The introduction of casinos added class to gambling. Gambling went from the streets to five-star lounges with the finest linen carpets, shiniest of chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and multi-millionaires and billionaires, with glamorous chicks sitting on their laps, placing bets of hundreds of thousands of dollars at once. And then there are also online counterparts of casinos that cater to people from all around the world in a digital space.
As fancy as it may all sound, it’s common to find people doubting the trustworthiness of casino games. It’s majorly because of two reasons. The first being the house edge or casino’s advantage.
The house edge defines the amount a casino game pays out over its lifespan. It’s believed that the casinos always formulate the house edge so as to place the odds of the games in the favor of the game operators, which brings us to the second problem, transparency. With the current system, it’s hard to know who gets what amount of the total bet and how games are operated. Even if the casinos were to operate without any bias, it would be hard to prove the legitimacy of their claim.
But as casinos have gone from brick and mortar lounges to internet applications and websites, we finally have a solution: Bitcoin casinos.
What Makes Bitcoin Casinos So Reliable?
The ability of the best bitcoin casinos to tackle the issues of traditional online or brick and mortar casinos comes from the cryptocurrency’s underlying technology — blockchain.
Blockchain is a decentralized ledger that stores transactions in an immutable and transparent manner. The fact that blockchains are decentralized means that when online casinos are deployed on the blockchain, there are no middlemen who operate the game. Bitcoin casinos replace middlemen with smart contracts.
Smart contracts are self-executing digital programs that are capable of making decisions and taking actions such as generating (pseudo)random numbers, selecting players, taking payments, choosing winners, sending out payments, and so on based on real-world inputs.
Let’s see how Bitcoin Casinos tackle the issues of traditional casinos.
Provably Fair Games
Provably fair games, in reference to online gaming, are games whose fairness can be verified by assessing the algorithm it uses to get to a decision in the game. Blockchains being transparent and immutable make for the best technological layer for casino games so the games are provably fair.
However, the only condition is that the creators of the game should have coded the game and its smart contract to act fairly. They can prove the fairness of their code by publishing the code for the public to analyze and also by adding verification tools to test the game’s fairness.
Instant Payments
Online casinos are a platform for people from all over the world. Without blockchain, the payment process can be hectic and time taking. But when we use blockchain as the base technology and Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, we make online casinos truly borderless.
Blockchains and cryptocurrencies are borderless and using them, Bitcoin casinos can facilitate almost instant payments to their participants from any corner of the world. In addition to lowering the time for payment settlements, blockchains also considerably reduce the cost of transactions.
Cryptographic Security and Anonymity
Every piece of record and transaction on the blockchain is secured through cryptography. Besides, blockchains are decentralized ledgers rendering no central point of failures that could be a target for hackers. This makes it almost impossible for hackers to attack or steal funds or information from Bitcoin casinos.
They also provide the highest levels of anonymity to its players as all information on a blockchain is encrypted and is immutable.
Are Bitcoin Casinos Legal?
The legality of Bitcoin Casinos and online gambling depends upon where a person is based. Most countries still lack clarity about the legality of Bitcoin Casinos, however, they are considered illegal in the United States.
But owing to the anonymity Bitcoins provide to its users, it is no surprise that people from anywhere in the world can bet on Bitcoin casinos. This has become a huge challenge for regulators all over the world who are trying to restrict or ban online gambling.
Parting Thoughts
Gambling has never gone down in the good books of the society. Yes, with casinos, we made it look classy and rich people’s stuff, but they have always had a bad name because much of the game is about luck. And odds aren’t in the favor of most people. Thankfully, though, with Bitcoin casinos, we can at least add more trust to online casino games.
We can rest assured that whether we win or lose, it would be a fair game. We can trust the fair code of a computer program better than a biased human being — we’re, however, not sure about whether that makes matters better or worse.
