Gambling

Online Gambling With Bitcoin: The Ultimate Guide [2020]

bitcoin with casino chips in the background for gambling

If the last ten years of Bitcoin’s constant price gains have proven one thing, it’s that Bitcoin is here to stay. However, it’s not only Bitcoin’s price that has gone to the moon—its adoption and acceptance as a global digital currency have too.

In fact, online Bitcoin gambling is now commonplace. 

Why?

Because gamblers increasingly value the privacy, speed, and low fees of Bitcoin transactions, helping you get in the game faster and cheaper than traditional money.

This ultimate guide to gambling with Bitcoin helps you understand the upsides of crypto gambling, and how to use them to your benefit. But first, brushing up on the basics never hurts, even if you’ve played your fair share of crypto casino games.

Why Gamble with Bitcoin & Other Cryptocurrencies?

Gambling online with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has several advantages over using traditional casinos and fiat money. Amongst these advantages are:

  • Transparency
  • Interactivity
  • Advanced betting

While traditional casinos often claim to possess features similar to these, they simply don’t have the technology to back up their claims.

Crypto casinos use blockchain-based currencies that bring the entire game above board rather than hidden behind private servers. 

Instead of wondering whether the casino you’re playing at is the real deal, crypto casinos prove it with features like inalterable transaction IDs and zero hidden costs.

Let’s take an in-depth look at these advantages to uncover why crypto casinos are not only the best gambling platforms today but for years to come.

What Traditional Casinos Can’t Offer You

A Record of all Your Bets With Matching IDs

Traditional casinos are notorious for keeping everything that isn’t immediately visible on the table very close to the chest. Records of your bets are kept behind closed doors far from oversight, public audit, and your own personal access.

But why does keeping a record of all your bets matter?

Simply put, because it’s the only way to prove your bet happened.

While traditional casinos can’t provide an immutable record of all your bets with corresponding transaction IDs, crypto casinos do.

crypto casinos store all your bets for you to see
All bets are shown clearly with their IDs for users to check

While the casino itself isn’t built directly on the blockchain for practical reasons, every bet made during a Bitcoin gambling game is recorded.

Once you bet with Bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency available at the casino), you can access the record of that bet anytime.

Rankings, Giveaways & Competitions

In traditional casinos, operators have long banked on the idea that providing the bare minimum is enough for gamblers. The bare minimum tends to be a place to gamble.

screenshot of wolf race competition with rankings
Social competitions give Bitcoin casinos the edge over traditional ones

Crypto casinos are instead placing massive bets on their users by increasing on-platform interactivity where rankings, giveaways, and competitions reward you for gambling with Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies even when you aren’t winning big.

The added incentive creates a far more social atmosphere around the online Bitcoin gambling experience. You’ll find yourself gunning for the top spot on the leaderboard, chatting with others in the trollbox, and winning crypto giveaways just for playing.

Advanced Betting Features

Traditional casinos using fiat currencies such as dollars, euros, and rubles can’t keep up with the speed of highly automated betting tools without burning your bankroll.

Why? 

Because legacy money isn’t as divisible as Bitcoin which, by design, can be divided by up to eight decimal places. This divisibility lends itself well to automating your bets in games like Bitcoin dice, where you can employ a bot to work with micro portions of your bankroll.

statistics and graph of auto bet session with dogecoin
Auto betting is one of the best features a crypto casino can offer

Using auto betting features allows you to run a strategy in real-time without letting manual actions slow you down. Traditional casinos are at a loss when it comes to this type of game automation for two reasons:

  1. Gambling fees are simply too high to make auto-betting feasible, and;
  2. Fiat money can only be divided down to cents, making it impossible to run automated bets all day long without starting with a significant sum.

By harnessing the agility, fractionality, and ultra-low fee structure inherent to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, online crypto casinos offer auto betting features that are revolutionizing the world of gambling.

The Provably Fair Aspect of Bitcoin & Crypto Gambling

Perhaps the most significant advantage held by crypto gambling over traditional casinos is the provably fair nature of a Bitcoin bet.

Here’s the deal—a traditional casino simply can’t offer you transparency. Doing so exposes too much internal data that they don’t want you—or anyone else—to access.

most crypto casinos offer insights on their algorithms
Many crypto casinos offer insights on their provably fair algorithms

In contrast, a cryptocurrency casino merely provides a gambling interface between you and the blockchain. Remember that blockchains are distributed ledgers with the primary function of enabling decentralized transactions. Anything can be built to utilize a blockchain’s basic function of fast, secure, and permanent transactions.

Every bet placed during online Bitcoin gambling has a unique transaction ID you can use to view the bet on the blockchain and store for your own personal records (if you wish to). 

