How Can I Gamble with Bitcoin (BTC) Online?
Online gambling first hit the scene at the end of the 1990s. Since then, things have changed a lot and now you can even play at an online casino with Bitcoin.
There are more and more platforms out there that offer games with BTC. In order to get up to speed with this new development, it is important to understand how everything works.
In this article, we are going to take you through the overall operation of online gambling with BTC. This will allow you to see the bigger picture more clearly and to gamble your BTC at a casino in full knowledge of the facts.
What is the best Bitcoin casino?
It is impossible to be able to say which is the best Bitcoin casino, since all operators have their own strengths and weaknesses. Depending on your preferences, the ranking will be slightly different.
However, we can point out the top platforms that offer great benefits, and steer you away from the bad ones that don’t have a lot of offers or, even worse, don’t pay out winnings to players.
The Bitcoin casinos that you will find in our ranking are all reliable and quality sites. As there are thousands of online casinos, we obviously weren’t able to test them all. Keep checking back on TCT, as it is quite possible that other operators will join this list in the future.
If a BTC casino you wish to play at is not on this list, we advise you to exercise caution. This does not necessarily mean that it is not a serious operator, but there is nothing to prove its reliability. As scams are plentiful in the industry, we recommend that you register with a casino that we have tested and analysed instead. This way, you are guaranteed to find attractive offers and to be able to cash out your winnings.
The essential thing before you start: get BTC!
Before you want to start playing at a Bitcoin casino, you must of course have BTC in your possession. For this, we invite you to consult our list of the best platforms to buy cryptocurrency (insert link).
Why play with Bitcoin at an online casino?
There are several advantages to playing with Bitcoin at an online casino over real money. Best of all, however, no online gambling transactions will show up on your bank statements.
The thing is, if you want to take out a loan, for example, it could end up coming back to bite you. Not showing your bank that you are playing at online casinos is the best course of action.
Is it legal to stake BTC at a casino?
The legality of gambling with BTC at a casino varies from country to country. For some states, Bitcoin is not considered a financial asset or an official currency and therefore online gambling laws cannot apply.
On the other hand, some countries also do not have any legislation related to online gambling, so while not implicitly allowing internet casinos, it does not clearly prohibit them either.
In 2016, UK Gambling Commission licence holders were given the green light to accept cryptocurrencies. It’s no secret that the UK Gambling Commission is extremely strict and licences are very hard to acquire for casinos and gambling platforms. This is done to reassure players that they are dealing with a reputable site.
If you are reading this from outside the UK, it is important that you check the applicable laws in your country regarding internet gambling. In some cases, only the operator can be fined for illegally accepting players onto their site. In others, the players themselves may also be fined. Finally, when no clear legislation exists on the subject, neither operators nor gamers can encounter any problems from a legislative point of view.
Should we be wary of scams?
There are many scams in the online gaming world, especially when the market is unregulated, or at least not fully regulated. For example, in France, there is a law on sports betting, poker and horse racing, but none regarding online casinos. For this reason, almost all of the scams seen in France usually pose as this last group.
In addition, as you know, the cryptocurrency industry is still very young and poorly regulated. So, there are also a lot of scams out there and you have to be very careful.
If we add the fact that there are many scams on online casinos and in the cryptocurrency industry, we wouldn’t be out of our rights to think that by combining these two sectors we could face a very high risk of being fooled. Unfortunately, that’s the sad reality.
In order to avoid falling into the traps and never being able to recover your winnings by playing on a dishonest Bitcoin casino, we advise you to be particularly careful and not to play on a platform that has negative reviews from other players. If you want to play safely at a Bitcoin casino, we recommend that you register only with one of the operators that makes it onto our list of reliable BTC casinos.
What casino games can I play?
The games available to players depend mainly on the casino you chose. On some, you will only have access to titles that work on the blockchain. These are games specially designed to work only with cryptocurrencies and not found at conventional establishments.
At other Bitcoin casinos, you will have access to the same gaming offer as on traditional platforms. You will be able to play the following games:
- Slot machines. Whether classic machines or those with a progressive jackpot.
- Table games. In this section we find poker, blackjack, roulette, baccarat, craps, etc.
- Scratch games
- Video Poker
- Virtual sports
- Skill games
- Live casino with a live dealer. This rather special kind of game puts you right into a real casino (but virtually, of course!). A live dealer is present, and you can even chat with him or her through a live chat function.
Every BTC casino is different. Unfortunately, we cannot give you the exact games that will be available on each platform, because each operator makes different choices in relation to the titles they want to include in their game library.
Can we take advantage of bonuses and promotions?
As with classic casinos, many bonuses and promotions are available at online casinos that allow gambling with Bitcoin. However, there are several different scenarios to consider.
First, if you play at a regular casino that decides to accept BTC as a payment method, you can either get the same offers as all other players or get additional offers that are only available to cryptocurrency users. In this case, it is usually a special deposit bonus which is accessible when depositing cryptocurrencies on the site.
In some cases, mainly when it is a Bitcoin casino that only offers blockchain games, it is possible that no bonus is available to players, although this is rather rare.
Do Bitcoin casinos offer a VIP programme?
