Cryptocurrency is becoming an increasingly popular payment instrument for online transactions and it is being integrated into more and more industries every year. We can generally divide people into three categories: the ones, who are already familiar with what blockchain, but haven’t yet used cryptocurrency, the ones who use it regularly and semi-regularly and the ones who immediately think of something illegal and incredibly complicated as soon as they see the word “crypto”. The latter is obviously as far from reality as can be.
As someone who enjoys sports betting you are likely already aware that some bookmakers accept cryptocurrencies in addition to regular payments, as well as that – there are some bookies out there, who accept only crypto. We are going to take a closer look at how blockchain today is a fairly significant and desired addition to any decent betting product.
SPORTS BETTING AND CRYPTOCURRENCY
Some people might raise a question “Why would I want to use crypto when I have my credit cards?” and this is a fair point to some extent, however there are certain aspects of sports betting, where crypto payments might in some cases make more sense. Let’s go through them one-by-one.
PRIVACY
Even though you might have nothing to hide – it is not always good to be in a position, where financial institutions are at all times aware of where you spend your hard earned money. Sports betting is often labelled as “Gambling”, looked down upon and considered a liability in the world of finances, even though it could be just your hobby – something you have complete control over. Some of us have our own financial obligations and responsibilities, others might want to apply for loans and leases and having a “Gambler” note somewhere in your personal files could potentially become a roadblock for your plans.
INTERNATIONAL PAYMENTS
Cryptocurrencies make it easy for you to use any betting site even if you don’t have any of their accepted payment methods. This can often be the case when you are looking to bet with a bookmaker from a different part of the world – the differences might be so significant, that their payment methods are simply not available for you. This is where crypto payments will come in handy, cryptocurrencies are truly international and as long as a betting site accepts crypto and you are not from any of their restricted countries – you are good to go.
HOW AND WHERE CAN YOU OBTAIN CRYPTOCURRENCY?
The places to go if you are looking to obtain some crypto are cryptocurrency exchanges- there are loads of them, some better than others and all you have to do in order to find one is a simple google search.
We are going to spare you some time and will recommend a couple of reputable exchanges, which we are using ourselves. Please keep in mind, that these crypto exchanges are not paying us anything to expose them here and we are doing it purely due to our own exceptionally positive experience with them.
WHERE DO I KEEP MY CRYPTO?
Even though cryptocurrency is not something from the material world – it is still a currency and you need to store it somewhere. There are a couple of options where you can keep your crypto assets, the one which we can suggest is mobile crypto wallets – most of us keep our phones close at all time and perform most online activities via our phones, that includes sports betting. Having that in mind it is only logical to keep your digital currency also on your phone. Below you can find a couple of mobile crypto wallets, which you can download to iOS and Android devices to keep your crypto safe. There is also an option to use a hardware wallet, however that is more suitable for advanced users and would be a topic for a whole new article.
ANDROID WALLETS
WHERE TO FIND CRYPTO-FRIENDLY BOOKMAKERS?
As we mentioned earlier – more and more bookmakers start accepting crypto payments every year, so you most probably already know a couple of betting sites where you can use crypto currencies to top up your account.
Even though your friendly neighborhood bookmaker might accept cryptocurrencies – not all betting sites are equally supportive of their players using crypto payments, so some bookies might have different questionable practices in place, where you end up being charged more than you should have been. This is the part where it is best to rely on experience, so if you are looking to find a good and reliable crypto-friendly bookmaker we recommend you to check this bitcoin sportsbooks ratings page created by our good friends with years of hands-on crypto betting experience. You can read detailed reviews, which protect you from putting your money into the wrong hands and will help you make an informed decision when it comes to crypto betting.
HOW CAN YOU USE CRYPTOCURRENCY IN THE “REAL WORLD”?
So now you started betting with crypto and got your first winning s in – what’s next? Well, there are several options here and this depends on what you want to use this money on.
You can withdraw your crypto from the bookmaker to your wallet, then back to an exchange, where you can swap it for “regular” money. You can then withdraw that money to your bank account, card, Paypal or whatever else is supported by your exchange. If you are going to request a wire transfer withdrawal from an exchange, please make sure your bank is going to accept it, because some banks don’t and you may end up having to spend a lot of time to sort it out.
You can spend your crypto winnings on goods online – today a lot of online marketplaces, merchants and services accept crypto payments, so you can spend your cryptocurrency online on things like clothes, music, games and with some searching even hotels, planes and rental cars and much more.
Finally, you can get a card, which will be funded by cryptocurrency and this is the most convenient option for day-to-day crypto users. This will be just a regular Mastercard or Visa, which all allow you to spend your cryptocurrency in the “real world” without the need to make any withdrawals to banks or bank-related institutions. A couple of services where you can obtain such a card are: Binance, crypto.com and bit2me. There are obviously more and we encourage you to do your own research to find the best solution, that would fit your needs.
ARE THERE ANY RISKS?
Cryptocurrencies are famous for being volatile and that means their price relative to “regular” currencies can drastically change in matter of days and even hours. This is not always a negative thing – for example, if you have €100 today, tomorrow it might already be €115, however as they say “no pain – no gain”, so it may very well become €90. Depending on your personal preferences you can either try to leverage this volatility to your advantage or you can convert your crypto to regular currency as soon as you withdraw it – this is totally up to you. If you convert your winnings back to regular currency after withdrawing – there is no risk related to price changes and you can transfer it to your crypto-based Visa or Masrtercard, given you followed one of our advice given above.
To wrap things up we would like to note that the final decision to use cryptocurrencies or not is something that you will have to make based on your own lifestyle, goals and interests. Even if you decide, that this is not for you right now – the world will not end, however it is obvious that crypto payments will be even more popular going forward and they may potentially open up some new doors for you, which you might not even be aware of. Regardless of what you decide – it is definitely a good idea to stay informed and open-minded when it comes to innovations and if you are even the smallest bit curious be sure to give it a try.