Having a blockchain transaction ID per bet gives you the peace of mind that no one can dispute your bet’s legitimacy and permanence.

This comes in handy if you ever need to file a support claim or need to look back at your entire transaction log to double-check a bet in question.

Since blockchains are agnostic ledgers operating according to autonomous protocols, individual casinos and betting platforms can’t influence their results. So, if you’re looking for the most reliable way to place a bet, crypto casinos are the answer.

Getting Started with Online Bitcoin Gambling

Bitcoin has come a long way from its early days.

Today, using Bitcoin is simpler than ever thanks to technological improvements to the digital currency ecosystem.

To take part in online Bitcoin gambling, you need to quickly set up a Bitcoin wallet (most can hold other crypto too), a process that is both painless and 100% free to do.

Setting Up Your Bitcoin Wallet

Before you can set up your Bitcoin wallet, you have to buy (or mine!) some Bitcoin first. The best way to buy Bitcoin quickly, safely, and at fair market value is to use a large, liquid exchange with a simple user interface.

There are a few exchanges that fit the bill beautifully.

the most famous crypto exchange is coinbase
The most famous crypto exchange is Coinbase

For ease and convenience, use an app-based exchange that allows you to buy Bitcoin directly from your phone using a bank account or credit card:

  • Coinbase: As the world’s most trusted exchange, Coinbase makes buying Bitcoin as easy as linking your card and clicking buy.
  • Cash App: If you’re looking for a Bitcoin buying experience that feels as simple as doing a Venmo transaction, look no further than Square’s Cash App.
  • Binance: Although Binance is a little more advanced than both Cash App and Coinbase, it has options like limit buy and sell for savvy traders.

Once you’ve purchased Bitcoin, your BTC balance will be stored in the exchange wallet using one of the above methods.

Exchange wallets are secure when insured (all three above feature insurance), you should consider moving your Bitcoin to a wallet for which you own the private keys (and isn’t custodial like Binance’s Trust Wallet).

Choosing The Right Wallet for Crypto Gambling

the best bitcoin wallet for online gambling is blockchain.com
Blockhain.com is recognized as THE best wallet on the market

There are two types of Bitcoin wallets to consider for crypto gambling:

  • Software Wallets: Desktop, mobile, or web wallets used to secure your Bitcoin. They’re convenient, free, secure, and they make it easy to send crypto to an online casino.
  • Hardware Wallets: If you’re buying a good chunk of Bitcoin, it’s best to keep it as safe as possible. The best way to do that is by investing in a hardware wallet. These wallets look like mini USB devices and keep your BTC offline with maximum security. Today, Trezor and Ledger’s Nano S are the best-known hardware wallets.

Both software and hardware wallets make great companions for crypto gambling, so choose what best suits your needs (or get them both if you’re a pro Bitcoin gambler!). 

PRO TIP: It’s faster to send BTC to your casino wallet from a software wallet. The perfect strategy is to keep a smaller amount of BTC in a mobile wallet and your main stash in a hardware wallet.

Sending Crypto to an Online Casino

Now that you have a Bitcoin wallet, sending it to your online casino wallet is a breeze:

  1. Find your crypto casino Bitcoin wallet address. Your address will be up to 35 characters long and contains a combination of numbers and letters.
  2. Go to your personal Bitcoin wallet and withdraw the amount you’re gambling with to the address you found in step one. Check the address thoroughly before sending.
  3. Wait for the Bitcoin network to confirm the transaction. After a short time, your BTC will arrive in the casino wallet from step one, and you’re ready to play.

If this is your first time sending cryptocurrency from one wallet to another, send a small amount first to confirm you’re doing everything correctly.

After your test transaction arrives safe and sound, repeat steps 1 through 3 before sending the larger amount through.

Using Your Bitcoin to Gamble

With your crypto casino wallet loaded with Bitcoin, it’s time to start rolling the dice. Before you do, take a moment to notice how quick it was to fund your game with Bitcoin versus traditional money.

That’s because when you use Bitcoin to gamble, it’s you who is in control of the money, not centralized clearing houses like ACH…

With cryptocurrencies, you have:

  • Financial freedom: gambling with Bitcoin allows you to play in casinos without leaving a trace of your activities on your financial accounts (make sure to use a non-custodial wallet!). This allows you to move about between crypto casinos freely.
  • Lowest transaction fees: transaction fees when sending or playing with Bitcoin are always the same no matter how much you spend. Whether you transact $1 or $1,000,000 worth of Bitcoin, the same tiny transaction fee applies.
  • Anonymity: most people don’t want to reveal personal data to an online gambling site. Gambling with Bitcoin enables you to play anonymously without ever having to add private or financial information. Just send BTC to and from your crypto casino wallet—that’s all it takes to start playing.
  • More game options: since Bitcoin is accepted as a global currency, there are no regional restrictions on casino games. Gambling with Bitcoin opens up an entirely new world of gaming options that are usually inaccessible to traditional gamblers.

