Only 6 states, Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia allow online gambling openly for their residents. While up to 22 states have legalized some form of sports betting.
The reason for any kind of regulations are partially moral, but mostly financial. The Federal Government maintains that under the Wire Act, while online casinos are not illegal, transferring money to gamble online is strictly forbidden.
Although the Supreme Court has allowed all states to participate in sports betting, online casino regulations mirror the Federal Government’s Stance on marijuana. The Federal government says that sending money to participate in online gambling is strictly illegal, yet they allow the six states (and any future states) to proceed with their own regulations.
So what does this have to do with Cryptocurrency?
Well, strictly speaking, Cryptocurrency is not recognized by the Federal Government as legal tender, but rather as property.
You still have to declare cryptocurrency on your taxes if you sell your Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies at a profit, but like the slogan of Las Vegas, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” online casinos have added a new wrinkle to gambling by accepting Cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency, as far as potential gamblers are concerned, are the perfect vehicle to bypass all regulations by any government entity.
Since cryptocurrency is not regulated at its backbone, and since an online casino can not only accept cryptocurrency for deposits but payout cryptocurrency winnings, it’s extremely hard, if darn near impossible for governments to regulate online gambling that uses cryptocurrency.
And for the gambler, cryptocurrency has one big advantage over cash. Outside of the casino’s own rules and desires, it’s possible to pay out cryptocurrency winnings in a matter of an hour or so.
One of the big complaints of online gambling is that it sometimes takes 3 to 5 days or more to get paid, and thus cryptocurrency is the ideal payment format
Another advantage, of course, is that cryptocurrency payments to your digital wallet are not labeled. Thus, if “We Accept Cryptocurrency Casino” in Malta, or Curacao, or the Isle of Man pays out your winnings in cryptocurrency, there is no paper trail whatsoever to keep track of your deposits and your withdrawals.
Although no casino that operates strictly with bitcoin has been authorized by any state to operate, it is becoming virtually impossible to regulate. After all, roughly 99 percent of online casinos are operating outside the US in the first place. You can find more information on best crypto gambling sites by checking out this list – http://www.wtkr.com/brand-spotlight-best-crypto-gambling-sites
And as long as a casino does not send a cash payment to a US player, then that casino is pretty much beyond either a state or a Federal Government regulation.
And another thing is happening or is likely to happen in the future. Once a casino, either licensed in Malta, Norway, Gibraltar, Canada, or other countries are allowed to accept cryptocurrency, then unless specifically prohibited by that license, the sky’s the limit for accepting players from any and all countries.
And suppose an online casino company, regulated in Malta, for example, wants to accept online gambling from Kim Jong Un and his cronies in North Korea.
Even if Malta specifically bans players from North Korea in participating in the online fun, what’s to stop a regulated site from creating a mirror site that is unregulated, and accepts all comers from every country in the world.
So is gambling with cryptocurrency a good idea?
Well, possibly. The first advantage is of course that if the casino allows it, you can gamble from almost anywhere and your movements are not tracked.
Visa or Mastercard cannot shut down your payments if they decide they no longer want to associate themselves with online gambling, and if you win over $10,000 and it is deposited to your bank account, your bank will be required to send a notification to the IRS. Not so with Bitcoin.
In addition, you have complete privacy. If your wife or husband disapproves of your gambling online, there is no paper trail to indicate online gambling is taking place.
However, there are definitely downsides. For one thing, cryptocurrency can drop as much as 10 percent in a single day. In fact, in 2022, most cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin has dropped 20 percent. Meanwhile, cash also fluctuates, but not nearly as much as cryptocurrency.
So, if you send a large deposit, roughly $10,000 today by cryptocurrency, by tomorrow it’s entirely possible it might be only worth $9,000 tomorrow.
Another downside is the problem of addictive gambling. Virtually every regulated casino has to advise that you need to gamble responsibly and most have a mechanism that allows you to self-regulate yourself from gambling.
According to sources in the know, many online casinos that operate on cryptocurrency alone do not have the same, or even any self-regulating mechanisms for the addicted to cut themselves off from gambling.
Another disadvantage is the scale concerning online cryptocurrency transactions. Cryptocurrency transactions rely on blockchain technology, which worked fantastic in the early days of cryptocurrency. Though cryptocurrency is more and more accepted for any type of transaction including online gambling deposits and withdrawals, cryptocurrency is still subject to scalability problems. So some transactions may not go as smoothly as you can imagine.
Another problem, although admittedly it is less of a problem but a choice, is what kind of cryptocurrency you use. Some experts suggest that if a casino gives you a choice, then it might be preferable to choose Ethereum over Bitcoin as not only are Ethereum transactions completed in lightning speed (as quickly as 15 seconds,) but there are far fewer fees involved in an Ethereum transaction.
Of course, the fact that there are fewer fees involved will not stop some online casinos from charging the same rate for all crypto transactions, but this just means you need to do your due diligence and select a different casino.
In general, we don’t believe there should be any restrictions on participating online so we welcome the cryptocurrency movement.
For one, it will open up the vast majority of online casinos for gambling, and for another, it perhaps breaks the logjam on legal online casinos in places such as the US that they ultimately cannot regulate.