Best Bitcoin Sportsbooks

Of course, the first and most common question about Bitcoin is what is it and how does it work? In short, it’s a digital currency. Each Bitcoin is a computer file, which is stored digitally either in a wallet, an app or an exchange. Using your wallet, you can send money back and forth to other people, or spend it with businesses if you’re making a purchase. Each transaction is recorded on a public ledger, which is called the blockchain. It’s safe and very secure.

Put it this way: people are using cash less and less these days. For example: you might go buy groceries at the store and use your credit card. To pay off your credit card bill, you might use online banking. In reality, it’s not as if your credit card company is actually bringing physical cash to the grocery store at the end of each month and when you pay your bill, it’s not as if your bank is bringing physical cash to the credit card company. It’s all done digitally as balances get digitally adjusted up in one place and adjusted down in another.

Bitcoin kind of works the same way. If everyone can pay from their smartphones or with cards, then why not fully digitize a currency? In many respects, that’s what Bitcoin is. It’s one public system with a public ledger, making it easy to transfer money worldwide quickly with maximum security and minimal fees. That’s why it’s grown in popularity.

Sportsbooks have always had issues with the different banking regulations in various jurisdictions. That’s why – for some people – banking can be an issue when you deposit or withdraw with sportsbooks. Finding a method that’s easy, fast and low in fees can be a bit of a challenge.

For example, some banks that provide Visa and Mastercard easily function with sportsbooks. And then you might fight some other Visas and Mastercards that won’t work. Some books can accept Skrill or Neteller in certain countries and then there are others where they can’t. Sometimes a bank wire is transfer and sometimes it causes headaches.

Now if you cleared that entire ledger and just used Bitcoin, then it’s pretty clear that – almost across the board – it would work for everyone, everywhere. For both sides – the player and the customer – Bitcoin is a win as it allows you to avoid the traditional banking system, which isn’t always friendly to sports betting. That means that both players and sportsbooks can get their money faster with smaller fees. It’s a win-win situation. Just make sure you play at one of our trusted Bitcoin sportsbooks listed in the table above.

One of the most common things you’ll hear about Bitcoin is the volatility. While it’s true to an extent (it’s been much less volatile in recent months), the truth is that likely won’t impact you.

How it’s going to work is you’ll deposit money at an exchange in U.S. funds, convert it to Bitcoin and then once it’s sent to the sportsbook, convert it back to U.S. funds. And the same thing will happen on the way back: you’ll play in U.S. funds, exchange to Bitcoin when you withdraw, receive Bitcoin and then exchange it back to U.S. funds.

The whole process is fairly fast, so Bitcoin would have to jump hundreds or thousands of dollars one way or the other within a short period of time for you to lose (or gain) a lot of money. Typically, within the span of an hour – and sometimes for days – it’s pretty stable. For the most part, deposits and withdrawals are fee-free from the books, so even if Bitcoin costs you 1% or 2%, that’s still less than a bank wire or many other methods will cost you. And if you make the exchanges quickly, you probably won’t get hit very much.

On top of that, keep in mind that most sportsbooks will allow you to lock-in an exchange rate that is active for a certain period of time. It’s not long; maybe 15 minutes, or so, but that gives you more than enough time to ensure that the volatility doesn’t become a factor.

People often wonder if they have to buy a full Bitcoin to get in the game but that’s not the case. If 1 Bitcoin is equivalent to $15,000 U.S. dollars, you can buy a fraction of it. For example, if you want to buy $1500 to deposit $1500 into a sportsbook, you’d buy 0.1 Bitcoins and send that amount to the sportsbook. You don’t have to have $15,000 to buy a Bitcoin.

Although it’s rare, there are sportsbooks that will allow crypto sports betting, which means you can do Bitcoin betting instead of exchanging the funds each time. It’s completely up to you but that option exists with a company like Nitrogen Sports. Most sportsbooks will simply allow you to send and receive Bitcoin, but will exchange it into U.S. Dollars when the money hits your account rather than provide a full platform for sports gambling with Bitcoin.

If you’re planning to go forward with BTC sports betting, the last step is to open an account at an exchange. If you’re in North America, you have a number of options but we like Coinbase. It’s a very safe, stable company and they’ve been in this business since 2012. They made over a billion in revenue in 2017 and process transactions and storage in 190 countries.

Whether you use Coinbase or anyone else, what you’ll have to do is open an account with an exchange. It’s comparable to opening up a PayPal account: you’ll open your account, verify your identity and link it to a bank account. Once that’s done, transfer some money in and then you can buy some Bitcoin at whatever the current price is.
Once you’ve acquired some Bitcoin, you can then send it to any address. It’s important to be very specific with the address – you can’t make any mistakes. One small typo could send the address to the wrong place and you can’t reverse a transaction, so make sure you double-check. Typically, a crypto sportsbook will provide the exact address, so just copy-paste it as to avoid any errors.

To receive Bitcoin, check your account profile (on your exchange) to get your address. Again, copy-paste that address when you’re giving it to the bitcoin betting websites and make sure to be exact. Once they have that, they’ll be able to send money directly to you.

There was a time when people didn’t quite understand what PayPal was and not too long ago, many were worried about buying things online. Now it’s hard to believe what life was like without it. That’s kind of the same path that Bitcoin is taking and while it’s still early in its infancy, cryptocurrencies are here to stay. There’s a small learning curve when you get started but after you’ve made one or two transactions, you’ll be quite comfortable with it and you’ll probably avoid using credit cards, bank transfers or any other banking methods to get money in and out of the sportsbook going forward.