Bitcoin Online Casinos & Gambling Sites
A great many players have been challenged by restrictions on deposit and withdrawal methods at online casinos, but all of this trouble came to an end completely once Bitcoin became widely accepted as a payment method. Find out why Bitcoin is so great, as well as the best real money online gambling sites that accept Bitcoin as a deposit/withdrawal method.
Top Online Casinos Accepting Bitcoin
Rank | Online Casino | Features | Bonus | Get Started |
---|---|---|---|---|
#1 | Slots.lv Casino |
| $3000 | |
#2 | Bovada Casino |
| $3000 |
Bitcoin – An Overview
Bitcoin was designed to be a currency of the people, where users could trade it between each other without the need for government or any centralized oversight, but one instead managed by the people themselves.
In the early days of Bitcoin, some had the idea that a digital currency like this could overtake hard currency like the U.S. dollar, but old habits die hard, and the growth of Bitcoin as a mechanism of exchange hasn’t been anything like its designers dreamed, although it certainly fills a big need when it comes to transacting with online casinos.
It’s not that it is difficult at all to transact in Bitcoin, as all you need is for both parties to have an internet wallet and then have one party transfer a certain amount of it to the other. Traditional payment methods like cash, bank cards, credit cards, and internet wallets all provide an instant way to make payments, while Bitcoin is nowhere near this fast and people aren’t going to want to stand around at the store to have their transaction verified.
Aside from its use as a speculative asset, similar to how gold functions as an investment, Bitcoin is more of a boutique currency than anything, where you might use it to buy something online where the matter of the payment going through immediately or not isn’t an issue. It’s not that Bitcoin transactions take all that long, but longer than would be practical to use buying something in person, However, the anonymity of Bitcoin together with the fact that it can be used as both a means to make and receive payments make it absolutely perfect for using it at online casinos, and the online casino industry has certainly heard the call.
Bitcoin may have a long way to go in order to pass hard currencies generally, but in the online casino world, this has already happened, and Bitcoin has quickly risen to dominate the online casino payment method scene. We’ll explain all about this new payment method and why it’s become so popular and will continue to be in the future.
- Bitcoin – An Overview
- How Bitcoin Functions as a Form of Money
- How Digital Assets Like Bitcoin Work
- How Bitcoin Has Shut Down Government Meddling with Online Casino Payments
- Getting Bitcoin into Bitcoin Casinos
- Cashing Out at a Bitcoin Casino
- Choosing a Bitcoin Casino
- Bitcoin FAQs
- References & Scholarly Articles
How Bitcoin Functions as a Form of Money
Before we can talk about how to use Bitcoin to deposit and withdraw at real money online casinos, or even why you would want to, it certainly helps to understand what Bitcoin actually is and how it compares to traditional currency.
The reason why traditional currencies have value is that they can be exchanged for items of value. When you buy something, you receive what you bought in exchange for a transfer of currency to the seller, a certain amount of dollars for instance. Digital currency like Bitcoin doesn’t differ in this respect, and you can certainly trade it for hard currency, selling it for U.S. dollars, or using it to make direct payments like you would with money.
Governments claim a monopoly on the hard currency of their countries, and even though in the 19th century private banks used to issue their own money, governments took over this role exclusively as they are the only party that can declare a certain currency legal tender, aside from the advantage of having a common currency in a country that becomes universally acceptable.
The value of state currencies does fluctuate though. Currencies change in value relative to one another, for example, with the U.S. dollar strengthening versus foreign currencies allowing your dollar to buy more in other countries, or internally through the mechanism of inflation, which is a measure of devaluation of a currency over time.
You hear of people putting their money into an asset like gold because they want to protect against currency devaluation, where the gold itself will be subject to increases in price as inflation rises, where the value of a currency going down is the measure of the loss due to inflation itself. If you have $1 in USD and $1 in gold, and you get 10% inflation, it costs $1.10 to buy the same thing in dollars, but the gold itself will be subject to its value inflating in turn, like everything else, everything else except the main currency.
