While much of the mainstream world is still just accepting and getting used to cryptocurrencies now, the sports betting world has long been a big champion of this form of payment. While that marriage might seem odd at first, it makes plenty of sense when you dig a little deeper. Crypto has become the most effective way to both deposit and withdraw your money when you bet online. Let’s take a look at how crypto helps sportsbooks both with deposits and withdrawals.
Deposits
One of the most effective ways that sportsbooks use cryptocurrency is with deposits. One of the reasons for it is because deposits have – at times – been a challenge for the offshore books with various jurisdictions around the world. For example, some places might accept e-wallets like Skrill, Instadebit or Netteller and some might not. Or some might allow players to deposit with credit cards and then opt to change the rules. We’ve seen that happen specifically in the United States. While it’s legal for offshore sportsbooks to operate wherever they are, some countries have made it more difficult for players to deposit so as to discourage them.
However, with cryptocurrencies, that no longer presents an issue. If Visa is operating in the United States or in the United Kingdom, those countries can go to Visa and stay “stop processing these payments.” However, since crypto isn’t governed by anyone, players and sportsbooks are free to use cryptocurrency as a method of payment without having to worry about the taps getting turned off at some point.
Beyond that, cryptocurrencies are fast – often faster than many other methods – and have really low fees. That’s what makes this payment method so useful to players and to sportsbooks.
Withdrawals
Although making deposits has sometimes been a challenge for players and online betting companies, getting money out has never been a problem. That’s because almost every sportsbook has used checks as a form of withdrawal, so they can simply cut a check from wherever they are and mail it to players all around the world. That’s typically allowed sportsbooks to overcome any hurdle that’s been in their way in terms of payouts.
The difference with crypto is it simply makes things a little more efficient. To start, payments are processed much faster. Secondly, nobody has to go to a bank, get a check printed, have it mailed around the world, receive it, then go to the bank to deposit it. With crypto, money can be moved from one account to the next in a matter of minutes.
The other big difference with crypto is you can process large amounts with no fees. Checks are often limited to maybe a couple thousand. Of course, all sportsbook companies have other options like bank wires and the like, but those start to incur some major fees. With cryptocurrency, the transactions are fast, efficient and have high limits. You can send $100,000 in a blink without worrying about a check getting lost in the mail or massive bank wire fees.
