Prior to the big explosion in Bitcoin and the way in which it moved in to the public eye, it was often associated with less than savoury transactions as it was unable to be used in other ways – but now it has become synonymous with a safe and anonymous way to conduct a transaction, the same is now also true for other cryptocurrencies as the popularity has somewhat stabilised but can still be widely used across many services, one of the rising uses can be found in online casinos as players begin to use newer services.
One area in which this is seeing a big increase is within users in the UK playing mobile casinos – in 2019 an initiative called Gamstop was launched with the aim of reducing the number of problem gamblers within the country, and whilst initially this was a voluntary scheme for gaming operators within the country, as of April this year it had become a mandatory requirement for operators or they would be at risk of losing their gaming license. This has led to an increase in operators registered outside of the UK to avoid the restrictions that come with gamstop, but it also opens up a number of opportunities for players that use these.
One of the many features available on non gamstop casinos available to players is the choice of anonymity – many non gamstop sites provide the opportunity for new players to register with the services in an anonymous manner which is important for many who value privacy, but also provide an option for anonymous deposits largely due to the change in cryptocurrency. There are many that have become more stable over time – whilst Bitcoin is quite volatile at times, Ethereum is quite stable and doesn’t experience shifts that are quite so big, this allows new players to both deposit and withdraw winnings anonymously too – the hurdle to overcome is finding stability in the market, alternatives have already been put in place for many too also as eWallets have also grown in popularity in recent years as an alternative to direct payments or credit cards.
It may not only be Gamstop that causes players to turn toward these alternative casinos to play on – in recent years there have been growing concerns around privacy and how data is being collected as many seek ways to stay as private as possible – Gamstop has already brought concerns for this as users who had signed up to the initiative were found to still be receiving marketing materials in the form of email and text even though their information was supposedly blacklisted and not accessible inline with the initiative guidelines – as of now this is an issue that still hasn’t been solved.
As a shift toward widespread use of mobile gaming is happening, casinos and betting services will remain at the centre of the growth as an older audience with a disposable income becomes the primary audience, it may become more common for crypto to see more use and become a bigger feature within these casinos.
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