One of the big reasons why Bitcoin was invented was to devise a currency that would not be subject to the policies of government or the vagaries of the economy. The value of Bitcoin is determined wholly by what people are willing to pay for it at any given point in time, and it isn’t subject to anyone’s control, not the U.S. Treasury, no one, and that’s the part a lot of people like.
We need look no further than Venezuela to see what can happen to a currency when the government really messes things up, and ironically, many people there turned to getting paid in Bitcoin and using that as their main currency, to seek to escape their currency losing value by the day. As money supply increases, even to dangerous levels, this not only makes Bitcoin more appealing, the extra money supply will allow more Bitcoin to be bought and its value to rise, which is the mechanism by way things like gold and Bitcoin move up with inflation.
Bitcoin and other digital currencies also benefit from a fixed supply, where there is a theoretical limit to how much Bitcoin there will ever be. Hard currencies have no such limits, and as governments spend a lot more than they take in, this increases the supply of the currency more and more over time, which dilutes its value more and more. Bitcoin does not suffer from this problem at all.
The problem with hard currencies being devalued over time is that inflation does not cause a growth in the currency, as people don’t buy more USD for instance if inflation in the U.S. rises, and inflation actually reduces the demand for a currency. With alternate currencies, the flight away from hard currency and toward assets not exposed to devaluation caused by excess supply is not only a good way to escape this risk, it allows you to instead profit from it.
How Digital Assets Like Bitcoin Work
With cash, it’s pretty easy to understand where the value in it lies, because we hold it in our hand and can pass it into someone else’s hand while they pass us something else we wish to trade for it. Money in the bank works in a similar way, other than nothing really changes hands other than banks adjusting their numbers in accounts they hold.
This already takes us into the digital realm, where money is actually just numbers held on computers, where for instance your bank and your credit card company have accounts and when you use your bank account to make a payment on your card, the number in your bank’s account gets a little smaller and the number in your credit card company’s account gets a little bigger.
There is no actual hard currency involved, and hard currency actually only represents a tiny percentage of the money supply, with the rest being basically digital assets, these numbers held on various computers. It’s therefore not as big of a stretch as it might appear to move to a completely digital asset, one that has nothing that corresponds with it in the physical world, unlike USD for instance which does have a very small portion of it in physical currency, which happens to not be necessary to the currency itself, with the rest being digital, numbers on computers that get shifted around.
The digitized assets of traditional currencies are held on central databases, the database of your bank or your investment firm or whomever is holding your money. The big difference with Bitcoin and other purely digital currencies is that they are not centrally held, but held by way of a chain of computers all over the world called a blockchain. This chain not only verifies your holding of the currency but also verifies the transactions themselves.
There are two main benefits to such a scheme. Digital currency is more secure because the information isn’t held in one location or several, it is held in an enormous number locations on computers on the blockchain. The second, and the one most notable to online gamblers, is that the transactions are completely anonymous and untraceable, much like cash is when you pay for something in cash. Both cash and Bitcoin tell no tales.
Given that more and more people have become concerned about privacy when virtually every aspect of our lives are out in the open, where there is a record of everything we buy when we use the digital side of today’s currencies, using either plastic or electronic payment methods like internet wallets. All of these transactions have our name on them, our banking information, what we bought and when and where we bought it.
Bitcoin does not convey any of our personal information as our privacy is maintained completely. Bitcoin is completely anonymous and therefore a real favorite of criminals and anyone that wishes to hide their transactions, and it also happens to be a perfect way to hide our deposits and withdrawals at online casinos should we have the need or desire.
How Bitcoin Has Shut Down Government Meddling with Online Casino Payments
Contrary to what many believe, governments have limited means to interfere with their people gambling online for real money. Some countries have forced their internet providers to block gambling websites, but all people have to do is to connect to them using a VPN and that puts an end to this attempt. They are left to resort to trying to stop people from depositing and withdrawing at online casinos by using sanctions against financial transaction providers.
This is what the UIGEA in the United States sought to do, and this law didn’t even speak to the legality of gambling as commonly thought, it instead subjected financial institutions to criminal penalties for processing illegal gambling transactions. This is the reason why U.S. players could not use their bank accounts, credit cards, or even internet wallets to deposit and withdraw at offshore online casinos after this law went into effect, as these methods simply made themselves unavailable in fear of this law.
