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One of the largest US-facing online poker rooms has confirmed they are exploring a Bitcoin payment platform. This is the biggest online gambling company to date that has announced plans to offer the digital currency.
“We are indeed looking at Bitcoin as an alternative (payment solution),” Lock Poker Founder and CEO Jennifer Larson tells Gambling911.com.
A handful of niche Web gambling operators have been offering Bitcoin over the past year, one of the most successful of which is SatoshiDice out of Dublin, Ireland.
The Bitcoin buzz remains in effect even after last month’s bubble with more mainstream outlets beginning to accept the currency.
Gift card site Gyft began accepting Bitcoin as payment. The significance here is that average consumers now have a forum to use their Bitcoins on a wide variety of familiar consumer brands, notes GigAOM.com.
That site also noted that serious investors are beginning to take notice.
Last month’s collapse, which saw Bitcoin fall from $266 to $105 in a single day, rattled speculators and undermined faith in the currency’s viability.
But that hasn’t deterred investors — including big and respected ones like Andreessen Horowitz — from putting more money into new BitCoin ventures. This week, the WSJ reported that Fred Wilson’s Union Square Ventures is investing $5 million in Coinbase, a service that provides an online wallet and easy conversion between BitCoin and traditional currencies.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
