Online gambling has become one of the most popular forms of internet entertainment worldwide. The industry is growing at an annual rate of 6.2% and is expected to reach a market size of $136 billion over the next five years. There are 281 million gamblers worldwideThe sector was established in 1994 thanks to Antigua’s Free Trade and Processing Act, and the island nation was the first to recognise the potential of the World Wide Web when it comes to gambling and how it could revolutionise the sector by giving people the ability to bet from anywhere, anytime.
Fifteen years after the country allowed companies to offer internet gambling services, there was another milestone in the digital realm that will have a dramatic impact on the sector: BitcoinThe world's first cryptocurrency appeared in 2009, and two years later the first exchange where you could exchange fiat currency for digital coins appeared online. Shortly after this event, SatoshiDice began operating as the first cryptocurrency casino in April 2012. In 2014, among a variety of simple sites offering simple and fair gaming entertainment, Curacao's Antillephone decided to regulate platforms that accepted cryptocurrencies, opening the doors to bitcoin slots and RNG tables.
There is now a huge number of online gambling hubs that allow coin-based betting on sports and casino style products. New hubs are appearing every week, and more and more big name brands are following the trend and embracing cryptocurrency, accepting that the industry landscape is changing. Below we take a closer look at how cryptocurrency has enhanced online gambling play.
Why has cryptocurrency gambling become popular?
It is important to note that current crypto casinos are very different from the original ones. The latter hubs were a novelty that came to fruition in the early 2010s and attracted the attention of a niche group of gamblers. These were tech-savvy individuals who wanted to bet anonymously online, and blockchain technology made that possible. At the beginning of the online casino industry, people could only bet on the offered options using credit/debit cards and bank transfers. In the early 2000s, e-wallets took center stage. But they still did not provide enough separation between the user's bank account and the chosen operator to keep their gaming activities secret.
Bitcoin makes this possible thanks to its distributed ledger system, where only wallet addresses exist; no names. Privacy is therefore a big selling point for cryptocurrency gambling, along with low transaction costs, global acceptance (no geographical restrictions), no regulatory oversight, and Crypto Casino Instant Withdrawals Acknowledgement. In the early days, the price was that only basic games were available: Dice, Crush (Bustabit), Landmines, Plinko, Limbo, etc. They all incorporated basic rules and actions, and part of their appeal was the option for gamblers to manually check the randomness of the round's outcome. That's why these games are called “provably fair games.”
Modern crypto casinos have licenses from trusted regulators, they carry a wide range of game genres, and they have the option to partner with well-known product suppliers. Yet, many casinos still carry simple provably fair titles, as they are making a comeback and remind gamblers that the sector has not forgotten its roots.
How cryptocurrencies have affected online casino promotions
For a long time, deposit matches and free spins have been the backbone of casino sites and the incentive for many gamblers to sign up to online gambling hubs. As the years went by, operators seemed content to offer these two promotional types as their main promotional offers, along with loyalty programs, of course. That was until cryptocurrencies came along. These days, the number of gamblers moving into the world of coin games has been staggering, and this is not just for the reasons explained above.
Crypto casinos now offer promotions that are not available on traditional fiat websites. The first wave of promotions introduced faucets or gave out small amounts of cryptocurrency to users for completing basic tasks at various intervals. These funds helped them try out new games with no deposit required. Then came Chat Train, a promotional feature that encouraged community participation and interaction on the site.
Since 2020, staking has become very trendy. This means that gamblers stake/lock their coins within the casino ecosystem and get rewards in the form of dividends. The amount given usually depends on the amount staked and the staking period. This trend gave way to harvest agriculture In the liquidity pool, Hubgamblers help provide liquidity and in return earn a cut of the platform’s transaction fees, much of which comes from casinos creating tokens, digital assets that can be traded on prominent exchanges just like any other popular cryptocurrency.
The Rise and Development of Metaverse Gambling
The metaverse has been around for longer than the general public knows. Most people associate these virtual shared spaces with the launch of Facebook/Meta in 2021. However, it can be said that the online multimedia platform Second Life, launched in 2003, encompassed many aspects of what is defined as the metaverse. What people who have never been active in Second Life don't know is that this open-world type of game has several virtual casinos, such as Helios Lounge, which is something that many modern metaverses also implement. The most notable example is Decentraland.It became a hot topic at the ice poker venue and Tominoya Casino.
The Sandbox metaverse and CryptoVoxel are following in the footsteps of Decentraland, offering immersive gambling entertainment within virtual worlds. The continued advancements in VR technology will likely take remote gambling experiences within these digital realms to a new level, allowing people to not only gamble, but also run casinos and establishments that can be sold as non-fungible tokens to the highest bidder. Even legendary video game company Atari has entered the field by building a Decentraland casino on a 20-plot site in the platform's Las Vegas district, and debuting the Atari X token as the foundation of the entity's blockchain ecosystem.
Source: www.the-blockchain.com
