Will Online Casinos Accept Bitcoins?

Bitcoin, the new virtual currency, is a potential new payment method for online casino and gambling customers, thanks to its role in cutting out the need to use banks and other financial institutions to make payments.

What are bitcoins?

Bitcoins are digital coins you can send through the internet to people and business - including online casinos - without going through a bank or clearing house. The fees are much lower than with other payment methods, it allows you to transfer coins to any country, you account can never be frozen, and there are no arbitrary limits.

These unique coins are generated over the Internet by anyone using a "bitcoin miner" - a free application that generates bitcoins. A certain amount of work is required to produce bitcoins, but as the code is completely open source and transparent, the amount generated follows a predictable path.

When you transfer bitcoins to your online gambling institution, your electronic signature is added, and the transaction is verified within a few minutes. When withdrawing, you can exchange bitcoins for euros, dollars and other global currencies.

Coin of the future

Bitcoins traded publicly for the first time in April 2010, with 1,000 coins selling for 3 cents each. Since then their value has grown rapidly as the method has taken off, reaching a peak of $29.57 per coin in June 2011. Soon after that it halved in value following problems linked to wallet service Mybitcoin, demonstrating the risks involved with a start-up virtual currency. But since then its reputation has recovered, with an exchange rate of $10-12.

So far bitcoins have failed to attract the attention of the leading online gambling operators, although a few smaller ones have adopted it. But as it grows in popularity thanks to its effective way of cutting out middlemen, governments and extra fees, this might be a payment method the online casinos can no longer ignore.