In order to continue doing this, online casinos who chose to remain in the market had to come up with a more anonymous approach. There were several companies that looked the other way enough to allow their prepaid Visas to be used, and these can be bought by players without having to disclose any personal information.
Online casinos would also do things like have you send a Western Union transfer to one of their employees in their personal name and then deposit it at their casino for you. Withdrawals during this time was mostly limited to by a check in the mail, even though some casinos went as far as sending their players money through Western Union.
There wasn’t any way to ever trace these Western Union payments, although they weren’t exactly convenient either, and Western Union doesn’t send money for free either. Virtual gift cards were convenient enough, but the authorities leaned on these companies enough to make ones that still allowed online casino deposits more difficult to find, and they couldn’t be used for withdrawals so you still need another method for that.
This was around the time that Bitcoin started to gain in popularity, particularly when the scene became proliferated with Bitcoin exchanges and virtual wallets. Online casinos jumped on board early on, as this was the ideal solution, something people could buy online and there wasn’t any way to know where it went from there, or what it was used for.
It didn’t take long before Bitcoin became something that a few real money casinos offered to its now being extremely popular and very widely available, especially with online casino sites that cater to Americans, for whom this has been a godsend. The U.S. is far from the only country where the government tries to meddle with financial institutions to try to prevent you from gambling online, and a lot of people that can use whatever they want end up preferring Bitcoin once they get everything set up with it.
Getting Bitcoin into Bitcoin Casinos
You might have some cash in your wallet, but people don’t just carry Bitcoin around with them, and there’s nothing that it corresponds with in the physical world and is purely a digital asset. You won’t be able to deposit your cash at an online casino anyway, as they don’t take cash by mail, and you will have to convert it into digital form first by taking it to a bank.
At this point, you would own the digital asset, USD in this case we’ll say, in a certain amount, and you would then transfer it to the online casino of your choice digitally, whether that’s an electronic funds transfer from your bank, a payment with a credit card, or other means.
You transfer Bitcoin directly from your Bitcoin account, called a wallet, to the online casino, but you’ll need to both buy some Bitcoin and have a place to store it, just like you need both money to put in the bank and an account there to be able to use it for a casino deposit.
Just like there are different types of accounts to store hard currency in, there are various Bitcoin wallets that you can select. Some who hold large amounts opt for a hardware wallet that you plug into your computer, with the data is kept separate in case of computer hard drive issues. You can also host your Bitcoin wallet on your own device by using a software package.
Most Bitcoin casino players choose the easy option of having their Bitcoin wallets hosted on the cloud by third party providers. This is an extremely inexpensive solution and then allows you to buy and sell Bitcoin as well as transact with Bitcoin as desired.
You don’t buy the Bitcoin from your wallet, as this requires a separate payment source such as your bank account, credit card, or hard currency-based internet wallet, which you use to purchase the desired amount of Bitcoin from a cryptocurrency exchange, much like you would convert your own currency to another at a traditional currency exchange. This one is completely online though and once you set up an account and a payment method from an exchange you can both buy and sell Bitcoin whenever you like.
The wallet is where the Bitcoin goes while you’re holding on to it, so the path is that you buy it at the exchange and put it in your wallet. Once there, you are ready to make your deposit at your chosen Bitcoin casino.
Bitcoin changes value considerably over time, far more than other currencies do, so you need to be aware of whether your Bitcoin casino will be converting the Bitcoin you deposit into another currency like USD, or whether it will sit in your account in Bitcoin. If you are up for speculating on Bitcoin and gambling at the online casino at the same time, choosing a casino that allows this can be a nice benefit, otherwise if you are not looking to bet on Bitcoin going up, most casinos will convert it over and back as you deposit and withdraw with Bitcoin.
Cashing Out at a Bitcoin Casino
Many real money gambling sites that accept Bitcoin as a deposit method will also let you make withdrawals using it. Making withdrawals anonymously is at least as challenging as making deposits, and although the better online casinos that we recommend have all been managed to work all of this out favorably over the years and continue to do so, Bitcoin presents the same advantages on the withdrawal side as it does with depositing.
