The recent drop in the price of Bitcoin (BTC) and other popular cryptocurrency is bringing pain, at least in the short term, to both the online casinos and their players. Over the last few weeks Bitcoin has managed to fall from its highs in the $69,000 range, all the way down to flirting with the $30K support levels. In the past few days the price of BTC has managed to claw back some of the losses, currently trading above $38,000. But even at the today’s price, the famous crypto has fallen enough to cause some short-term pain to the online casino operators and the players alike.
The online casinos have long considered Bitcoin to be the best banking method, both for player deposits and for the payouts of their winnings. As such, the casino companies have been both advocating and nudging their customers to choose Bitcoin over any other banking method. Not only is Bitcoin now the fastest way to get your casino cashout, sometimes as quick as the same day, but also comes with no fees of any kind and exclusive bonuses.
With such incentives, no wonder that the large part of the online casino transactions today are done in Bitcoin. It’s convenient for both the customers and the casino. But one of the possible downsides is that the casinos now sit on much larger piles of Bitcoin. Unlike some online retailers which take Bitcoin payments, but instantly cash them out for dollars, the casinos must hold enough at the very least to cover the potential payouts that will be coming in. This exposes the casino to the volatile nature of the crypto markets. Often, the price swings are not as big as we’ve witnessed lately, but when that happens – it certainly puts a hurt on the operators, at least in the short term.
The same is true for the casino players who’ve chosen to hold on to some Bitcoin for gambling purposes. It makes it easier to deposit at an online casino, when you feel like playing, and avoids the fees at the exchanges, both for selling/buying Bitcoin and when getting your fiat currency sent to your banking institution. Huge price-drops are obviously very detrimental to the player’s portfolio.
But one doesn’t have to hold BTC in order to feel the pain from a large drop in the Bitcoin price. If your chosen casino takes 2-3 days to process a Bitcoin deposit, the difference in price from the time you submitted your withdrawal request to the time you actually get your Bitcoins in your wallet could result in percentage losses in the double digits.
The best one can do during such tremulous times is “HODL”, i.e. avoid selling their crypto out of fear and wait for the cryptocurrencies to recover. Those recoveries, in fact, represent the exact opposite of what we just described. Both players and online casinos accumulating BTC funds during the drop in price will see the opposite effect – the value of their portfolio would grow just by the BTC price increase. So if you have little to no experience dealing with Bitcoin, the best strategy is to keep calm and bring a towel. If time is not of the essence (and it shouldn’t be, since you should never gamble with anything but discretionary money), simply wait for the price to recover.
