During the coronavirus pandemic, many people have turned to online gambling to help pass the time, especially during government-enforced lockdowns. One thing that has seen a significant increase is the use of cryptocurrency-based sports betting.
Gambling online using cryptocurrency is still pretty new, but with hardly any live sports to bet on during lockdown, many were turning to virtual sports to get their gambling fix. Virtual sports have been around for a long time and you can bet on pretty much any sport such as football, tennis and Formula 1. There’s even a virtual Grand National for the horse racing enthusiasts out there.
While the action may be virtual, the winnings are very real, and so it’s no surprise to see that more and more people were turning to virtual sports as a way of making money during lockdown. The other benefit of virtual sports is that you’re not restricted in terms of choice by the real world sporting calendar. For instance, you could place a football accumulator and be waiting six hours between games for your bet to come in. Virtual football matches take place every three minutes on average, so there’s the potential to get through so much more action, creating more opportunities to win big.
The appeal of placing sports bets using cryptocurrency is also growing among the online gambling community. One of the biggest positives is that cryptocurrency gambling allows for customers to sign up and place their bets anonymously. In order to sign up for regular bookmakers, users must provide lots of personal information, as well as bank account information and some even ask for extra verification via photo identification i.e. passport/driving license. This is one of the main things that puts people off going with traditional bookmakers and instead opt for cryptocurrency betting.
Another positive to gambling online with cryptocurrency is that you’re more likely to get better bonuses than when going with a regular online bookmaker. This is because cryptocurrency bookmakers are entirely online based and save massive amounts of money when compared to traditional bookmakers, this means that they’re able to pass on those savings in the form of attractive sign up and retention bonuses for customers.
There are some issues relating to online cryptocurrency gambling that users should be aware of and they are mainly related to legal regulations. Cryptocurrency bookmakers are not legally required to be regulated by governing bodies and, as such, it’s difficult to enforce any complaints or disputes that you may have with them. This lack of legal protection could put customers off, but this is the trade-off when deciding to go with a bookmaker who are not regulated and don’t require identity verification.
It’s unlikely that cryptocurrency sports betting is going away, in fact it’s more likely to get more popular in the coming months and years, but it’s important that potential customers are aware of the benefits and risks associated with gambling online with cryptocurrency. If local governments could find a way to regulate these new online bookmakers, they have every chance of taking over from traditional online bookmakers as the main choice to sports betting enthusiasts. Whether this will become a reality, only time will tell, but for the time being online sports betting with cryptocurrency remains a hot topic among the gambling community.
