New to Bitcoin gambling? You’ve come to the right place. Our Bitcoin gambling guide will teach you everything you need to know about Bitcoin gambling sites. Learn more about available gaming options, the types of bonuses available, and a little about riskier topics like binary options.
Before you get started, make sure you set up your Bitcoin wallet and load it with some digital currencies. If you need a little help with acquiring Bitcoin, check out our guide to buying bitcoin.
Why Gamble with Bitcoin?
Gambling with Bitcoin has become popular over the years because it offers advantages to both players and the gambling site accepting crypto. First, players enjoy fasters deposits and withdrawals, larger deposit bonuses, and often no casino fees.
For the gambling site, they enjoy reduced overhead as they don’t have to hire third parties to process payments like they do processing bank account or credit card deposits. Also, Bitcoin is deregulated, meaning there are few restrictions on how players or the casino can use it.
Finally, Bitcoin is extremely secure. Most Bitcoin gambling guides overlook this aspect. Fiat sites claim to be secure, but they cannot secure the transmission of funds the way that the blockchain can. All Bitcoin transactions are conducted over the blockchain. Hackers are unable to intercept payment data, making the coin virtually unhackable.
Read more on Bitcoin gamblingBitcoin Casinos
The first stop on our Bitcoin gambling guide is online casinos. Online casinos were one of the earliest adopters of Bitcoin and Bitcoin gaming. Over the last few years, the number of casinos allowing Bitcoin for deposits and withdrawals continues to grow.
There are two forms of Bitcoin casinos. The first is fiat casinos that accept Bitcoin transactions. These casinos then convert your Bitcoin into fiat for play on their website.
The other form of online casinos is BTC casinos. These allow you to deposit and play using BTC. You can play everything from blackjack to roulette, online slots, bingo, scratch cards, and more. Many casinos even offer Live Dealer games to give you the human interaction often lost at online casinos. Plus, there are progressive jackpots offered on certain games to help you win big.
The best BTC casinos offer “provably fair” games. These games use mathematical algorithms and cryptography to prove to the fairness of every bet placed.
Learn more about Bitcoin casinosBitcoin Sports Betting
If you enjoy betting on sports, many online sportsbooks are now accepting Bitcoin for deposits like Powerbet.io. You will even find Bitcoin sportsbooks that allow you to deposit and wager using Bitcoin. The sites will accept bets in satoshis or mBTC.
Bitcoin sportsbooks will allow you to bet on everything from football to rugby, as well as international sporting events and US sporting events like the NFL and Major League Baseball.
Read more on Bitcoin sports bettingBitcoin Poker
If your preference is online poker, you’ll have plenty of options for playing online poker using Bitcoin. Like online casinos and sports betting, the majority of sites claiming to be Bitcoin poker sites are fiat sites that accept Bitcoin deposits.
Authentic Bitcoin poker sites will offer online poker gamers where you use satoshis to play rather than fiat currency. The exception is online poker tournaments. Online poker tournaments will give you a predetermined stack of chips, and your object is to win all the chips in the tournament. The prizes in those events will be in BTC.
America’s Cardroom is one of our top recommendations for Bitcoin players. They accept deposits in BTC and dozens of other cryptocurrencies. They also have their own Bitcoin gambling guide for new players.
Learn more about Bitcoin pokerBitcoin Games
Not all Bitcoin gaming is done at online casinos, sportsbooks, and poker rooms. Our Bitcoin gambling guide would not be complete if we didn’t mention standalone Bitcoin games. In the early days of crypto, most gambling with Bitcoin was done at sites that offered one or two games.
BitKong is an online gambling site that allows you to play a modified version of minesweeper. As you move up in levels, you win BTC. These games don’t classify as online casinos as they offer just one or two games. Also, many of these betting sites offer social aspects that allow players to interact with each other. Some sites in the past have even provided peer to peer transactions between players.
Due to the popularity of Bitcoin casinos, this form of online gaming is virtually extinct. However, there are a few outliers that remain popular to this day.
Honorable mentions:
View all Bitcoin game guidesBest Bitcoin Bonuses
Before depositing at a Bitcoin casino, make sure you check out the site’s promotional offers. These offers generally award bonus cash and free spins when you deposit at the casino.
Bitcoin casinos offer all of the same bonuses, as you will see at fiat casinos. Welcome bonuses will reward you for the first time you deposit at the casino. Reload bonuses reward existing players who wish to deposit again. Other bonus offers will include new game bonuses and high roller bonuses.
For fiat casinos that accept Bitcoin deposit, check to see if they offer any offers exclusive to Bitcoin. Often, these bonuses are better than the standard offer. For example, if a welcome bonus for fiat deposit is a 100% match, the Bitcoin bonus could be a 200% match.
You can learn more about Bitcoin bonuses by visiting the promotions section of the casino.
See more Bitcoin bonusesBitcoin Casino Software
In the early days of Bitcoin gambling, few providers were offering Bitcoin gambling games. As gambling with Bitcoin became more popular, many of the top software providers in the industry started creating Bitcoin casino games using a Bitcoin Gambling script as a backbone.