Gambling with Bitcoin offers tons of flexibility unavailable to legacy financial structures and payment gateways. Let’s look at a few of the best games you can play with your Bitcoin.

3 Casino Games You Can Play with Bitcoin

The number of casino games available to Bitcoiners grows every day. With mainstream recognition and continuously improving technology, Bitcoin games are now on parity with traditional online games, and there are three in particular that you cannot miss:

Dice

screenshot of bitcoin dice game on wolf.bet
Dice is one of the more popular Bitcoin casino games

The basic premise of Bitcoin dice is simple. You place a bet on a number between 1 and 100… If the dice roll lands below your number, you win. Nice and straightforward, right?

To add spice to the games, your odds of winning decrease the lower the numbers get. Obviously, your best odds of winning are at 99, but your winnings there will be paltry.

As always, the lower your odds of winning, the higher your reward when the numbers come back lucky.

The Basics of Bitcoin Dice

In a nutshell, Bitcoin Dice is all about accumulating wins that amount to more than your losses. This does not mean, however, that you need to win more rolls than lose. 

It’s possible to lose more than you win yet come out ahead in profit.

So the core of Bitcoin Dice gambling is risk management

You can take riskier positions on a roll if you’re already in the green, but the further down you are, the more you need to count on winning easier bets. 

There are different ways to achieve this, but they all involve using a strategy. Let’s cover three of the best winning Bitcoin dice strategies used by top players today.

3 Advanced Strategies To Win at Bitcoin Dice

To win at Bitcoin dice, you should always play with a strategy

default strategies for bitcoin dice auto bet
Some casinos allow you to play these famous strategies with their auto bet mode

Can’t think of one?

Try one of these:

  • Martingale: The Martingale strategy is super simple. Every time you lose, double your bet to recoup your losses and jump into profit. 
  • D’Alembert: If you need a less risky strategy, try the D’Alembert. Every time you win, reduce the amount of your next bet to protect capital. Every time you lose, increase the bet size to regain capital.
  • Paroli: The Paroli strategy uses winning streaks to advance your bankroll. After every two wins, double your bet size. If you lose, reduce your bet amount, then start over.

There are more strategies available for Bitcoin dice, but these are the most common types used by automated betting systems and manual players.

Hilo

Hilo is a card game very similar to dice. The way it works is you’re dealt a card, then asked to place a bet on whether the dealer’s card will be higher or lower than yours. 

screenshot of hilo card game on wolf.bet
You can gather huge streaks in Hilo and win big!

Before you bet, you’re given the odds of winning. 

The lower the odds, the higher the rewards. Higher odds hands are easier to win and make a great option for incrementally increasing your gains.

Contrary to popular opinion, you can also apply various strategies to your Hilo game such as chasing a 12x multiplier by continuously betting in a high-risk/high-reward scenario.

Crash

If you like straightforward betting games, then crash is for you. The rules of crash are simple—bet on a specific multiplier number, then let the game rip

You can jump out of the bet at any point as the multiplier increases (which represents your winnings), but if the multiplier crashes before you get out, you lose.

Making The Best of Each Bet with Bitcoin Gambling

Take advantage of every Bitcoin bet by going into the game with a plan. Whether you’re playing Bitcoin dice, hilo, or crash, always have a strategy for winning. If you don’t, you won’t be able to create and repeat a blueprint for gambling success.


Frequently Asked Questions

Do casinos accept Bitcoin?

While most physical casinos likely won’t accept your Bitcoin yet, a lot of online casinos allow Bitcoin gambling. In fact, there are plenty of casinos that offer cryptocurrencies as their only deposit method.

How do Bitcoin casinos work?

Casinos offering Bitcoin allow you to match each bet ID and check its fairness. There are server seed, client seed and nonce, making them virtually impossible to hack. They operate similarly to traditional casinos but with more of a focus on fairness and transparency.

How do I gamble online with Bitcoin?

Gambling with Bitcoin online is fairly simple. Make sure you have a trusted non-custodial wallet to store your Bitcoin first, then sign up to a crypto casino, copy the BTC address they provide onto your wallet, and deposit your desired amount of Bitcoin. Online casinos allow you to gamble with your Bitcoin as soon as it’s deposited on your account.

Is Bitcoin gambling legal?

It depends on the country but, generally, you can assume that if traditional gambling is legal in your country, then Bitcoin gambling is also legal. The legislations change often so your mileage may vary.