How to securely gamble with bitcoins
Bitcoin has been attracting various groups of people for different reasons. Its early adopters are most likely to have technical background, these people were inspired by the whole idea of the bitcoin and the blockchain technology behind it. Then, once the bitcoin exchange rate started growing, it has received lots of attention from various speculators and investors. Today, nearly half of the bitcoin transactions is attributed to various gambling activities, hence the third wave of the bitcoin adopters is mostly composed of the bitcoin casinos and the gamblers themselves.
One may ask a logical question, why do people actually need bitcoins to gamble? Here are some reason that make the bitcoin the most appealing option for online betting and gambling.
First of all, you never see gamblers talking about their “hobby” on the social media, to friends, and, in many cases, to their family members. The reason here is simple, gamblers prefer privacy. As the bitcoin wallet cannot be connected to the person’s identity (unless the person chooses to do so), it provides some great degree of anonymity. This way, the players of the bitcoin casinos can play their favorite games online without having casino-related transactions on their bank account or any other internet wallet that can be connected with their identity.
Similar to the wallet itself, bitcoin casinos adopt the same practices. A player is not required to pass the KYC procedures, no matter his deposit is 0.01 BTC or 100 BTCs.
Secondly, the transparency is an issue behind many online casinos. When one plays roulette offline, cheating on the player gets very hard. However, this is not the case with online casinos. Those are much easier to be manipulated, as the player only sees the outcome, the process is run by the algorithms on the background. Similar to the blockchain technology that provides a clear history of the transactions, online bitcoin casinos are disclosing their algorithms and the historic results of the spins.
Finally, bitcoin casinos tend to be much more secure than the regular ones. There are two reasons for it. From one perspective, there have been numerous cases when the bitcoins were hijacked from various website by various hacker groups, and this is why protecting clients’ deposits is of a prime importance for online gambling operators in the bitcoin space. Even though bitcoin casinos place a huge emphasis on the security, they are not impossible to break in. Hence, from the other perspective, a casino simply asks a player for his email address, a username and a password. In case the casino’s database is hacked or leaked, it is still not possible to connected the person’s identity with his account, unless an obviously matching email (like name.second@domain.com) was used to register an account.
How to use bitcoins safely for gambling?
Essentially, using the bitcoins in a safe manner is of a paramount importance. And the main attention should be paid to the storage of the bitcoins. The best tip here is to get an encrypted hardware token for storing your coins, it comes at a cost (roughly $100), but it provides top-notch security from the online threats.
Apart from that, registering all of the bitcoin-related accounts, including your player’s account at the bitcoin casinos, should be done from an email address that can be hardly connected to your real identity. It is also recommended to stay away from the popular email providers like Google, Yahoo or Microsoft, and go with more secure options like Protonmail.
Finally, the choice of the casino is very important too. Recently, the bitcoin casinos got a right to apply for the local regulation and opening an account with regulated casinos may certainly be a safer option.