Benefits Online Casinos Can Reap From Blockchain

At last week's CoinGeek Zurich conference, the panel talked the potential benefits of casinos and iGaming in general can reap from blockchain.

The CoinGeek Conference in Zurich featured a number of panels addressing the gambling industry.

Moderator Nick Hill assembled a panel consisting of Sam Brown – Chief Commercial Officer, Hero Gaming; Brandon Debattista – Senior Legal Counsel, Malta Gaming Authority; Matthew Gardiner – Advisory Board Member, Lysis Group; and Simit Naik, nChain Director of Commercial & Strategy, to discuss the potential benefits the casino and iGaming sector could reap from implementing blockchain technology.

Takeaways From CoinGeek Zurich on the Benefits iGaming Can Reap on the Blockchain

• Brown said operators needed to focus on identifying markers of harm on a proactive basis.
• The ideal situation would be to intervene as soon as a customer so much as approaches any markers of harm, thereby keeping the situation from getting out of hand.
• Blockchain technology would allow for universal, trusted information system that would allow operators that demonstrates to regulators a desire to follow all the right procedures.
• Certain pre-established triggers can be pulled that prompt the operator to make the necessary contacts and interventions.
• nChain’s Naik offers the ability to create tamper-resistant records on a single public ledger that could be accessed by all operators within a particular jurisdiction, serving as a single source of truth for both operators and regulators alike.
• Brown noted that a growing number of European markets are crafting regulations that require all operators in a specific market to consult a single self-exclusion list for gamblers who want to protect themselves from self-harm before allowing gamblers to wager with their sites.
• Simit said nChain was developing a number of products to take advantage of the BSV blockchain’s unparalleled data-handling capacity.
• Similarly, the BSV blockchain could record a digital fingerprint of data that tracks every single game played, slot reel spun and bet made, across all accounts held by the same player with different operators.

Brown pointed out that the industry as a whole was extremely cautious when it came to adopting new technologies, in part due to cost concerns.

Case in point, even though BSV offers the ability to provide friction-free micro- and nano-payment options that are settled quickly with extremely low fees, Brown said payment processing was both an individual and extremely competitive facet of the gaming sector, expressing doubt the sector would adopt a new technology as a group.

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com