Until a couple of years ago, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, in particular, didn’t feature in the list of the most popular online casino trends. Slowly, banks took interest, with billionaires investing heavily in cryptocurrencies. Today, almost any online casino you come across supports at least one type of crypto payment. In Norway, for example, this trend is hugely popular. So, why are crypto casinos taking an interest in a market with strict gambling laws?
The Norwegian online gambling laws look worse on paper than in reality. You may even pity Norwegian gamblers if you believe what’s written online. That said, there are at least two gambling sites in the country today – Norsk Tipping and Norsk Riskoto. While the former only offers horse racing services, the latter specializes in lotteries, scratch card games, keno, sports betting, and poker.
As for the country’s gambling regulations, Norway made it illegal to gamble on foreign sites in 2008. Still, punters enjoyed themselves in most unregulated online casinos in Norway until 2017, when the government declared an all-out war against offshore casinos. Banks and e-wallets were prevented from transacting with these online casinos to prevent players from accessing their services. As if that’s not enough, local media was barred from airing adverts for foreign casinos.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have been providing banking solutions in jurisdictions with strict gambling laws like Norway. All you need is to create a crypto casino account and deposit some digital coins to start playing.
But how does one buy digital currencies? Purchasing Bitcoin, for example, is as easy as buying something on Amazon. For instance, PayPal and Skrill allow users to directly purchase BTC as long as they have some money on their e-wallet accounts. In short, there is no shortage of websites where you can buy and sell cryptocurrencies.
Below are a few reasons why you should play on crypto casinos no matter your gambling jurisdiction:
Digital coins are not legal tenders, so no government in the world controls them. In other words, authorities can’t control who owns and uses cryptocurrencies. They can’t also control the number of digital coins you can mine. So, the benefit here is that punters in Norway can use cryptocurrencies anyhow they want. Because the government doesn’t regulate crypto casinos, they operate freely in Norway.
This is like a continuation of point number one above. With crypto casinos, all your online gambling activities will remain anonymous. The thing is that these casinos usually don’t need players to provide any personal details. A good example is Monero, which allows users to transact online without any trace. However, don’t use cryptocurrencies for illegal purposes because there are a thousand ways to trace you.
One of the primary reasons to use digital coins is that they eliminate intermediaries like banks. In doing so, crypto punters don’t incur the charges they pay using e-wallets and credit cards. Also, this makes crypto payments near-instant. Remember, though, most digital coin payments like BTC usually cost around 1% of your transaction amount.
Overall, online gambling using offshore operators in Norway is near-impossible. That’s because the gambling laws of the land prevent most banking solutions from facilitating payments to foreign gambling sites. But as said before, crypto casinos usually operate in areas where standard online casinos can’t go. They are fast, anonymous, and offer low transaction fees. And without forgetting that these casinos provide all the games available in a standard online casino.
