You're making an argument without understanding what the space looks like for these products and services or knowing the liquidity of the market.

"We'll just exchange them whenever we receive them" most certainly would work for 99%+ of the transactions. Here is a link to the 24-hour trading volume of the most popular markets: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/volume/24-hour/

There is absolutely no issue with liquidity for BTC or ETH (or likely a dozen other cryptos).

A large company may not be able to use all of those marketplaces because they don't view them as having strong enough regulations, but they most definitely can use Gemini (https://gemini.com/). Gemini is regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services and if that is good enough for Goldman (and dozens of other banks) then it is good enough for Pokerstars.

For large deposits (i.e. $100k+) if liquidity is a concern they can easily partner with an OTC trading desk (e.g. https://www.circletrading.com) who will guarantee a rate and sign a contract (which was one of your criteria earlier) covering the terms of the trade. Once initial KYC is done with the desk, these trades can be arranged in minutes.

This is a solved problem.

You said it yourself that this probably isn't the reason sites are avoiding cryptos but are digging yourself a hole by continuing to argue something without understanding the space.

The real reason, which you alluded to, is that partnering with trusted e-wallets diffuses a lot of risk in terms of money laundering and KYC. Accepting cryptos would make it orders of magnitude easier for US players to play on those sites and they don't want to anger the DOJ when their current solutions are "good enough."

Agreed, the people that assume its an issue aren't familiar with the tech. Although I'd still allow Gzesh the last word, but I think he will retract his sentiments on further thought.


Exactly. And its not like there have been crypto sites that comply or mean to comply as they emerge (I know of some).

But rather its difficult for the legacy sites to evolution and scale in this direction. It's also a sticking point because the introduction of a near costless and near instant payment/transfer system would create a type of liquidity that would allow events like the player boycotts to actually have a meaningful effect.

In other words the cost and effort associated with moving a bankroll gets added into the equilibrium which ultimately equates to the cost of playing. The more difficult it is to move money off of a site that is already popular, the higher the price the site can charge. And then the inverse would be true as well.

And that is exactly why it will fail as a currency - there are few things worse for an economy than a ling term deflationary currency environment.

Re the poker world - Imagine a BC only site where your bets etc are all in fractions of a coin. If you think BC was just going up then there is no reason to actually play poker and risk losing principle when you can make certain money just by letting it sit there. So the lack of stability would effect demand for their product.

This would make sense but that's not how it works in crypto. Transactions have to be verified - that is someone has to say yes - you sold X to person Y. Because the whole philosophy of crypto is decentralization - there is no simple central where you update the transaction - it has to instead go out to the whole world (chain) and get verified. To figure out who gets to verify they use the idea of work=value with work meaning processing by the coin miners so your transactions need to be verified by a miner as they are the only ones that can show proof of work, and guess what, the miners want to make as much money as they can not only mining but in fees, thus the fees are often quite high. This further disincents the miners from improving the overall system so they can make the most money - thus riving up fees more when demand goes up/.

You are making somewhat of a reasonable observation but your conclusions I think are quite off. Firstly George Selgin showed through his observations of the history of free banking versus central banking that an optimal money supply will foster secular deflation. What you are referring to is a different scope that isn't applicable in the way you are applying it. There is good deflation and bad deflation.

But bitcoin is not a good currency, its not scalable as is, its costly and slow as the network fills up. It can only handle 7tx per second. It does have great value though as a HIGH value settlement mechanism. And we should expect it to cause international stability among our fiat currencies.

It is true that the want to gamble is related to the stability and value of ones currency. I think it could be argued and observed that a currency that is hyper inflating would encourage gambling, especially if there is an ability to win something like usd.

Of course this would also suggest that today people should want to gamble their fiat for bitcoin (if our premise is bitcoin is deflationary), more so than the usd. And we can also note another reason people gamble is because they are rich, and bitcoin is creating millionaires en masse.

The hidden secret among high stakes pros, I guarantee, is that there are crypto-whales that recently 10x'd their money and they have nothing to spend their bitcoin on but gambling because there are few other merchants.

I run an online sportsbetting site (not entirely the same as poker, but with very, very similar operating procedure in terms of processing payments) we initially had bitcoin as a cashier option, we converted it at +5% - which covered the volatility aspect fine, obviously in practice can still swing hard but when you're buying at +5% it's less of an issue.

The reason we removed it was because our bank informed us that they would close our account if we accept crypto-currency as a deposit option in any form, when i spoke to a new bank they had the same policy.

