Bitcoin Poker Sites: Where did They go Wrong?

Written by:
Payton
Published on:
Apr/19/2016
Bitcoin Poker Sites: Where did They go Wrong?

Online gambling and sports betting sites have received a huge boost in their popularity because of Bitcoin transactions. Reports reveal that gambling accounts for 50-60% of all Bitcoin transactions. Even though bitcoin is represented as a relatively newer phenomenon in the world of virtual online currencies, it is growing and changing incredibly fast. There is no doubt that bitcoin is opening up new potentials in the current system of economic transactions.

 


How does Bitcoin make online gambling easy?
The main reason behind the success of bitcoin is that its use and exchange are both anonymous and yet transparent. What this means is that every transaction that includes bitcoin is included in a public ledger, while the identities of the parties that are involved are kept anonymous at all costs. The easy accessibility of the public ledger to each player helps to assure them that every single bet listed on these online gambling sites is fair. The model of the mathematical algorithm that Bitcoin follows also prevents the sites from cheating people of their money.


Apart from this, there are other factors which attract online gamblers to try their luck on different gambling and sport betting sites that are driven by bitcoin exchange:

  • Transaction costs including bitcoins are very low,this means that people lose lesser money during the exchange.
  • Since bitcoin is a uniform currency used worldwide, people can use this virtual currency to gamble anywhere without dealing with the headache of converting the currency first. Bitcoin has therefore enabled the growth of international gambling sites online.
  • Since all transactions using bitcoins are irreversible, there is hardly any risk of chargeback fraud;this helps online gamblers feel more secure.
  • Bitcoin does not require any bank deposits or wires. This means that gamblers can get their winnings straight away without losing time!

 

Under such circumstances, it is not that surprising that online sports betting and Gambling communities would become booming industries that pull in billions of dollars worth of profit. March Madness, the collegiate basketball tournament in the US, is expected to receive total bets worth 9 billions of dollars this year.


Bitcoin Poker:
Contrary to expectations, bitcoin poker sites have not seen the best outcome in the year 2015. At the beginning of 2015, different poker sites like BitnPlay, Get Lucky Poker, Burnturn Poker and other poker rooms were getting ready for a successful launch. Several months later, the results were surprisingly dismal. BitnPlay stayed offline for most of the year and finally launched on 1st of February last year. The launch was a disaster, as the site was still fraught with problems that could not be resolved. BurnturnPoker showed some promise when it started in April, but was developed as a beta site and then became offline soon after. Basically, poker rooms which have used Bitcoins as the only medium of transaction, have not fared so well.


Why did Bitcoin Poker sites fail?
It would not be quite wrong to say that online bitcoin poker industry has been rife with scandal, ever since the news regarding the arrest of the founder of Seals with Clubs, Bryan Micon, made headlines last year. Seals with Clubs was the only online poker site that had garnered a lot of success and even boasted of having a loyal customer base! Miconwas charged for running an unlicensed poker site without having the permission from proper authorities to do so. As a result, quite a lot of players have become more suspicious of bitcoin poker gambling activities.


Apart from this scandal, the fact that bitcoin has been quite irregular over the last few years hints that this particular industry is dying at its roots. The value of bitcoins has been fluctuating quite a lot last year, and more and more users were becoming aware of the undesirable risks associated with this. Not many gamblers were interested in acquiring huge poker wins, only to have it become worthless because of sharp fall in bitcoin value. Also, there is always a risk of hackers gaining illegal access to people's online wallets and stealing all their bitcoins.

While there is no reason why bitcoin poker sites should not becoming successful again, it will take some time for the bitcoin poker industry to earn back the trust and confidence of its customers. Most of these bitcoin poker sites are also using new state of the art technology to ensure complete security, and this might enable customers to feel safer while placing their bets.

 

 

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