Bitcoin Live Dealer Casinos for UK Players

From its humble beginnings in 2009, BitCoin has grown into the world’s premier cryptocurrency and is used by tens of millions of people around the globe each year. Online gambling is, of course, no exception to this and over the past few years many sites have adopted this technology in a big way.

From smaller offshore casinos that exclusively use bitcoin for privacy reasons, to larger multinational household betting brands who allow bitcoin transactions for international customers or just as a novelty, you can now use BTC to transact or play at dozens of online casinos.

Currently the only UK licensed live casino that we’d recommend in TonyBet, who happen to have an awesome offering of live dealer games and other games.

Anonymity

With bitcoin, you don’t have to link your bank account to the casino at all. Some casinos, especially the bigger ones, will still expect you to use your real name and details due to KYC procedures. However, some bitcoin casinos take anonymity as a core principle and don’t actually do them – offering complete confidentiality without any links between you and the casino except your anonymous bitcoin wallet. For whatever reason you want to play this way, bitcoin casinos can help you!

Fast Transactions

Due to the nature of the blockchain, Bitcoin transactions are nearly instant – depending upon the speed of your connection. This means no 24 hour waits for processing at the casinos end, and no delays from the bank either. This makes BTC one of the smoothest and quickest ways to transfer money online, and casinos are no exception to that rule.

Bigger Bonuses

Because Bitcoin transaction costs are so low, many BTC exclusive casinos can afford to pass these savings onto you! Through traditional e-wallets such as Neteller or Skrill, charges can be as high as 5-10% per deposit.

For Bitcoin? Almost zero. This means some casinos can offer truly huge bonuses – in some cases up to 5BTC. If you don’t know Bitcoin, this might not sound like much. But actually, although the exchange rate does fluctuate somewhat, this could be worth in the region of £25-30,000. You won’t get bonuses like that anywhere else!

Decentralisation

From a political standpoint, Bitcoin is also revolutionary. If you’re interested in these kind of things, and are already an online gambler, then it may be the next logical step for you. By using the blockchain to verify transactions and create value, users of Bitcoin take away control of the financial supply from governments, big banks and payment processing companies such as PayPal or VISA. So if you’re a fan of free markets and collective social action as well as betting or casinos – Bitcoin might be the way forward for you!

Lower Costs

As mentioned previously, Bitcoin costs the casino less – and those savings can also apply to you. You’re less likely to be charged for deposits or withdrawals at a Bitcoin casino, and you may get bigger bonuses and rewards. You also don’t have to pay conversion fees into your own home currency, if that is different from the ones available at your chosen casino.

Top Games to Play with Bitcoin

You can play a wide range of titles at bitcoin casinos, but there are less that actually let you gamble in BTC and don’t just convert deposits to fiat currencies. Still, the selection of providers remains roughly similar – and it is Evolution Gaming that comes out on top as the most reliable and professional.

With Evolution, you can play roulette with a live dealer in tonnes of different languages and you can experience their innovative Immersive Roulette or showbiz style spinning wheel game, Dream Catcher.

Some Bitcoin casinos, such as bitcasino.io, even have private tables from Evolution, featuring their own unique branding and offers. Roughly, at Bitcoin casinos, you’ll be able to play: live blackjack, baccarat, roulette, poker & lottery type games – with some sic-bo thrown in too.

Software Providers for BTC Casinos

There are a range of software providers at Bitcoin casinos, ranging from top tier to just above average. Some work smoothly no matter what device you’re on and have the shiniest HD streams. Others… not so much. They all work on desktop though, and are regulated and audited by commissions such as ECOGRA to ensure their legitimacy and fairness.

Evolution Gaming: The biggest fish in the live casino pond, you know you’re getting quality from Evolution Gaming. With literally hundreds of tables to choose from, covering a dozen game varieties, it was only going to be a matter of time before Evolution got in on the Bitcoin game. They also feature the biggest range of international live dealer roulette tables you’ll find anywhere

Ezugi – Not far behind Evolution, Ezugi is another live casino developer that also comes with the goods. They’ve got into the international live dealer market too, with Turkish, Spanish and a few other variants of live dealer blackjack available at bitcoin casinos.

BetGames – Formed in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2012 BetGamesTV is one of the fastest growing live dealer casino game developers, so it’s only right that they also got in on the Bitcoin casino action. With a good selection of dice games as well as baccarat and poker tables and quality, enthusiastic hosts you can’t really go wrong.

Platform Providers for BTC Casinos

Of course, no online casino (bitcoin or otherwise) could exist without the technology powering their websites. In the case of bitcoin casinos, these come in three main forms:

Soft Swiss – The #1 provider, in terms of volume, for Bitcoin casino sites SoftSwiss claims to have helped open 42 online casinos in the past 4 years. That’s a lot of casinos! BitStarz and Mbit are just a couple of bitcoin casinos powered by these guys. They partner with Evolution, NetEnt and Asia Gaming and more to provide one stop casino solutions.

CoinGaming.io – This is the platform BitCasino.io are based off, as well as their partners slots.io and sportsbet.io, all of which allow users to bet, play and spin using bitcoin only transactions. Focusing exclusively on bitcoin gaming sites, they also operate an e-sports betting site, bets.io, which is pretty cool to see!

Proprietary – This is when a casino develops their own software to run their site – the most expensive outlay in the short term but it also makes your product unique! TonyBet is the only casino we have reviewed that does this, to our knowledge, and their site does run smoothly and looks great. So more power to them!

Bitcoin Bonuses & Welcome Packages

Bitcoin casinos can offer much larger bonuses, as without major banks involved – their financial transaction costs are basically zero. Aside from that, their bonuses mostly work in the same way as other online casinos do. We picked out some of the best for you to compare, below:

How Bitcoin Works

Bitcoin was born out of the desire to make a payment system free from third party interference between the people who transact – these third parties are banks or debit card companies. With traditional currencies, banks hold onto an electronic ledger of all their customer’s funds and if you want to move money somewhere else – you (or your bank or debit card supplier) have to contact both banks and get them to update their respective books.

On each end, there is the opportunity for delays and fees; or possibly even corruption, bankruptcy or worse. With Bitcoin, the ledger is shared as a copy between hundreds or thousands of users and is automatically updated when a transaction occurs.

This eliminates the need to go to a bank, government or other third party to make the transfer and ensures it will always remain free (or very close to that). Smart readers may have noticed the problem here – if everyone has their own copy of the ledger, won’t everyone be able to see each other’s details? Well, yes and no. You can see lots of accounts, but no names. All you actually get is a long number – the encrypted key to your bitcoin wallet. This number is also used to generate other key numbers when you make a transaction, to guarantee that it actually came from your wallet.

Obviously this is quite reductive, but if you want to learn more about how it works before you invest (or are just curious) there are plenty of educational videos online you can watch!

Best Places to Buy BTC

There’s a lot of choice out there when it comes to buying Bitcoins. Some of the things you may want to think about before making a choice are security, reputation, locality (some banks will blacklist foreign bitcoin exchanges) and how anonymous you want to be. Three BTC exchanges we looked at were:

• Bit Panda
• LUNO
• CEX.IO

Best Wallets to Store Your Bitcoins

Similarly there are a lot of bitcoin wallets to choose from to. Do you want to use the same company you bought them from, to save time and keep all your info in one place? Again, focus on security, reputation and anonymity. Several bitcoin wallet sites have been hacked in the past, so keep an eye out for top level security features such as triple factor authentication and other technical wizardry. Some reputable bitcoin wallets we found were:

• Blockchain.info
• Trezor
• Greenaddress.it