Can't say if its the same for everyone but our bank is in a jurisdiction that is quite sympathetic to gambling businesses so I would think it's pretty likely that most bank currently have similar stance.

It is an absolute dream though from an operator point of view, yes a bit volatile but with no KYC/chargeback etc needed its a million times better (and much cheaper!) than credit card.

1 other problem actually is sometimes the Xfers are a little slow, which the customers don't appreciate. Still i'm sure every operator would take BTC if they could.

^^ good post.

I have an interest in this subject because I have two close friends involved in the technology. Your post prompted me to do a little digging...you're not wrong about the latest UK banking industry position. You have to register to read the link, but essentially the UK banking sector wants nothing to do with it. I'm not remotely surprised. At the moment the UK is subservient to the EU when it comes to financial regulation, and the EU does what it does with any problem it can't get its head round - it ignores it. Once BREXIT happens, expect the UK FCA to come down on the cc industry like a ton of bricks. Globally, it will be depend on the USA, but I suspect they will go the same way...eventually.

https://www.ft.com/content/3853358e-...9e399?mhq5j=e5

Yes I think you are right, I can't really see a way where the banks are going to loosen their position on crypto currency any time soon as in all other area's they are really tightening up their procedures on AML.

For operators, AML is a massive hassle, it's a hassle for our customers and expensive for us to implement, so using crypto is amazing. Doesn't really make much sense for banks to tighten AML regulations in one instance and then allow crypto-currency (a money launderers dream) in the other.

This being said, there are banks out there in certain jurisdictions that will accept you having BTC in your cashier but if you are licensed (or have aspirations to be licensed) by anywhere that is considered highly reputable (Aldernay, Malta etc) then even having offered it in the past doesn't look good.

Well that is kinda my point. I am currently writing a Whitepaper for a cryptocurrency specifically designed for poker players with the goal of getting poker sites (and potentially live casinos) to accept that coin. Of course I am aware that there are pitfalls and barriers that prevent them from already accepting Bitcoin, that's why I am asking you for your opinion.

As far as I have understood you, the problems are mostly regulatory. So my plan would be to start up the business in Malta and play along with the regulations coming from the Maltese government (although this somewhat contradicts the idea of a cryptocurrencies imo). If necessary, I could get a Maltese gambling license as well.

Another thing that I want to know: as poker players, which features would you want such a cryptocurrency to have?

If you are thinking US casinos, save your efforts.

Not happening here anytime soon.

I'll define soon as within 5 years.

edit. might see some ATM type crypto things in or around casinos, but nothing directly integrated into casino cage, or any other part of casino ops.

depositing bitcoin to pokersites is an interesting idea

Problem is if you deposited 7BTC a few months ago when they were 1,000, and you go to cash out now off 98% of these sites that "accept" Bitcoin, they would try to cash you out the current USD value of 7,000, or ~1BTC. This is clearly unacceptable.

If I were you, I would check out the sites listed here http://www.*************.com/
because if you deposited 7BTC a few months ago on *any* of them, and wanted to cash out today, you receive 7BTC.

this isn't a problem and you've made a silly mistake/assumption. Most sites have the ability to convert and so if you convert to USD etc then your point makes sense. But you wouldn't deposit your whole roll anyways, what would be the point, if you can deposit bitcoin whenever you want?

It's not like the traditional system where your actual money takes time to go through the system.

Nonetheless if you deposit bitcoin and keep your roll in bitcoin, you get the equivalent bitcoin back. If it doesn't work like that, then don't put a large roll on a site and probably use a different site cause that's shady.

You may use all this flimshaw like bankroll management. But I have one style: BOT. Bankroll On Table.

Why is this clearly unacceptable? If the site's games are in USD, or Euros, or whatever currency they are, then that's what they're in. Your example is nothing but results-oriented thinking. What if Bitcoin went down in value in the same time period - does that make the other sites' (those that keep your bankroll in BTC) way of doing business unacceptable instead?

If you're bullish on BTC, or only want to do business in BTC for whatever reason, then yes, by all means find a site that keeps your funds in BTC. Nothing wrong with that. Just like there's nothing wrong with a site that keeps your funds in Euros, USD, or any other currency, as long as they're transparent about their currency policies.

As far as I have seen, the sites won't allow one to make money by buying and selling currency (when they pay for it). That seems to limit the options to one way (in) bitcoins or all (in and out) bitcoins.

How can they stop you? In the situation HAR described, if Bitcoin had gone down, you'd make money from buying and selling currency.

Why would the site care if you made money from exchanging your currency? As long as they don't lose from the transaction, they should be happy when their customers have more money to spend.

