It is impossible so far to manipulate bitcoin in any way. That is what makes it such a powerful technology and design.

None of the things you mentioned actually have anything to do with bitcoin. Bitcoin is to what USD is to Fulltilt. Just because a company cheated you out of money does not make the money itself any bad.

Bitcoin is an electronic cash system, the fact that you can sent value electronically is not bad.

I suggest to read https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...2ZfatHICr1N7Rg and do some very basic education of what bitcoin is.

that would be beneficial to poker sites. No payment processor would ever be able to steal money from sites anymore and CC transactions could never be reversed in case the player did not have the funds or cheated the payment system.

this is another one under the misinformed category

This is great to hear as a story. I agree with you its just a much better money once you try it once and see how it works.

I hope poker sites jump on it too as well as players, but I assume these shifts in technology and a bit society often take a decade or so.

Its great to see a bunch of smart people here are understanding its value.

Which site is better and which do you prefer, software wise and of course all other aspects like biggest tourney guarantees, cash game/sng/tourney is the traffic high or low etc

just looking at trying one out.

Seals w/ Clubs has better cash games. It's mostly low/micro stakes though. That would be my choice for cash games.

The Betcoin cash games are segregated from the rest of WPN, so they are pretty dead at the moment. However, they share the same SNGs and tournaments with the rest of the WPN network, so there are a lot of nice tournaments with largish guarantees (for a US facing site.) That would be my choice for SNGs/tourneys.

Betcoin definitely has the better software IMO.. it is the same software used on other WPN skins.

great thanks, one last question as again i know little about it, how do i fund my betcoin account? like purchasing half a bitcoin or something.

If u are in the USA only use Coinbase.

If you provide enough info (bank account and CC) u can buy there instantly.

you said, "[bitcoin] has not been implemented by a company that has spent a lot of time and resources in handling payments."

i said, "dell, overstock, and expedia are examples of companies that has spent a lot of time and resources in handling payments that also accept bitcoin."

and now you're saying that i am trying to say that you said that no companies have used bitcoin in the past..?

...

which is why OP made this thread. to generate discussion. on a site visited by poker players and poker site operators. this is how this works. a community shows that there is demand bitcoin deposits. and then the business makes a decision as to whether or not it would make sense for them.

missed the point that use of currency for morally questionable purposes does not diminish the utility of that currency.

never said any of this and disagree with those that do to the extent that you portray it as.

if pokerstars accepts currency x only, but it can also accept deposits with fee 1% of currency y that has been shown to be used for purchases, it is self-evident that it will increase the money flow into the pokerstars economy. money flow is good for a poker site because it allows them to collect more rake. poker companies like rake because they are profit-motivated. you don't need a business plan to understand this.

Yeah, because blaming the victim is really the way to convince people to use them.

I just asked Coinbase how quickly u can buy there. I am a long term customer and I can buy $1000 instantly and everything else goes thru the bank and takes a few days (like making a wire transfer or arch)

Again, feel free to show me the specific quote I made so I can see the details and the context. You do not tend to follow a debate all that well, no offense.

Whether a company like Dell uses bitcoins has pretty much no impact on the choice a company like Pokerstars will make as they will use it for very different purposes.



No offense - but bitcoin is not a currency in the same sense that the US dollar is a currency. Bitcoin has a colorful recent past in terms of how it was used as well as its volatility, and like it or not that has to be a factor when a company considers using it.

If you want to say that US dollars are sometimes used for shady purchases that will be completely irrelevant because the two are not comparable currently.



No, it is not self-evident - that is a variation of the "no brainer" approach.

How much in additional deposits would a company like Stars receive if they implemented Bitcoins, and what are the various costs (money, time, reputation) associated with this. As you are looking for the quote of something I said you can also find where any bitcoiner has made the effort to break this down and show why a company like Stars should implement bitcoins today.

Until then I will maintain that if it was as easy and self evident as you suggest then every poker site would have embraced bitcoins years ago, so apparently they are all foolish companies if your beliefs are all valid.

All the best.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...8&postcount=83

lol. for all intents and purposes of this particular scenario of bitcoin deposits as has been elucidated many, many times in this thread, it is indeed a currency in the same sense that the US dollar is.

"sometimes." the american dollar is the preferred currency of every drug cartel in existence. so if your point about bitcoin being unacceptable for pokerstars because some Russian sold party drugs for bitcoins, then the american dollar is equally so.

it is self-evident that it will increase their bottom line provided they don't get in trouble with the law for doing it.

none of this even makes any sense. first, why does the fact that someone is slow to adopt a new technology mean they are foolish? i mean, they very well might be foolish, but that's not the logical conclusion that should be drawn from their decision not to adopt a new technology in a time frame that you yourself arbitrarily imposed. second, your argument is, essentially, if pokerstars isn't doing x, then x cannot be good or else pokerstars would already be doing it, as if they are some infallible entity. it's actually eerily similar to this great theist quote: i don't think i need to go into why it's wrong.

Actually this is not correct. Assuming pokerstars and any other company in this world operates in a certain currency (EU or USD). Bitcoin would be a currency like any other in the sense that they would use a payment processor to receive send and convert it into their local currency.

For stars it would be like deciding to use paypal or not except replace paypal with coinbase/bitpay or some other btc payment processor.

The fact that some dude gets robed does not really have an impact on the currency itself.

I belief there are other factors at play here such as KYC and the fact that the legality of using bitcoin as payment might not be 100% legally clear and would have to be checked with the regulators.

But from a business perspective it is a currency + payment system.

As to your debate argument, maybe we could try to have a dialog instead of a debate? I know many here like to simply argue cuz its fun.

I don't think anybody here can answer these questions.