If an online casino only takes Bitcoin for deposits and not for withdrawals, that’s definitely a plus and better than not taking Bitcoin at all. Online casino players withdraw far less frequently than they deposit, if they hit a big win or they aren’t satisfied with a particular casino, which is one of the reasons why it pays to heed our recommendations. Still though, you want to make sure that your chosen online casino has a good way for you to take money out should you wish.
As an alternative, online casinos that do not offer Bitcoin withdrawals will rely on things like sending you the money by wire, or less commonly these days, by check, and as long as they aren’t charging you for this, these methods might take a week or more versus the much faster Bitcoin processing time, but you’re probably not in a rush anyway.
Bitcoin does involve transaction costs, but they are very minimal, so this is both very cheap and very fast. You will already have deposited your Bitcoin initially, and it therefore becomes very easy to just credit the same wallet you used to deposit with the Bitcoin that you wish to withdraw. This really is as easy and as good as it gets when it comes to taking money out of an online casino.
The expectation is that as the favorable view towards Bitcoin continues to increase, more and more online casinos will offer both options. For those who wish to be able to take advantage of using Bitcoin for both deposits and withdrawals at real money internet casinos, we have some top recommendations where you can happily do this at right now.
Choosing a Bitcoin Casino
If you are looking to use Bitcoin to do banking transactions at an online banking site, the first thing to filter out are the sites that do not accept Bitcoin for either deposits or withdrawals. Online casinos that don’t offer Bitcoin at all these days may be a reason in itself to avoid them, since given the demand for Bitcoin casinos these days, not bothering to offer Bitcoin as an option speaks to their lack of concern for the needs of their players.
We’re only interested in sites that do care about their players, and care in a manner commensurate with their goal of looking to delight players enough to have them wanting to come over and try them and then preferably continuing to play with them.
Not offering Bitcoin at this point in time would indicate that an online casino is either in trouble business wise such that they may not even be able to afford the relatively small cost of setting such a thing up on their end, or they just don’t care. Neither situation is appealing.
Whether or not an online casino offers Bitcoin for both deposits and withdrawals or just deposits could be a key factor depending on how important it is to you to be able to withdraw with it as well. This comes down to the individual situation with a given site, how good a casino may be overall, and in particular, what other options for cashing out that they may offer and whether these other options suits your needs or not.
Just like with the issue of offering Bitcoin at all or not, online casinos that offer their players the opportunity to do both do show a greater concern for the needs of their players, and therefore this in itself would be more indicative of an online casino being more suitable generally, more attuned to a player’s needs.
On the other hand, if a Bitcoin casino is otherwise a good one, good enough to try out, and you are fine cashing out by bank wire or whatever alternative methods they offer, it can still be wise to collect the bonus money that they are offering you and then get paid for checking them out. You don’t want to be trying out sites indiscriminately though, as there are plenty of sites simply not good enough, ones that even their paying you to do it wouldn’t be a great idea, but that’s why you are here, to rely on our expert recommendations to guide you.
We select our recommendations based upon the overall merit of sites, how good they are at making their players happy, how good their games are, and other factors that go into deciding how reliable and desirable a site may be generally. You end up with a list of the best sites that offer Bitcoin.
Beyond this, some players have particular preferences and may favor one of our top picks over another on that basis, perhaps because one has games from a certain software maker you like and the other has games from different providers. All of our top real money Bitcoin casinos are good enough to try out if you wish, and that’s the threshold, one of overall quality.
There’s only so much you can learn from even the best reviews though, and after going through them and learning all about prospective sites, the task then becomes which ones you are going to try. This is the only way to get the full experience, by playing on a site yourself, and then you can make a more informed decision about where you wish to play long term.
Trying out several good sites completes the educational experience, where you can now compare these sites in areas that matter to you and come to a decision about which you like more. Even when you find a site you really love, this doesn’t mean that you want to rule out other good-looking sites you haven’t tried before, and in that sense, this is more a matter of continuing education, staying on top of the best sites for you without having to rely on marketing hype or other information that will just distract you.
