How Do I Buy Bitcoin?
First, you need a wallet to store the bitcoins you buy and win. For storing your BTC the obvious choice is Blockchain Wallet, which is both the most popular and the best wallet. It’s easy to install, simple to use and you can access your funds with both with your computer (PC, Max, Linux) and your mobile devices (Apple and Android phones and tablets, the app is available at Google Play and App Store).
Once you have installed your wallet, it’s time to buy bitcoins.
To purchase bitcoins, head on over to a Bitcoin exchange. An exchange is a website where you can convert fiat currencies (dollars, euro, ruble, etc) to BTC.
Recommended Bitcoin exchanges for China & USA:
- Bitfinex (USA)
Recommended Bitcoin exchanges for Europe, Brazil & South-America, Asia & rest of the world:
- CoinBase
- Binance (altcoin-only exchange, where you can buy for example Litecoin and Monero with your Bitcoin)
After you’ve purchased your first bitcoins, you can head on over to one of our recommended Bitcoin casinos and start playing.
Online gambling is mostly a trust business, and with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies you can take trust and safety to a whole another level. You can forget about FIAT and play with total anonymity.
Why Gamble in Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies?
Bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Dash and Litecoin are perfect for gambling. In fact, they are so perfectly suited for it that online-gambling related transactions are the single most popular thing Bitcoin is used for. Why so?
Play With Bitcoin for Enhanced Privacy
Playing with bitcoin enables you to gamble in complete privacy.
If you believe that a person should be able to use his or her money as they please, without anybody hassling them or even knowing them what they’re doing, then Bitcoin is for you.
Thanks to Bitcoin you can make money transfers in enhanced privacy compared to the old, centralized banking system. This is among the chief reasons why Bitcoin is so often used for online gambling: your betting and slot spinning is known to you and the casino and nobody else.
If you deposited with a credit card or an online payment system like PayPal, it will leave a trace and, for example, your bank would know exactly what you do on your free time. When you transfer money into a casino and back out again in Bitcoin nobody is the wiser: some money was moved from one Bitcoin wallet to another; that’s the extent of public information. Compared to the “old world” – FIAT money, centralized banks – Bitcoin is by far more private and allows you security.
Sure, Bitcoin transfers can be tracked if one puts his mind to it. But if you take it a step further and move to privacy focused currencies such as Monero or Zcash, you can conceal all your money transfers from even the most advanced money tracers.
Safe and Secure Deposits and Cash Outs
There is no safer way to transfer money online than bitcoin.
Bitcoin is the perfect currency for online transfers. When you transfer bitcoin, the transfers are safe, secure, anonymous and irreversible. This makes it the currency of choice for gambling too.
The safety aspect of using bitcoin can’t be overstated. Simply store your bitcoin in a secure wallet and you’re much better off than when using a credit or debit card to deposit. For one thing with Bitcoin there is no information to be stolen, whereas credit card information often finds it’s way to wrong hands (most often it’s stolen from hotels or online shops).
From gambling site’s (like a bookmaker or a casino) viewpoint a big plus of Bitcoin is that each transfer is practically free. Credit card deposits are expensive for casinos with up to 10% of the deposited funds going to the credit card companies’ bottomless pockets. The free and secure nature of bitcoin results in casinos loving Bitcoin-using players over any other customer group. This is why you get better bonuses than players playing in dollars or euros.
Deposit as Little or as Much as You Like
When you play in Bitcoin, you can deposit as little or as much as you like.
Because credit (and debit) card deposits are costly to online gambling sites, they enforce strict minimum deposit sizes. This is not a problem with Bitcoin transfers.
Depositing very small sums is a good practice for testing out a new online casino or a dice game. Bitcoin is perfect for this, as you can deposit and play anything starting from a single satoshi. Later, when you feel comfortable with the website or the game, you can deposit more.
In the higher end of deposits Bitcoin is also highly useful. If you tried to deposit big amounts with any other deposit method (credit card, PayPal, other online wallets like Skrill) you’d run into practical problems (is the card limit high enough?) and security issues (needing to send proof of funds origin to an ewallet). With Bitcoin there’s none of thins nonsense, you can deposit multiple bitcoins with one go.
This limit issue important when it comes to cashing out. Cashing out very small sums from an online casino would be very difficult if you used a “normal” currency to deposit. No online casino would process a cash out the size of a few dollars or euros simply because it’s too expensive for them to do so. On the other hand cashing out large sums is a security issue for the casinos, so it can be very slow. With Bitcoin cashing out small or big sums is not a problem.
Casinos benefit greatly from Bitcoin, as the money transfer overhead is minimized. This allows them to let you withdraw small sums, and offer better bonuses for players – most reaching five-figures in dollars.
Provably Fair Gambling
You can always verify that the gambling games you’re playing are fair.
Provably fair gambling is unique to cryptocurrency-accepting gambling sites. Provably fair gaming makes is impossible for the casino (or the player) to cheat as the results can be verified later.
