Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay
For many years, cryptocurrencies were a niche interest, but things are changing fast. The Bank of Canada’s recent research found around 13% of Canadians have crypto assets. The big surge in adoption has been over the last five years and penetration is now relatively stable. Unsurprisingly, it is younger Canadians (18-34 year olds) who are the most enthusiastic buyers and users, while adoption is slower in older age groups.
While ownership rates are lower than in countries like Vietnam or the US, they are three times the UK’s rates. One of the factors holding back crypto growth has always been the limited use cases for the currency. With the exception of towns like El Zonte in El Salvador, where locals and tourists use Bitcoin for everyday transactions like surf lessons, food, and rent, spending crypto has always been more complicated than trading it.
Crypto and casinos go hand-in-hand
However, crypto casinos have always been a place to use cryptocurrencies, and Canadians are increasingly attracted to these venues. After all, Canadians are notoriously avid gamblers, so using their crypto assets to fund a favourite hobby seems to make absolute sense. Players can use Bitcoin, Ethereum and many other crypto assets to make instant deposits and avoid any banking delays.
Sites are eager to attract customers and offer Canadians very generous sign-on bonuses, cashback, and rakeback deals. As you would expect with sophisticated online technology, the platforms provide thousands of slots and table games, including live dealer options and other “provably fair” blockchain-based games.
Celebrity endorsement
Celebrity endorsements and tie-ups have also boosted the sites’ popularity. Floyd Mayweather and Mike Tyson have both been linked to blockchain-based gambling platforms and have appeared in promotions for crypto casinos. Snoop Dogg has been a prominent crypto advocate, involved in NFT projects and partnering with crypto casinos. Dizzee Rascal has recently taken up the mantle of brand ambassador for Playbet.io. As you can see, crypto casinos are using personalities to encourage people to play, enhance their credibility, and attract new audiences.
One Canadian celebrity has had a less favourable relationship with a crypto casino, so it is not all plain sailing for the casinos or celebrities. In 2022, Drake signed a $100 million deal to promote the crypto casino Stake through live streams and appearances, making him one of the most prominent celebrity endorsers in the business. He had regularly broadcast multi-million-dollar wagers and turned crypto gambling into a must-watch event (particularly since he is a notorious big-loss gambler). However, there was a public fallout this year, and Drake described Stake’s owners as “snakes”.
Proceed with caution
The overriding advice for anyone looking to try their luck at crypto casinos in Canada is to be cautious. This is because they operate in a legal gray area and fall outside of the country’s gambling regulatory framework. Online gambling might be regulated on a province-by-province basis, but so far, none of the provinces have explicitly regulated crypto. Canadians can legally play at offshore crypto casinos, but protections are much weaker than those on domestic sites.
Fortunately, there is an enormous choice of online Casinos in Canada, whether players choose to pay with Canadian Dollars or a cryptocurrency. Review sites like onlinecasino.ca goes to extraordinary lengths to review and test what is on offer and recommend the best ones. Rather than suggesting you jump straight in and roll like Drake, they recommend saving your bankroll and practicing at your own pace with free-to-play demo games. When you are ready to play, they have done all the necessary background checks.
The most popular games across the online casinos are slots, progressive slots, and roulette. Traditional card games are perennially popular, but as they take more skill and application, they are not as “instantly gratifying” as those determined by luck alone. There are plenty of great Bitcoin online casinos for Canadians to choose from, but not all excel in every rating criterion. The best bonuses might not be at the one with the best mobile experience, and so you need to decide on your top priorities.
One thing is for sure: crypto casinos are not going to fade into the background, and it seems likely that as crypto becomes more embedded in day-to-day life, the Canadian provinces will develop regulatory frameworks that explicitly address the use of cryptocurrencies for gambling. As Ontario led on commercial online gambling, most people are watching to see what happens there. After all, it has the lion’s share of regulated online gambling in the country, so it is the leader in effective regulation. The lawmakers will want to ensure that their citizens are adequately protected and that they get their slice of the casino profits by raising taxes and charging for licenses.
Watch the money go round
Crypto casinos are on the rise because they are player-friendly, offer fast payouts, and support anonymity. Anonymity could be the Achilles heel of the system and restrict growth. Regulators insist that online casinos and many other businesses conduct strict Know Your Customer (KYC) checks to prevent money laundering. However, for many crypto players, anonymity is the attraction.
However, there are concerns that less reputable crypto casinos could serve as ideal money-laundering facilities. To be fair, criminals have been using casinos to try to launder their ill-gotten gains for as long as there have been crimes and casinos, so it could be seen as unfair to shine a spotlight on crypto ones. It used to be cash, suitcases full of dollar notes, that was the perceived problem.
Changes are likely
Provinces will almost certainly adopt changes in the near future. Having just about caught up with offshore fiat money sites, they will have to start a new round of regulation. Provinces are likely to require operators to obtain licenses with specific obligations for accepting cryptocurrencies. These requirements could include wallet transparency, provably fair certification, and chain analytics monitoring. Source-of-funds checks are likely to be brought in, too.
The provinces will want to apply the same standards to crypto as to traditional online casinos, where player protection is always a concern. Sites will need to introduce safer gambling tools (such as reality checks and deposit limits) and be more careful about their advertising messages and who sees their promotions and marketing materials.
All in all, when a sector comes out of the shadows, compliance usually follows. However, crypto is loved for its self-regulatory nature, so this will be an interesting battleground to follow and will certainly be a trending news story for those interested in online gaming and gambling.
