Bitcoin betting is growing ever more popular. A quick search on Google shows numerous sites all devoted to bitcoin gambling. So what is bitcoin betting?

Let’s start with a bitcoin itself. It is a digital currency so to speak. Developed in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, the product alleviates the need for a central bank, with payments instead working peer-to-peer. By decentralising the payment system, i.e. circumventing the bank, transaction are 2-3% cheaper than using a credit card. This user-to-user commerce is more efficient and somewhat more cost-effective than using non-digitalised currency.

However, like all things found on the web there is a certain degree of hazard. In an FBI sting in October 2013, the Feds busted the Silk Road, seizing 144,000 bitcoins, at the time that equated to $28.5million. Although the FBI had every right to close down the Silk Road (an international drugs marketplace), the results were near catastrophe. Thousands of dollars were wiped off the value of the currency, causing a currency crash made all the worse by the lack of government intervention.

Yet, despite the rocky end to 2013, bitcoin has recovered. What some may have thought to be an economic bubble is standing tall and is starting to take tentative steps towards being a fully-fledged currency.

So is it a beneficial way to gamble?

If we look towards Betcoin, a betting site that solely works with bitcoins, the advantages become apparent.

Bitcoins, and therefore Betcoin et al, are extremely safe. People worry about hackers, and rightly so, but most would rather go after real money institutions – they are easier to work with and gives one more spending power. Whether in the future they turn their focus more inward remains to be seen but for the time being, bitcoins are safe from theft. They are not protected from economic downturns, but, as we have witnessed in recent years, what economy is?

The strength of the bitcoin also makes it a slightly more lucrative way to gamble. As things stand at the minute, a single bitcoin is worth $609.60, whilst places like Betcoin offer a 100 per cent deposit matcher. So what was once $609.60 has become $1219.20, which is not bad at all. Cashbacks available via bitcoin betting is also pretty good. Betcoin offer 9.88 per cent cashback, so if you had gambled a single bitcoin you would have $59.93 back from the site.

But, the magnum opus of bitcoin betting is the speed of transaction. There are few things worse than waiting for a transfer from your betting account to your bank account. Bitcoin betting see’s winnings paid almost instantly into your bitcoin wallet. This is very advantageous on two parts. One: it reduces the waiting between winning and actually possessing the money. Two: by having the money quicker there is less of a chance of you gambling with it again – safeguarding from potential losses.

Bitcoin betting is still a baby. It is developing quickly and will see exponential growth in the upcoming years. It is a safe, as well as quick, way of betting and as such, expect to see it grow ever more popular.