information. In fact, all that is visible aside from the amount transferred is the string of letters and numbers used to identify Bitcoin holders’ accounts, i.e. their cryptocurrency e-wallet.
Acquiring & Storing Bitcoin
E-wallets are an online service that allows players to store their finances on a virtual location, and Bitcoin wallets are specifically designed for this purpose. These e-wallets can be found in three different formats: online cryptocurrency wallet, offline or hardware e-wallet.
The online wallet is actually a cloud-based online service that allows you to place your bitcoins on an outside server, making them responsible for any issues. However, considering that the main goal of every Bitcoin holder is to avoid such issues, there is a second option – an offline wallet. This is in fact a program installed in your computer that allows you to keep your Bitcoin treasure on your own computer hard drive.
Ultimately, you can choose to purchase a portable, hardware Bitcoin e-wallet such as Trezor or Ledger Nano S and store them on this device. Each hardware solution bears its own set of potential issues, such as theft, electricity failure or even losing it, but considering the cryptocurrency’s value, owners tend to be extra careful.
As for acquiring Bitcoins you can put in your chosen e-wallet, this is best done through a cryptocurrency exchange platform. While the process is the same if you decide to exchange your fiat currency with someone’s bitcoins as a private transaction, there are numerous perks to using such a service.
Most cryptocurrency exchange platforms perform thousands of transactions per day, for a number of users, exchanging a handful of different currencies. They provide the ‘safety net’ protection in case one of the people involved in the transaction doesn’t hold to their side of the bargain. Moreover, most of these services offer a free e-wallet for the Bitcoins you are about to purchase – or sell – as well as numerous other perks to keep customers interested.
Gambling with Bitcoin
Once you have learnt the basis of Bitcoin financial transactions, and the proper ways to get this cryptocurrency and keep it in your possession, it is time to make some use of it. Nowadays, this currency is used to pay for all kinds of merchandise and services through e-commerce platforms. One such occasion is online gambling websites, which only recently discovered the perks of Bitcoin transactions and are quick to use them to everyone’s advantage.
Bitcoin allows online casino and poker room players, as well as sports bettors or any other gambling enthusiast to enjoy their favourite pastime free of fees, payment delays and legal restrictions. This is due to the anonymity and decentralized nature of the blockchain operations, as well as the fact that it operates on a P2P basis. Basically, in order for a transaction to get processed, numerous other Bitcoin owners help make this happenwithout any central authority, simply operating on good faith and a certain gain.
Online casinos soon implemented the necessary add-ons for the payment method. All players had to do to use it instead of the existing ones is to access the ‘Cashier’, ‘Payments’ or ‘Bank’ section in the established Bitcoin online casino and choose it as a deposit and withdrawal method. After that, players put the amount for the transaction and their e-wallet sequence of numbers and letters and are free to gamble away without sharing any more personal information with cyberspace. There have also been a few pure Bitcoin casinos launched recently where you can only gamble with Bitcoin as a currency. These casinos are typically completely anonymous.
Increase in transactions definitely gave Bitcoin a boost on its value, but there is much more to be done. Best you can do is get yours and enjoy the care-free online gaming experience as much as possible.