Apart from sports betting, any gambling action you take at a casino site requires that a computer comes up with a random number. The action could be a slot spin or a dice roll, so the computer needs to come up with a random slot result or a dice roll result.
The problem in all this is that computers are not random by nature. This leads some players to doubt the results and to claim that the games are “rigged” and a scam.
Different casinos implement the provably fair method in their own way, but basically it gives you a chance to see (verify) that the result was what it was supposed to be and consisted of random elements which both you and the casino couldn’t know beforehand.
Lightning Fast Deposits and Cash Outs
Your deposits and cash outs take minutes instead of days.
Depositing with Bitcoin is a pleasure. Most casinos don’t wait for many blockchain confirmations before you can start gambling, so for all practical purposes your deposits are instant.
Cashing out is equally speedy. Choose to cash out and the money is on your account an hour or two later*. If you’ve ever gambled online with normal money, you understand what kind of a game changer this is. If you deposited with a credit card and cashed out, you’d be waiting for days for your money!
(* At Gambling.io cash-out test the average processing time for cash outs at our recommended gambling sites was less than an hour.)
No Need to Send Passport, ID or Utility Bill Scans
Depositing, playing in and cashing out in Bitcoin means that you don’t need to send identity verification documents to the gambling site.
When you deposit at an online casino with a credit card and later cash out, you need to confirm your identity, most often by sending both ID (passport, driver’s license) and a utility bill scan. This step is required for preventing credit card fraud.
However, when you deposit and cash out bitcoin, there is no need for identity verification. You had access to the bitcoins you played with, that’s everything the casino needs to know.
The fact that no verification is required is a MASSIVE boost to your privacy and personal safety. Think about it. All online gambling sites have hundreds of thousands of scanned copies of people’s passports and other ID documents. I don’t think I’m being paranoid, when I say that it would be naive to think that those documents never end up in wrong hands.
No Crazy Country Restrictions
It’s your money. Do what you want with it no matter what your restrictive government tells you.
Many countries have restrictions on internet gambling. These restrictions vary from slightly annoying to making it straight-up impossible to enjoy a slot spin in the privacy of your own home.
By playing in Bitcoin you can circumvent any restrictions.
Many countries (Norway, Netherlands) make it difficult for players to deposit. With Bitcoin this is not a problem: depositing is free, easy and fast (as is cashing out).
Some other countries claim that legally operating foreign gambling sites can’t accept players from this country. This makes most online gambling companies to forgo accepting bets from players based in USA, Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, Brazil, etc.
Play in Bitcoin and you’ll find out that the casinos are much more accommodating. Bitcoin-accepting gambling sites are more likely to accept players from any country in the world.
(Tip: If the website says you’re not accepted, either use a VPN to change your country. If all that isn’t enough, you can always use a country-hiding VPN together with Bitcoin to play at any bitcoin casino site regardless of where you are. It may hinder your chances of getting a bonus though, as the bonuses are limited to one per IP.)
When you use a VPN the casino will never know (or care) where you’re from. This is because depositing and cashing out Bitcoin doesn’t require an ID or proof of address unlike using a credit card.
Your Individual Bets Don’t Appear on the Blockchain
Your individual bets don’t appear on the blockchain, keeping your gambling private.
Privacy is the name of the game when you play at an online casino or a sportsbook in bitcoin. You don’t need to register or to provide any identification to the gambling site and even your individual bets are private.
When you play at a bitcoin-accepting gambling site, you are shown the address of your personal gambling account. Transfer money in to get started. Then when you make wagers, it’s not recorded on the blockchain. Intead, the gambling site keeps track of your wins and losses. Finally, when you cash out you can transfer the money to any bitcoin address.
So from the outside all this looks like that money went from one bitcoin address (your wallet) to another (the gambling site). Then a little later yet another Bitcoin address gets an incoming transfer (where you cashed out to).
All the bets you made are not public knowledge. And thanks to how Bitcoin works (you cashed out to a new address), it’s impossible for anybody to say how well you did with your gambling.
VPN for Totally Anonymous Online Gambling
Using a VPN provides anonymity. It’s also often a requirement for enjoying online gambling.
Using a VPN, virtual private network, is an effective method for hiding who you are and where you’re from. In a nutshell VPN is an encrypted connection between your computer (or phone or tablet) and a private server, which in turn then connects to the website you’re visiting. This whole process is done completely automatically by VPN software.
VPN is often used by people who wish to remain anonymous online. Sometimes the reason for anonymity is ideological, sometimes it’s simply practical: people like to gamble and some countries block gambling sites.
VPN connections are even used by professional gamblers. Asian countries often block betting sites, so a professional sports bettor residing in such a country will simply use a VPN connection to make his bets.
Dive in and Get in the Game!
There’s no better time than now to get into cryptocurrency gambling. The casinos offer huge welcome bonuses and promotions traditional fiat casinos can only dream of. They’re also improving their service and the array of games by day, so you’ll get the best the best possible online casino gaming experience.
We’ve set the site up to get you the best information about crypto gambling, so please read through and pick the casino of your choice. A good place to start is our list of best Bitcoin casinos of 2020.
Good luck!