A VIP club is the mainstay of the online casino format, but it is not necessarily available at all sites. In fact, around 60-70% of operators offer a loyalty programme. It will therefore be the same for Bitcoin casinos, only a portion of the sites will offer one.
The VIP programme usually adds a lot of benefits to the games. However, there are a few VIP clubs that may not be of great interest to players. You should carefully analyse what exactly the establishment offers as rewards.
In addition, there are times when a casino may not offer a loyalty programme, but instead offers a wide range of promotions, which ultimately result in even greater rewards for all players.
Are Bitcoin casinos licenced?
It is important to also check if a casino has a licence before you play on it. Indeed, if the operator has a license issued by a reputable organisation, it is a guarantee of safety.
Almost all of the casinos that operate without a licence are scams. Players can usually never claim their winnings. You must therefore stay as far away as possible from these dishonest platforms whose sole purpose is to extract money from users.
However, in the case of Bitcoin casinos, things are a little different. If you are playing at a classic casino that accepts payments in BTC in addition to other currencies, then it is important to check whether it has a real license. But if you are playing on a 100% blockchain casino, where the integrity of the parties is verified by blockchain technology, then it is not really necessary for the operator to have a licence, since the blockchain is enough to guarantee security during games.
The security measures in place
As we saw in the previous point, possession of a licence is an important element in ensuring safety during games. However, you should also check if there are other measures taken into consideration by the platform on which you wish to play.
Here are the most important measures that must be put in place at a Bitcoin casino:
- Site navigation must be protected by an SSL encryption protocol.
- Players must be able to limit the amount of their deposits over a given period in order to be able to manage their game budget. In the most extreme cases, it must be possible for these same players to be able to blacklist themselves from the site at their request.
- The security of transactions is guaranteed by the blockchain. So there is no problem there. On the other hand, if for one reason or another you want to play with fiat money, you have to check that the security is sufficient, which is generally the case everywhere these days.
- The operator should also offer you a two-factor authentication system. This is important in order to avoid having your account hacked. In addition, the site should also recommend that you use a hard-to-guess password.
The quality of customer service
In some of your games you may run into some problems. This is quite common and happens even when playing at a casino with a great reputation.
In this case, you will need to contact customer support to resolve your issue. And for that to happen, advisers need to be well-trained so that this happens in the fastest and most efficient way possible.
Your Bitcoin casino adventure may go smoothly. However, we believe it is important for the site to provide quality customer support to its customers so that a problem can be resolved as quickly as possible.
How to make deposits and withdrawals at a BTC casino?
There are three different types of BTC casino. Each has its own way of working with respect to deposits, withdrawals and the currency in which you will be playing on the site.
When it comes to a blockchain casino, everything will be done exclusively with cryptocurrencies, be it deposits, games and withdrawals. The operator may accept several different cryptos for deposits and withdrawals, but only allows gambling in one of them, such as Bitcoin for example.
In the case of a classic casino that accepts BTC as a means of deposit, we find scenarios two and three. On some platforms it is possible to deposit, play and withdraw using only BTC and sometimes other cryptocurrencies. On others, your Bitcoin deposit is converted to cash and games will be played in fiat currency. It will then be possible to convert this amount back into BTC to make your withdrawal.
We must therefore pay attention to these little subtleties, which vary from one establishment to another. In any case, a deposit with Bitcoin is done like any other blockchain transaction: you deposit from your wallet to the casino wallet. The transaction will, like all the others, be visible in the public leger in order to avoid any dispute.
For withdrawals, you will need to withdraw from the casino wallet address to your personal wallet. However, in some cases, the Bitcoin casino you are playing at may need to manually validate your transaction before it is processed by miners. Some operators use this time to check if you have violated any of their site’s terms of service, since a bitcoin transaction is irreversible afterwards. This is normal procedure in the online gambling industry, and if you play on a reliable site, don’t worry, as you will end up getting your bitcoin back.
Conclusion
We hope that you now know more about Bitcoin online casinos and that it will allow you to play on them with full knowledge of the facts.
The most important point before depositing your BTC with a site is to make sure it is reliable and serious. To do this, it is necessary to review many different criteria, the most important of which is obviously the payment of winnings to winning players. Without it, all crypto deposited on the site will be lost as soon as they arrive in the casino wallet.
We have given you a list of all the important points to consider in order to analyse the quality of each Bitcoin casino for yourself. However, we fully understand that this is not for everyone and requires a large investment of time. Therefore, we have tested several Bitcoin casinos for you and have included them in our ranking at the beginning of the article.
If you want to play with BTC on a reliable operator, then just choose one of the Bitcoin casinos that we recommend. You can register directly or consult our detailed platform review so you can get an idea of what the establishment has to offer.
Online gambling with BTC is only a tiny part of the universe that revolves around Bitcoin. If you would like to find out more about this digital asset, we invite you to consult our list of Bitcoin guides (insert link). This will allow you to dig deeper on other topics that may potentially be of interest to you.
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J'ai découvert le monde des cryptomonnaies en janvier 2018. Arrivé au pire moment pour investir, je n'ai depuis lors jamais cessé de me former et partage désormais mes connaissances afin de faciliter l'adoption des cryptos.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.