It took Bitcoin just a couple of years to establish itself as a recognized means of settlement in a variety of online businesses operating globally. Still, as of now, its progress is most apparent in the industry of virtual gambling. Here, both operators and players have been enjoying all the benefits of BTC payments for some considerable time now, with the area of Bitcoin-powered Internet poker enjoying really immense popularity.
Indeed, with gamblers’ interest towards the advantageous virtual currency having been growing steadily since the very moment it was introduced several years ago, gambling business operators had a really great chance to increase the flow of customers to their casinos by making BTC payments available to them. We all know the game of poker is among the most played ones in the entire industry, and this can be seen by the number of poker portals operating these days, many of these offering the possibility to make deposits and receive payouts in Bitcoin. All thanks to the latter, players are able to ditch all the inconveniences they used to have when topping up their gaming balance using conventional fiat currency based electronic payment methods, just to enjoy online poker gaming in its purest form. What this means is transactions can be now made in BTC with almost non-existent transfer fees, while banks, currency exchanges and payment processors with their unreasonably high extortions can be condemned to oblivion. This can easily be virtual poker in its brand new form.
Actually, the reasons to shift to Bitcoin poker are more than obvious for any gambler today, notwithstanding their skill level. Simply draw a quick comparison between BTC and traditional bank/wire/card transfers you used to make before to credit your gaming balance, or withdraw funds, and you’ll instantly see how efficient and user-friendly the former option is. Real-money payments are just so yesterday. Remember: you can wait for hours, days, and even weeks for your withdrawn winnings to finally reach your bank account. Oftentimes, the scenario is alike with deposits, too, as it is not infrequent that banks can find a hundred million reasons to reject your transaction, especially when it comes to fund transfers related to gambling.
And no, there are probably very few of us players who would readily go for these transaction fees forced upon us by casinos, sportsbooks, and poker websites (i.e. payment processors whose services the latter use). That is why Bitcoin can be viewed by us as a magic solution releasing us from paying any extra. Yes, we are aware of certain periods in Bitcoin’s past when its price volatility made us questions ourselves whether the cryptocurrency was as good as it was boasted, but today, BTC is much much stronger and reliable. Also worth being mentioned is its unique feature enabling us to make and receive payments in a completely anonymous manner, that is, without disclosing any personal or account details to third parties. With ‘regular’ bank transactions that is something you can only dream about, and isn’t it the way you wanted to play the game of poker all this time? You can enjoy it in the most complete way, just the way you used to do it before, and receive your winnings (amounting to any sum you can imagine) instantaneously – this being another life-changing feature of the cryptocurrency – but without anyone else but you and the house being in the know.
In the end, some things still have to be improved in the Bitcoin system, but, although one may be disinclined to call it a 100% perfect payment solution for virtual poker, already now, it is very close to perfection.