How The Growth Of Cryptocurrencies Helped Sports Betting

You’ve heard of Bitcoin. Maybe you’ve invested in Ethereum—the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. And if you follow Elon Musk on social media, you definitely know Dogecoin.

What you probably don’t know, though, is that the crypto industry has been disrupting online sportsbooks immeasurably for the last decade. From anonymizing payments to launching blockchain-based sportsbooks, below is the impact of crypto on sports betting.

IMAGE: UNSPLASH

Improving Privacy And Security

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum run on a decentralized ledger known as blockchain. This ledger records transactions and stores them in a way no one can alter them. In doing so, the blockchain prevents fraud and enhances security.

Another feature of blockchain technology is that it operates through computer nodes distributed around the world. This makes the it virtually hackproof. To add icing on top, cryptos don’t ask for identity verification.

You can add money to a sports betting account and place your bet without ever revealing your identity. By not providing your data, it also means you can take care of your personal information and financial records.

To be clear, you need a betting site built on the blockchain to benefit from all the features we’ve mentioned above. Otherwise, many regular sportsbooks require you to reveal some personal information by law.

Revolutionizing Payments

Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious figure behind Bitcoin, created the world’s first cryptocurrency, to revolutionize banking. His primary goal was to eliminate banks and help people send and receive money without the help of intermediaries

By eliminating banks, cryptocurrencies increase payment speeds, facilitate global payments and reduce fees. Some digital currencies—say Solana and Fantom—process up to 10,000 transactions per second.

The best part: you can send millions of dollars while paying fractions of a dollar in fees. Additionally, you can send and receive money in any corner of the world. That means you can bet while in countries that prohibit sports betting.

Importantly, you can save a lot of cash in fees by paying using cryptocurrencies. To be clear, digital coins aren’t created equal. Some coins, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, have relatively high fees.  These fees are paid to the people who help verify the legitimacy of crypto payments.

Reducing Fraud

One of the biggest challenges of running an online business is fraud. Many entrepreneurs, including sportsbook owners, complain about huge losses linked to credit card or e-wallet fraud.

Crypto helps bookmakers mitigate fraud by not supporting reversals. Once you make a deposit through bitcoin, the transaction is final. It doesn’t matter if you sent funds to the wrong address or you sent more than required. Cryptos have no cancellations.

Due to that, sports bettors must always take time to find genuine, trustworthy betting sites before they deposit money. You don’t want to send your BTC to a bookmaker that offers terrible services. You’ll lose your money forever.

The same implies when choosing the right mobile betting app. First, you will need to look for the best mobile betting apps reviewed this year. This way you will be sure that you are taking into consideration only the latest and greatest betting apps.

Then you should make a small list of the ones you liked the most and scan each app by checking the important features like security, licensing, odds, betting markets, and bonuses. Lastly, you should join a betting app only if you feel confident about its legitimacy and reputation.

Instant Gratification

If you’re like many sports bettors, you bet at your own convenience. You could be relaxing at home on a Sunday afternoon. And because there’s a football game on TV, you decide to wager on it.

Unfortunately, traditional banking solutions don’t always allow you to wager exactly when you want to. This is particularly true for bank transfer, which can take days to process a transaction.

Digital wallets like PayPal and Skrill are pretty fast. But they are not always convenient. You need to add a credit card to your PayPal account before you can send money. And if there are issues with your card, you can’t really send money.

With cryptocurrencies, you send money immediately you make a decision to bet. You don’t need anyone’s authorization to make a transfer and the transactions take seconds.

Helps Sportsbooks Expand Globally

If you live in a developed country, you probably can access major credit cards and digital wallets easily. You can log into your Google Pay or PayPal account at bet on a website located in the Caribbean or Malta.

People in developing nations don’t always have the same privileges. They might not have access to PayPal, Google or even MasterCard. Yet, they might want to bet on their favorite sports.

Cryptocurrencies are making it possible for businesses to expand in regions with limited payment options. That’s because Bitcoin and altcoins are not regulated by governments. They operate globally to everyone willing to use them.

There’s one concern though. Getting started with bitcoin can be confusing. You need an account at a BTC exchange to buy crypto. What’s more, you might require a BTC wallet to store your coins safely. Although the process feels taxing, it becomes easy after reading guides online.

More Power To Gamblers

As we mentioned earlier, Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin with people’s interests at heart. It’s a financial system for the people. Bitcoin gives you complete control over your money. You own it and that means you can use it however you want.

You can send and receive your crypto from betting sites. You can also hold it as a speculative investment—Bitcoin is the best investment asset of the last ten years. Compared to banks, crypto is also trustworthy—there’s no risk of losing your money to a bank because there’s none.

Crypto Inspires Innovation

Bitcoin might be popular and worth over $60,000. But it’s flawed. For example, it lacks scalability. All the same, the coin’s blockchain idea is inspiring all sorts of innovations, and some of them are changing sports betting.

Think of blockchain-based betting sites, streaming apps, blogs, social networks, and data analyses tools. All these innovations can help the betting industry growth sporadically. And the best part of crypto innovations is that they come tokens that can gain value.

That being said, Bitcoin is still in its early stages. We are yet to experience the best of cryptocurrencies. And that means there are more innovations for sports punters on the way.

IMAGE: UNSPLASH

If you are interested in even more business-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels, then we have a lot to choose from.