All Bets May be Off for BitCoin Revolutionizing Online Poker After $450,000 Cyber Theft

A BitCoin cyber thief stole $450,000 from an unsuspecting online customer, thus making one second guess if the virtual currency can help revolutionize online poker. 

Some news organizations are calling it a “Bitcoin Mugging”.  The experimental currency has been tainted by a recent cyber theft of $450,000. 

BitCoins were created as an alternative to modern day currencies.  They are entirely decentralized and digital with users exchanging cash for cyber dollars, which in turn can be exchanged with other users for goods and services. 

The exchange rate for Bitcoins fluctuates wildly, with a spike to nearly $30 per coin on a regular basis.

From Yahoo:

An internet-goer who put his faith in a risky new currency recently

saw over $450,000 worth of Bitcoins — a digital form of money

supported solely by its own users — disappear from his computer.  A

Bitcoin devotee with the somewhat appropriate web handle "Allinvain"

has become the poster child for why the new form of money may never

catch on.

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Allinvain’s wallet was worth $467,500 at the time of the robbery. 

BitCoin has been discussed as an option that could revolutionize the embattled online poker industry. 

CodingWheel.com explained how:

But back to online poker. Let's say you wanted to deposit $100 (or equivalent) at your friendly international poker site. Here's how it could work, under a hypothetical Bitcoin regime:

•   Purchase $100 worth of Bitcoins from one of the exchanges.

•   Request a unique Bitcoin receiver address from the poker site (via the Cashier window).

•   Send the Bitcoins to the indicated receiver address.

•   The poker site software receives the Bitcoin deposit.

•   The Bitcoins are automatically converted back to the originating currency.

•   $100 is deposited into the player's account.

Bitcoin would essentially be a transfer mechanism to flow real-money dollars into and out of the poker economy. Players would never send money directly to a poker site, and poker sites would never sending money directly to players: everything would be handled through those funky-anonymous Bitcoin receiver addresses.

- Ace King, Gambling911.com