Online gambling has exploded in recent times, particularly during the lockdown period when people were more or less confined to their homes. Roughly around the same period of time, cryptocurrencies managed to reach record-breaking heights in terms of market value.
These two co-occurring phenomena accelerated the popularity of crypto casinos that combine anonymity with ease of transactions, two of the most noticeable advantages of selecting cryptocurrencies as your payment method of choice.
The popularity of crypto casinos
How big has the crypto casino sector become? Although it’s hard to pinpoint the exact numbers, it’s estimated that roughly 25% of all online casinos now accept payments in either ether or bitcoin. However, not all of them count as “true” crypto casinos in the fullest sense of the word.
The majority of them only let you pay in cryptocurrencies and your deposit is then converted to fiat currency. The true prevalence of crypto casinos is likely somewhere in the 6-7% range.
Gambling anonymously
One of the biggest selling points of crypto casinos is that they let you gamble anonymously, which can be quite useful if you’re living in a country where anti-gambling laws are in effect or if certain service providers tend to check your gambling history.
Unlike a typical online casino, crypto casinos will not request your personal information upon signing up. At the same time, their anonymous nature does not make them less trustworthy – most of them still operate under a gambling license. Regardless of that, doing your due diligence before depositing is a good idea, as that will help you avoid fraudulent operators.
Accessibility
Due to regulatory requirements certain countries impose, not all crypto casinos may be accessible from every location. Even so, the solution can be as simple as masking your IP address with a VPN and that should be enough to bypass most geo blocks in no time. In essence, this introduces an intermediary server that forwards the data to you.
The casino you’re trying to connect to will see its IP address and not the one associated with your local device. Since most modern VPN solutions are not technically demanding and require little more than clicking a button to run, anyone with the basic computer knowledge should be tech-savvy enough to use them.
Provable fairness
Can you count on crypto casinos to be fair? If the casino is reputable, it is likely to comply with the provably fair principle. This is an easy way of knowing that the games you’re playing aren’t rigged in the casino’s favor.
To determine this, a special algorithm is used that allows for transparency. So if a game claims to give you a 50-50 chance of winning, anyone can verify this is indeed the case so there’s no need to take the casino’s word for it.
Transaction speed
Finally, there’s the transaction speed you get with every crypto casino. With traditional payment methods like bank deposits, you often need to wait for days for the funds to arrive and many things can go wrong in the process.
For instance, the bank may ask for additional explanation or outright refuse the transaction. With cryptocurrencies, your deposit may arrive and be verified within minutes without needing anyone’s manual approval. As long as you’re comfortable with using a cryptocurrency wallet, the process looks the same as paying for any other goods or services online.
Most cryptocurrencies allow for a decent level of anonymity and funds can reach the other end of the world within minutes.
Conclusion
Since crypto casinos have many things to offer to privacy-minded individuals, they are likely to get even more popular in the future. Even in the world of today, cryptocurrencies are already considered mainstream, and it’s very likely that an increasing number of online casinos will start accepting them as an official payment method sooner rather than later.