You are more than welcome to check out the reviews of our top Bitcoin sites and then get in a position where you can then hit the ground running as you choose the ones that will pay you to try them. We work hard to make sure your journey will be as easy and rewarding as we can make it for you. Enjoy the journey!
Bitcoin FAQs
- Does it matter that there aren’t physical bitcoins like there are currency notes?
The first thing a lot of people think of when they try to compare Bitcoin and what they consider actual money is that money can exist in the physical world while Bitcoin is purely virtual and does not have a physical component. Hard currency is mostly a relic of the past, limited to be used as a means of hand-to-hand exchange. Both money and Bitcoin are essentially virtual these days.
- How can we be assured our Bitcoin is safe and accessible given that we can’t hold it?
Whether or not you could trade your Bitcoin into a real coin, perhaps made of gold, does not matter as long as you understand how these things work. People don’t hold their money at home either, as they entrust it to a bank. You have money there because you are given an account number and corresponding amounts are kept on their computer. Bitcoin is kept on computers the same way and in a way even more secure than banks.
- Where is my Bitcoin held while in storage on computers?
Computers that store financial assets such as the ones that banks used are located on a single network, theirs. This does expose both the bank and their clients to certain risks, if there is a run on the bank, they get into financial trouble, or they get hacked. This was the only way until blockchain technology came, where your receipts aren’t just in the bank’s computers, they are held at a great many of them all around the world.
- How do I access my bitcoins?
In order to be able to use Bitcoin, you first have to purchase some from a Bitcoin exchange, which serves to bring buyers and sellers of Bitcoin together. Since what you get back is in digital form, this information needs to be stored in a program set up for this purpose, a Bitcoin wallet. The amount of Bitcoin in your wallet is verified by the blockchain, where you provide your virtual key to unlock it and then make a payment with it.
- How easy is it to get set up with a funded Bitcoin wallet?
All you need in order to get started with Bitcoin is to have internet access, as this can now be done by either computer or with a mobile app. You then need to visit a Bitcoin exchange and ensure that you have access to one of the payment methods that they accept. Before you buy your Bitcoin, you will need a place to put it, and you can set up a wallet online easily as well.
- Why is Bitcoin so perfect for use at real money online casinos?
Back when all we had was cash, there wasn’t any way that our financial transactions could be tracked. In today’s world, the price we have paid for the convenience of digital transactions is with our privacy, due to the way this is tracked. Governments can audit processors and make it against the law to process online casino payments. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is completely untraceable and completely defeats these attempts.
- Why can’t governments restrict transactions made with Bitcoin?
While the government may try to prevent legal entities from doing certain things, like your bank or credit card company transferring your money to an offshore online casino, Bitcoin is no more of a legal entity than the U.S. dollar is. You can’t threaten legal action against a currency. You can’t do anything to detect anything with Bitcoin either. Bitcoin transactions are completely anonymous, and it’s not even possible to track them.
- Do you need to worry about the changing value of Bitcoin when you deposit with it?
Online casinos generally do not allow you to keep your money on account with them in Bitcoin, and it is customary for Bitcoin casinos to sell it right after they receive it on a currency exchange and credit you with USD. When it comes to taking it out, they buy it for you and transfer it to your wallet. Some real money casinos now let you keep it in Bitcoin, but you need to make sure that you want to speculate on it to choose this.
- What are the benefits of using Bitcoin at online casinos?
The most obvious benefit of using Bitcoin at online casinos is that it is a means that everyone will be able to take advantage of. You just buy some Bitcoin and put it right into your casino account. More and more sites are also allowing players to withdraw with Bitcoin, where they put it directly into your wallet. Bitcoin has virtually no transaction costs, and fully maintains your privacy.
- How do I find the best Bitcoin casinos?
The first thing you will need to look at when looking for real money casinos that accept Bitcoin is whether or not a given site takes it. This is a lot of sites these days, and players require the right guidance to ensure that the places they decide to try out are of the best quality, to ensure their experience is optimized. Check out our list and reviews of the best Bitcoin casinos.