Additional deposits aren't the only incentive. Reduced processing costs alone should be incentive enough.

I can implement bitcoin payment processing on an ecommerce website in a couple of hours or less using a 3rd party processor. I would assume the cost for Stars would be negligible.

I think the only reason that we haven't already seen this happen is due to the lack of a non-us based bitcoin merchant service provider. One thing that people could do is to support IOM based bitcoin businesses (coincorner.com etc) in the hopes that they gain the liquidity to provide merchant services to Stars. There is still no guarantee that this will help though.

Here is what I said

"a company" refers to Pokerstars since that was the company that was mentioned earlier in the same sentence, and in fact it was a point that I have said over and over - Pokerstars has yet to implement something that many here regard as a no brainer.

At least I now know why you kept talking about Dell which seemed random to me. Sorry you did not understand what I had written.





For now we will have to agree to disagree that they are similar in their magnitude and their percption, and when bitcoin fanatics make comments like this that is when they start to look a bit disjointed from reality to the rest of the world.



You guys should apply to Stars to help set them straight.



My argument is that a large majority of bitcoiners are passive follower types like you that rely on rhetoric instead of a foundation of business when you make your emotional points about a product you believe in like a religion.

I am not saying Pokerstars is perfect, but my point remains - none of the major sites have adopted this form of currency yet even though many of you say it would be easy and financially correct for them to do just that. The fact they have yet to do it does mean something, and perhaps your clan will have more success in convincing these companies if you actually took the time to analyze why they have yet to adopt bitcoins. At the very least you may discover what their reasoning is for why they have not yet adopted the product.

Seriously, is it so hard for one of you to write a professional email to Stars asking them about Bitcoins (while detailing all the benefits) and asking to speak to the department or person who would be involved in that decision, and then share all the details here. It is as if none of you want to actually do what you need to support your beliefs, you just want the world to unfold however it will unfold, and to be honest that is the part that I find disappointing. You guys think I am anti-bitcoin, when I am not. I am indifferent to bitcoins, but I am anti-lazy.

Your argument would make sense if they had a provider to work with but have decided against it.

Can anybody suggest a service provider for any of the major sites to partner with? Bitpay/Coinbase? They're both US based and aren't going to process poker/gambling transactions.

Do you seriously think that the person or department at Stars wouldn't already be familiar with Bitcoin?

Your arguments are just getting silly now.

okay.

I assume Pokerstars is quite familiar with it, and have said so a few times. What we do not have yet is a single one of you guys taking the time to organize yourselves and approach Stars with numbers to find out what their position is on bitcoins. At least then you would have a better idea of whether they are considering it, or why they are not and at that point you may be able to help bring your personal experiences into the mix to shed a different light on bitcoins to Pokerstars.

All I see are threads like this with a lot of people drooling the bitcoins cliches, but not doing anything about it other than hoping things change so they can say "see, I told you so."


That specific one was more snarky than anything else. Would it be better if I used the approach of your brethren and fabricated quotes under your name (without indication that was done) instead? That guy hurts the bitcoin cause more than he helps it whenever he speaks (without awareness he does that), but you have a better appreciation of some of the dynamics at work so why don't you take a couple hours and organize a bitcoin letter/petition to Stars to get a better feel of how they regard the product. Is this suggestion such a bad one?

All the best.

Lots of people seem to have been convinced to use cash.

lol Monteroy.. you've been trolling bitcoin since it was $5

I emailed stars about it a month ago. They forwarded it to their proper department.

As for them not accepting, I'm confident they are ultimately pro-bitcoin and they are waiting for more regulatory clarification.

It's an issue in the isle of man and it's an issue in a number of countries where their player base is.

There really is no reason for them to not accept it if they are confident in their legal ability to do so. There are enough services whereby they won't be subject to any of the price volatility. Increasing options to the player pool is in their interests.

Also not facing the possibility of chargebacks is a huge win for them.

I have spent almost a year meeting with regulators from the various jurisdictions that license online gaming, including poker. There are various Youtube segments from panels hosted on the topic at ICE Totally Gaming 2014, Bitcoin 2013, Bitcoin 2014, iGaming Affiliates 2014, et cetera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcfhzcF6RcE

The regulatory schemes are playing catch up in 2014

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IRHXqi2j0g

The bolded portion of knircky's post above is 100% correct. It has been a matter of education and adapting KYC and volatility concerns to igaming regulations.

The good news for patrons of non-US regulated ipoker is that the regulators' concerns can and are being addressed and that approval for acceptance of virtual currencies by licensed operators is coming, sooner rather than later.

(US regulated poker acceptance of bitcoin deposits would resolve many of the reported difficulties sites complain of re MasterCard/Visa, but I suspect that those issues will be resolved in due course without adopting bitcoin deposits/withdrawals. ACH works pretty well in the US for most purposes to fund accounts, even if not for immediate wagering.)

Bips.me are the biggest processor in Europe, but they've got a pretty patchy reputation. I think most eu merchants use BitPay.

Lol Monteroy, must suck to argue bitcoin against someone who isn't waxing lyrical about the usual lolibertarian bitcoin cliches, you might actually have to back up what you are saying! Invictus is using reasonable arguments, you are not, everyone can see that.

I'm sorry that you've been railing against bitcoin from the beginning while it's been getting more popular and valuable. Nobody is fooled by the 'no! I totally respect people who made money off bitcoin!' - you are anti-bitcoin and you want to use any discussion about its adoption to insult people who support it.

"something is not a bad idea just because it hasn't been implemented" is not the equivalent of "something is a good idea because it hasn't been implemented." it means that whether something has been implemented or not is not relevant as to whether the idea is good or bad.