This is correct. There is nothing a poker site can do to prevent you from essentially using them as a BTC/USD exchange, if they are exchanging back and forth to USD. In fact, I've used sites like this in the past, so I'm sure others are doing it

It's definitely coming. Just wait. Soon enough most, if not all poker sites will use cryptocurrency as a primary method of funding accounts. Even the digital felt will show BTC (or whatever site coin) instead of usd and euros

Lou,

The D Hotel Casino and the Golden Gate Hotel on Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas both accept BTC as payment for rooms, food and beverage and have done so for several years

The D Hotel advertises Bitcoin Accepted on its reader board on Fremont Street and had one of the first Bitcoin ATMs in Las Vegas on its floor. At the time, Nevada Gaming took the position that it wasn't for gaming, so they did not consider it a gaming issue.

The last time I looked*, the Bitcoin ATM at the D was two way. meaning you could sell it your BTC for USD and then do whatever you wanted with the USD. (*I do not know who operates the ATM, as the original owner folded up a few years ago.)

interesting. didnt know that

It will be interesting to see how the crypto ATMs grow in and around casinos.

Even though they are not directly gaming related, surprised NGCB didn't care.

I wonder what withdrawal limits and fees are.

will be pretty sweet vs bringing large amounts of cash to vegas for WSOP and what not.

To clarify, they can definitely stop you from using their site solely or primarily for this reason. IE if you exchange currency as part of your natural depositing/cashing out to play poker, they can't (and likely won't want to) stop that, but if you're really just running money through the site with very little play, they can and likely will put an end to it at some point.

No comment on my earlier post; the one that was actually directed at you?

To each their own. I assume everyone must be bullish on BTC who plays online poker. To move money around with such ease, and not have to worry about it getting frozen, assuming you cashout of each site at night and keep your money in a private wallet, gives something that you can't put a price on: peace of mind. Also, the way Black Friday sorta outlawed this exact thing was pretty ****ed up, and it's kinda cool to use this to get around that. But if you're not bullish on BTC, by all means keep funds in USD.

You forgot to mention a few things about The D Hotel Casino:
1) Most importantly, it is known as the World Capital for Swingers. If you Swing, you'll be right at home here. I, however, did not know this and was confused about the strange looks I was getting from men (who apparently wanted me to bone their wife)

2) The owner is cool as hell, I happened upon him walking through one night. I mentioned how awesome it was that he accepts Bitcoin and has an ATM right in the lobby. He shrugged as if to say, "What else can I do? It's the future"

No, it won't. The fees are beyond ridiculous. Say BTC is 2500, they will buy for 2000 cash, or sell to you for 3000.

Even worse, the limit is $1,000 cash per day. That's right, 1k. Now, this can be circumvented but only with some effort. See, it asks for a phone number when you start using it. Once you've used your number there is no way to get another 1k with your own number. So you have to ask others, people you're with, or complete strangers, for 5 seconds of their time and their phone number and then ask them for the code that was just texted to them. Most of the time, they'll say yes just out of courtesy.

Also, there are like 20 ATMs in Las Vegas, but they are pretty much all operated by one of two providers. If you already took 1k out of the ATM in The D, chances are you won't be able to get 1k out of the one at the gas station on Decatur, because your phone number is already in that system for the day.

Ends up being very hard to get anything more than a few thousand, and the 20% fees make it not very appealing. Still, if you need cash, good to know they're around.

True, if you make it obvious. (Depositing 50 times in a week and cashing out 50 times without playing a single hand) However, it is pretty easy to act like a superstitious gambler, who wanted to deposit, then felt "unlucky" and cashed out, then next time maybe play a few hands, it's very unlikely you'll run into problems, unless you're just doing ridiculous amounts of deposits and cashouts.

When I say bullish, in case this wasn't clear, I mean for the value of BTC. I'm sure there are many players who love using BTC, but either aren't confident it will continue rising, or feel the outlook is good but don't want to be concerned with the value of their bankroll fluctuating, so would prefer to keep their bankroll in a fiat currency. As you say, to each their own.

There are sites that have strict policies around this, with set requirements around how much must be raked, or what kind of turnover they expect deposits to receive before cashing out. I don't mention this to be argumentative, but simply to remind people that there are sites that are a lot stricter than what you're describing - and sites often aren't very transparent about these policies.

At the same time, it could be that as sites move towards BTC and even decentralization, they won't worry as much if their transactions costs become much smaller, and if they feel they don't have to concern themselves with AML (anit-money laundering) regulations.