The international legal online gambling industry is an estimated $30 billion market, and growing. More importantly for Bitcoin, it’s a global market that depends on fast, irreversible payments.
Just like a ordinary casino chip in any land-based casino, digital bitcoin provides privacy, immediacy, and payment finality. Unlike most typical consumer purchases (where returns and charge backs are usually legitimate), a wager is a one-way transaction. Of course, you may be dissatisfied with the outcome, but that does not justify a reimbursement. The online gambling industry has struggled with this fact for years.
Plagued by charge backs and fraudulent transactions, specialized payment methods and payment companies for legal online gambling have sprouted up around the online casino world to address the problem of payment finality. For the first time ever, the world’s largest and most comprehensive trade event in gaming, ICE Totally Gaming 2014, will feature a half-day seminar on bitcoin in the iGaming environment on 4h February. The London-based conference represents every gambling sector: betting, bingo, casino, lottery, mobile, online, and social gaming.
Organized by Gran Via’s Willem van Oort, the legal online gambling seminar features two extraordinary panels: ‘Regulatory Aspects’ and ‘Bitcoin’s Competitive Edge’. I will also be speaking on the evolution and future of Bitcoin as a new monetary unit. Moderated by iGaming attorney David Gzesh, the regulatory panel will assess the compliance challenges in dealing with bitcoin payment processing applications, including currency conversion, reduced transaction costs, payment finality, Know Your Customer rules, and coin management techniques.
