10 Tips for Gambling With Bitcoin and Other Cryptos
You may have questions, you may want help, here we are!
Crypto and gambling go together like peanut butter and jam. Nowadays, most sports betting sites and online casinos accept bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. If you are thinking about gambling with cryptos for the first time, that is great! Cryptos are fast, and convenient, and give you access to some of the biggest and best promotions.
In this post, we are going to share some tips for getting started gambling with cryptocurrencies. That way, you can get the most out of your online crypto-gambling experience.
Find Gambling Sites That Accept Crypto.
The first step, naturally, is to find sites where you can deposit crypto. Thankfully, this has become quite easy over recent years. There are plenty of crypto-centric gambling sites, as well as regular gambling sites that accept cryptocurrencies among other deposit and withdrawal methods.
Just don’t forget that accepting crypto should not be your only consideration when you are deciding what gambling sites to join. Also consider their odds, game selections, promotions, background and licensing, customer support, and more.
Most online casinos will accept crypto now, make sure you find a legitimate one!
Look For Betting Sites That Offer Exciting Crypto Promotions.
Online casinos and sportsbooks have good reason to want customers to deposit crypto. It prevents hassles with credit card companies blocking their sites and other issues.
For that reason, the biggest promotions you will find at online betting sites are typically offered to customers making crypto deposits.
One of the most impressive is a 5 BTC Welcome Bonus available at the crypto-centric site Cloudbet.
At the time of this writing, 1 Bitcoin is equivalent to around $19,400. Seriously, that is a boatload of cash.
Most welcome bonuses at online casinos have a cap of a few thousand dollars. So, this is just a tremendous opportunity to take advantage of if you are a high roller.
While this is the largest bonus we have found to date, plenty of other sites also are extremely generous in this department. Join multiple sites so you can grab multiple crypto promotions.
Do Not Assume You Can Gamble Anonymously.
Yeah, you’re not going to be able to be that guy…
One of the things that are attractive about using cryptocurrencies for many people is the chance to remain anonymous during transactions.
You might think that you can expect to retain your anonymity as you gamble at crypto sites, but you should not assume this to be the case by default.
As a matter of fact, the default is always for you to verify your identity at gambling sites, whether you are depositing crypto or not.
Know Your Customer (KYC) identity verification policies are important for protecting online casinos and sportsbooks as well as their customers. They assist with fraud prevention and help gaming companies keep things straight with tax authorities.
So, get your identity verification documents ready to go when you sign up to gamble with crypto. You are going to need to take care of this step in order to withdraw your winnings later.
Watch Out For Fees.
When you make a deposit or withdrawal using crypto at a gambling site, there is a good chance that the site itself will not charge you any fees. This is something you should double-check before initiating a transfer, but it is typically a benefit of using crypto for your deposits and withdrawals.
Nevertheless, there will likely still be processing fees for your transfers charged by your wallet or exchange. Crypto fees are notorious for fluctuating, so you should always take a look at the fees you can expect before initiating a transfer. Try and time your deposits and withdrawals so that you can take advantage of times when fees are low.
If you are already using crypto regularly for other financial transactions, this is a process you are probably already used to.
Check If Your Funds Will Be Stored As Crypto Or Not.
After you transfer your cryptocurrency to an online casino or sportsbook, your funds are either going to be:
- Stored as cryptocurrency, or
- Converted to US Dollars or another fiat currency until you withdraw them again.
It is very important to be aware of the implications of either. If your funds are stored as fiat currency by the gambling site, they will not be subject to the volatile fluctuations of cryptocurrency value. The only thing that will impact the amount of money in your account will be your own gambling decisions.
If, on the other hand, the betting site stores your funds as cryptocurrency, they will continue to be subject to the volatility of the crypto markets. That means that their value could soar or plummet depending on what happens with the price of that crypto.
In other words, you could walk away from your betting account for a while, forget about the money you have left in there, and then return to find you either have a great deal more or less than you expected in terms of value. Just holding cryptocurrency is gambling.
Should you decide that you want to stop your losses by converting the crypto back to fiat currency, you would need to go to the trouble to withdraw it to your wallet first, which would take time. During that time, your crypto could hypothetically continue losing value.
