How Do You Use Bitcoin At An Online Casino?
The cryptocurrency market has had its ups and downs in recent years, with the stratospheric rise of mainstream options like Bitcoin helping to encourage investment from all over, even if prices have been on a downward trajectory of late.
If you are less interested in the investment potential and more engaged with the idea of actually using Bitcoin to carry out online transactions, you might be wondering about the options that are available to you.
For fans of online casinos, being able to deposit funds into their accounts via Bitcoin could be an attractive proposition, but how do you achieve this?
Built in Support
The first thing to bear in mind is that traditional casinos including Casumo don’t generally accept Bitcoin, or at least do not offer native support for deposits or withdrawals using this or any other cryptocurrency.
Part of the reason for this is that the volatility of Bitcoin and its counterparts, combined with the fact that transactions involving it tend to be sluggish compared with incumbent online payment methods, makes it less appealing to gambling sites.
There are outliers, of course, but the casinos that do offer the ability to use Bitcoin are not usually the most trustworthy, established brands. This means players will need to be willing to take a risk and use a less familiar platform.
Conversion Options
Since direct use of Bitcoin on casino sites is not normally a possibility, it makes sense to look at the other solutions that are available.
The one potentially advantageous option is to use a payment platform like Skrill, which supports cryptocurrency trading natively, to essentially convert your Bitcoin into a standard type of currency which can then be used to add and withdraw funds.
Skrill is one of the most widely supported payment platforms in the online casino space, so it is a good option for handling trades and conversions. It is also a multifaceted service that lets you transfer money internationally and benefit from total security throughout the process.
If you are not interested in using Skrill, there are other rival platforms such as Paysafe and Neteller that are worth looking into for similar purposes, although not all will offer cryptocurrency capabilities as standard.
Points To Consider
What you might not realize before diving into the process of using Bitcoin at online casinos is that even if you do manage to successfully make a deposit on a site that supports it, or via a payment platform which offers integration for cryptocurrencies, your account will ultimately be topped up with a domestic currency.
The reason for this is simple; casino sites prefer to keep the experience completely consistent for players, wherever they happen to be based. This means that conversion takes place at the point of making a deposit, creating a level playing field and ensuring that wagers and wins are made in a uniform fashion.
When the time comes to withdraw your earnings, you will have the option to convert it back into the currency of your choice in some cases, or may need to seek out a third party transfer and conversion platform to make this possible. While you play, however, you will not be spinning the reels or choosing digital chips with values that are represented in Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.
Whether native support for cryptocurrency deposits, wagering and withdrawals will continue to expand within the online casino industry remains to be seen. Some stalwarts of the tech sector see it as the future of web-based transactions, while others are incredibly skeptical about its long term viability, which leaves a lot of unanswered questions still up in the air at the moment.