Topic: Are gambling games with BTC legal? - page 2. (Read 2956 times)

Depends obviously on the country...

Tell this to the Russian government... I can bet my house they won't care, if they see a roulette table on your site or a slot machine, they will shut you down like 1 2 3. Online casinos are illegal in Russia as well as land-based casinos, except for one particular territory, which is supposed to be the next Las Vegas, but hasn't been built yet. There have already been numerous takedowns with arrests and prison sentences. Goldfishka is a good example of such a case. There is even a casino blacklist, where most online casinos land eventually and are being blocked by the ISPs. The system in Russia doesn't really work the way many of you would imagine. To run an online casino there you need to pay "security" to influent underground people (vory v zakone) and they expect it, who can secure you the government to not touch you and let you operate. This style of operations accounts for the whole CHГ. You might try to run "rogue" today, but what will happen when they knock on your door tomorrow? Without paying the appropriate amounts, you have no chance of success in Russia, you might even get killed.

In Europe it depends on the country:

France, Italy, Bulgaria, Spain, Germany - These countries have their own licenses, which an online casino or a sportsbook must have in order to operate and not end up in a legal battle with the particular Government.

UK - this is the only place where outside licensing is recognized, but only if it is from another EU state. A Curacao or Kahwanake license for example is not recognized.

Netherlands, Romania, and the rest are all either in the process of legalizing it with their own particular licenses or consider doing it. They are still considered grey area by many large operators.

(might have missed a country or two, but you get the picture)

China - Online gambling is illegal, and most of the activity is ran through the Triad networks of agents on street level.

Canada - BC has it's own license. The rest of Canada can be ran with a Kahwanake license.

USA - Until 2006 online gambling was considered grey area. Then the UIGEA was introduced, which outlawed the payment methods used for online gambling. However the gambling activity by itself remained intact. In 2011, DOJ released an opinion that the Wire Act as well as UIGEA are mostly set towards sports betting. This opened up a whole avenue for land-casino to legalize online casinos and poker. A federal bill won't pass anytime soon, not in the next 2-3 years (my opinion), however many States have introduced their own legislature controlling it, such as Delaware, Washington, NJ, Nevada, Illinois, New York. In some it is legal in others it is illegal. Other states are in the process.

It doesn't matter where you are incorporated, you need to comply with the laws of the Governments of the countries from which you accept players.

What is gambling by definition?

Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value (referred to as "the stakes") on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods. Gambling thus requires three elements be present: consideration, chance and prize.

Where does bitcoin stand and why all the "bitcoin isn't a currency and therefore it is legal" talks are irrelevant:


At current timing bitcoin is undefined by any government. They still wonder what exactly they should do with it and how should they tax it and regulate it. "Is it a bird, is it a plane, or a superman???" However, the moment bitcoin is fully legalized, it will either be considered "money" or "something of material value" (commodity). In either case, any online casino that accepts bitcoin payments (including us) will fall under the same rules and regulations as any standard online casino. It will need to comply with the particular laws of each government it operates in, or fall in the "illegal" sector. On top of that ALL Governments are well known for arrests, court cases and hefty fines and backtaxes. A good reference would be the sportingbet and partygaming and of course pokerstars settlements with the US, sportingbet paying backtaxes in Spain, partygaming CEO currently being indicted in France for backtaxes for before it was regulated and the list goes on and on.

Consider the bitcoin gambling business a grey area, which will eventually be regulated.

The SD and StrikeSapphire owners get this quite well and that is why they don't accept any US players. On our end we have made the decision to accept US players and we know the future complications involved.


Note: Consider this a personal opinion.

Are blanket statements with no qualification or context provided correct?

it is legal in Russia.

Bitcoin was called a commodity by the facebook twins who started an investment thingie. Winklevoss or something, I forget.

mhmm lol

Short answer:  probably not, if you're talking about the United States. 

Long answer:  it's complicated.

Here is my point of view on legality.

Take Runescape as a prime example.

I'm sure Governments know that ("Runescape Gold") has been gambled and people buy the Runescape Gold with no legal issues, except for the creators ("Jagex LTD") can ban you for buying gold.

Bitcoin is much similar to that of Runescape Gold ("Farming Gold, Mining Gold") Same aspect, except think of mining as botting. Government didn't care about botting, but Jagex decided to take legal action to the owners of these botting softwares. Nobody is taking legal action of you using the Mining Software, and it's the similar aspect, so government isn't taking it either.

Bitcoin is Virtual, and not "YET" legal tender as a currency say in Walmart, or even most stores. Where as some stores do have it, it's still considered virtual as you are never PHYSICALLY giving them a bitcoin, or bitcent, you are virtually transfering in exchange for goods.


So I would say you can host it in the US. But be very careful on how you word things on your website :-)

The legality is one of MANY issues in creating a casino. Unless you have $10,000 or more available to invest in a bitcoin casino, it will be very hard for you to ever make enough money to make it worth your while. You will tend to small bettors who occasionally will hit you for 100x their deposit. If you do not have a large bankroll, and especially if you do not know much about gambling already, I would NOT create a casino. You will get in over your head and regret it imo.

Russia does not recognize virtual currency as money or even tangible asset, therefore running Bitcoin-only casino in Russia is the same as running non-commercial gambling site like pokerth.com (which is legal of course).

It depends on country and state laws and also on the type of gambling you are planning to run. Also going offshore doesn't make it legal at all. Also Russia is not a good example as online gambling is heavily illegal over there.

Virtual currencies in Russia are not considered as monetary asset at all (there was a court decision some time ago which denied to enforce WebMoney loan contract).

Unfortunately if you live in the U.S., govt still can attack on you, but as Bitcoin gambling still is in the grey area (not explicitly prohibited), "cease and desist" notification will be made at first IMHO.

It depends a lot on how the country views the currency. Technically as nothing has been said either way specifically about Bitcoin gambling by governments we can assume that we are allowed to do it, even though the wiser option would be not to do it until given the green light

Britain once called Bitcoin tokens rather than currency, there is nothing illegal with gambling tokens, as far as I am aware, as they have no monetary value and can only be exchanged for goods and services, rather than buying goods and services.

Of cause that justification is completely false, the entire idea of Bitcoin is not known to be legal or illegal, in any country. The fact that anyone at all is trading them is a huge risk, it takes just one person to outlaw it and the entire system could potentially die.

With that being said I think it's a wise idea to try and make a mark before Bitcoin takes off.

I would say go for it if you have the time and money and a unique idea, Bitcoin has literally no limitations so express your creativity and come up with something great

I would suggest trying to get hosting outside the US though, we all know what they're like with the internet..

So you're saying that if I host the website,let's say in Russia there is nothing non legal about it?even if it's a gambling game?

Hi Guys

Yesterday i was talking with a friend of mine about opening a casino online with BTC,I really like the idea but my friend (the developer) said that is risky because whatever is gambling is not legal,is this true?

So how all the gambling websites here deal with it?

Please let me know I don't really know much about gambling and how it works

Thanks