So, make sure that you are comfortable with the way your money is being stored. If you do not want to expose yourself to unnecessary volatility and risk, you should deposit your cryptocurrencies on sites where they will be converted immediately to US Dollars or another fiat currency that is stable. That way, the only gambles you will be taking are the bets you place on the site.
If Your Funds Are Stored As Crypto, Watch Out For Volatility.
Pay attention to this one! You don’t want to forget about your money for a while just to have it dwindle down!
If you do decide to gamble on a site where your funds are stored as crypto, keep a close eye on what the crypto markets are doing, and do not forget about the money in your account.
If you are concerned that the price of that crypto is about to drop, you might want to think about removing some or all of your funds temporarily from your account so that you can convert them to a fiat currency for a while.
Once you are feeling better about what the price of that crypto is doing, then you can convert the funds back to cryptocurrency and deposit them again.
Check Out Exciting Crypto-Centric Games.
When you play at online casinos that accept crypto deposits, you may have the chance to play some fun games that are aimed largely at crypto gamblers.
The casino site BitStarz, for example, has a whole line of BitStarz Originals.
A number of casino sites also now offer variations on the popular “Crash” crypto games. So, do not miss out on your chance to check out all these games.
Discover Provably Fair Games.
One of the many advantages of crypto casinos is that they offer Provably Fair games. You will know a game is Provably Fair if it is marked as such.
When you see the Provably Fair mark, you can click on it to bring up a special tool. Using this tool, you can check the randomness of the results, proving to yourself that the game is indeed fair.
This is a level of transparency that simply was not available in the days before crypto, so it is a really cool feature.
One of many Provably Fair games, “Crash” being played!
When You Withdraw Back To Your Crypto Wallet, Consider Converting Your Funds.
If you decide to withdraw some of your funds or winnings, they will transfer back to your crypto wallet.
It is important not to forget about them when they arrive. If your casino or sportsbook has been storing them as US Dollars, you are used to their stable value. It is easy to forget that they have been converted back into cryptocurrency before being sent to your wallet.
That means that they are once again subject to the volatility of the crypto market. So, if you do not do anything with them once they arrive in your wallet, they could gain or lose value unexpectedly.
For that reason, you might want to think about carefully monitoring your withdrawal so that when it is complete, you can immediately convert the funds into your fiat currency.
At that point, you can go back to relaxing and not worrying about volatility affecting your funds.
Don’t Forget About Your Taxes.
Don’t think this guy won’t find you hiding out there!
He’s the Hide and Seek champ 109 years and running!
One more thing to think about before you start gambling with cryptos is how it will affect your taxes.
There are two things to consider here:
- the gains from your gambling, and
- the gains from holding crypto
First of all, using crypto for gambling does not get you out of your tax obligations. There are still people out there who think that the government cannot track their crypto activities.
But you cannot dodge your taxes on gambling winnings by using cryptocurrencies. First of all, you still owe the taxes and were you to be caught not paying them, you would be in big trouble.
Secondly, as we talked about already, most gambling sites have KYC policies. That means that you are not anonymous while you are playing on their sites. They are reporting all of your winnings to the government in your jurisdiction.
If your filings do not match the filings that the sites make, your tax authority is going to spot the discrepancy and start investigating. At the very least, they are going to contact you and/or the betting site to try and obtain corrected records. But in some cases, this could be the start of a full-on audit.
That is why you should never use crypto gambling as a means to try and dodge your taxes.
Moving onto the second matter involving crypto and taxes, you must be careful not to forget about paying taxes on any earnings you have accrued through your crypto holdings climbing in value.
You might worry that it will be complicated to report your crypto gains. In the beginning, that was the case, but nowadays, it is super easy. If you use a tax preparation service online, it may be able to take care of most of the work for you. If you work with a local tax preparer, chances are good they have encountered crypto by now and know how to walk you through reporting your gains appropriately.
Summary
With most major betting sites online now accepting crypto, it is easier than ever to start gambling with bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. We hope you found this guide useful; you should now be ready to dive into crypto gambling and get the most out of the experience. Enjoy the convenience of crypto transfers, the chance to play Provably Fair games, and the massive bonuses that online sportsbooks and casinos are offering crypto players like you!
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