Online casinos now offer Bitcoin games from Microgaming, Playtech, NetEnt, Pragmatic Play, and other providers. SoftSwiss is the leader in Bitcoin gaming, and many online casinos providing BTC games will feature the SoftSwiss platform.
Read more on software providersBitcoin Binary Options
Buying Bitcoin is a lot like investing in stocks. Bitcoin exchanges look like your standard stock exchanges, tracking the movement of Bitcoin and various cryptocurrencies. It wasn’t long before some people decided that they want to gamble on the prices of Bitcoin. This is where Bitcoin binary options were born.
With Bitcoin binary options, you are trying to predict when Bitcoin will hit a specific price. If you’re correct, you win. If you’re wrong, you lose. It’s that simple. This is being included in our Bitcoin gambling guide as binary options are classified as gambling. This is due to the volatile nature of Bitcoin.
Be very careful with this form of gambling as there are many scams out there. Do your research and go with an established firm like Coindesk.
Learn more about Binary OptionsGambling with Bitcoin
There are two big reasons to use Bitcoin at online casinos and online sportsbooks. The first is that Bitcoin is a fast and secure way to send money to online casinos. All funds are sent through the blockchain, which is more reliable than any other form of payment transfer presently available. Hackers cannot intercept your information or your funds.
Next, players use Bitcoin gambling as a way to earn additional crypto. You can deposit onto a casino or sportsbook, place a few bets, dabble in sports betting, and take a shot at winning big. Afterward, you can withdraw those winnings to your Bitcoin wallet. It is faster and cheaper than mining and a lot more fun.
How to Play Casino Games Using Bitcoin
If you are new to gambling with Bitcoin, you can check out our guide to buying Bitcoin. Otherwise, we will assume you know the basics of how to buy Bitcoins and use them. There are a couple of ways that you can play at online casinos and sportsbooks using Bitcoin.
Most casinos will allow you to deposit using Bitcoin but then instantly convert it to fiat currency. You will then play real money Bitcoin games using fiat and then convert it back to Bitcoin BTC before cashing out.
The top Bitcoin gambling sites offer BTC games. These games allow you to gamble with Bitcoin using satoshis rather than fiat currency. BTC games include standard casino games, live dealer games, card games, and dice games. These games generally employ the Provably Fair model of gaming. Provably Fair games allow you to verify every bet placed to ensure that it was fair.
Fast Deposits and Withdrawals with Bitcoin
The majority of complaints we hear from online casino players are regarding deposit and withdrawal procedures. Some deposit methods, such as PayPal, are restricted in certain countries. Other deposit methods, such as e-Checks, may require additional processing before your funds are available.
When you gamble with bitcoin, you avoid the problems many experience with making deposits using fiat currencies. Since Bitcoin is deregulated, meaning that it is not controlled by the government or the banking industry, it can be used anywhere in the world.
When you deposit and withdraw using Bitcoin, transactions are fast. All you need to do is wait for the transaction to be verified on the blockchain. The average casino requires three verifications on the blockchain to credit a deposit. Typically, this takes around 10 minutes. In some cases, it is nearly instantaneous.
One of the more frustrating parts of gambling online is cashing out. Many casinos take days or even weeks to process your withdrawal. You won’t have these issues when cashing out using Bitcoin. To cash out, enter the amount you wish to withdraw along with your Bitcoin wallet address. That’s it!
After you submit your request, your funds will be sent to your account within minutes instead of days. The only exception to this rule is Bitcoin gambling sites that manually process withdrawal requests. For these sites, you may have to wait up to a day. That’s because an agent has to initiate Bitcoin transactions. Even with manual processing, you will get your funds much faster than the majority of online casinos.
Avoid Casino Fees With Bitcoin Betting
Most casino sites use third-party payment services for deposits and withdrawals. These services are not cheap, and the casinos often pass on the expense to players in the form of fees.
Depending on which method you use for making a deposit, these fees can be as high as 5 percent. That’s $5 out of every $100 you deposit going to the casino for fees.
When you gamble with Bitcoin, you avoid these transaction fees. That’s because third-party processors are not necessary for casinos that accepts Bitcoin.
However, miner fees still apply. Miner fees are collected at the blockchain and do not go to the casino. As such, make sure you add enough to cover these fees before making your deposit.
Special Bonuses for Bitcoin Deposits
If you plan to deposit using Bitcoin, make sure you check out the casino’s promotional offers. Many Bitcoin casinos offer bonuses exclusively for Bitcoin players. The most common is a deposit bonus, also known as a welcome bonus. This will give you a bonus on your first deposit. Often, a Bitcoin welcome bonus is larger than the standard bonus for fiat players.
After you play through your deposit bonus, many casinos and sportsbooks offer a reload bonus for future deposits. Reload bonuses are not generally as lucrative, but they will give you some extra cash to play with.
