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A new bitcoin-only sportsbook made its debut smack in the middle of Times Square this past week, advertising on the Reuters interactive billboard.
Coinbet.cc is one of the newest online gambling sites to enter the lucrative bitcoin Web gaming market. This appears as if it will become a pretty significant trend as we move forward into 2014.
But it could prove to be a dangerous one as well.
Americas Cardroom, one of the largest online poker networks still catering to citizens of North America, recently implemented a bitcoin platform to its expanding list of cashier methods, but with a twist.
Michael Harris, spokesperson for that company, advised Gambling911.com that they would be converting all bitcoin transactions into cash while being held in an Americas Cardroom player account.
The reason: Bitcoin’s dramatic price fluctuations, which have seen the anonymous currency peak at just over $1000 and drop to just over $600 during just the month of December. The price has stabilized somewhat at $857 as of January 27, 2014.
“What is going to happen, bitcoin is going to double, triple, in a matter of one week,” Maxwell warned. “There will be fly-by-night bitcoin online poker operators selling bitcoin at say $2000 speculating that the price will come down to $1000.”
What makes bitcoin unique is that gamblers can deposit and withdrawal in a matter of hours, at least in theory, without having to pay large fees or deal with restrictions on number of payout requests in a given time period. This allows for an individual to perform test drives, so to speak. They can place bets, win and make instant requests. Should a bitcoin site fail to pay instantly, simply move on and write that bet off as a loss. In other words, gamblers won’t be burdened by weeks long waiting periods of excuses involving processing issues, something that has become commonplace in the US market. Early bitcoin users, at least, understand there will be some degree of risk.
John Bauer, CEO of Coinbet.cc advised: "American gamblers should educate themselves quickly, as every bettor should know how it feels to make a bet and have his winnings pushed back to his wallet within minutes! That's the power of our platform. It's like gambling on steroids! In two years you'll see a dozen copycats, trying to replicate what we've done here, but we aren't worried, it's not just about first mover advantage, we are light years ahead in so many ways that it's not even conversation worthy".
“This industry is moving at light speed,” Nicolas Cary, the CEO of hosted wallet Blockchain.info, remarked during the Miami Bitcoin Conference this past week.
And indeed it somewhat mimics the early days of online gambling and the Wild West mentality that prevailed during the late 90's and early 2000's.
Coinbet claims it is legal to accept US customers based on the notion that current prohibition does not explicitly make mention of anonymous digital currencies or peer-to-peer transactions.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
