How Can Online Casinos Benefit from Blockchain?

Online casinos have always been ahead of the curve when it comes to new technology. This is because of the many risks associated with gambling and gaming activities. These risks include, but are not limited to, the security of gambling platforms, player fraud, outdated technology platforms, as well as legal and regulatory issues, to name a few. Legacy systems have similar problems. It’s obvious when providing access to central databases on a mass scale. But blockchain technology has proven to avoid most of these problems. It has to do with the technology itself. The existence of a distributed ledger accessible by participants within the blockchain system and based on cryptographic hashing has proven to be a plus for anyone who wants to take advantage of the technology. To get a full understanding of this, one would need to get under the hood and learn how online casinos actually work. 

How do Online Casinos Work?

Many things happen at the same time on a single online casino platform. These operations span from the operation of the games to the financial issues that players may experience. The features of any typical casino platform revolve around its core software. Backing software operations are human operations. Like an umbrella, the best casinos look toward the regulation to build trust between themselves and their players. In a nutshell, it forms the nucleus of a casino’s operations. 

All About Casino Software Systems

Some casino software systems (the amount of bitcoin casinos is increasing more and more) operate on a server-client model. In this model, the casino operators link up to software services that deliver output from players' actions based on the gaming client. On the casino services platform, the algorithms of operation and all the gaming code then run and deliver the results of gameplay in the fastest time possible. In simple terms, depending on the mode of play, (mobile, web, or desktop), the software providers give an output that determines the player's winnings. But there are flaws with this model. The link between the casino platform and the service provider could get severed. Data during gameplay often gets lost, and scenarios of lost bets then follow. On the other hand, there are also security issues. Player accounts could get hacked as security is often lax in regard to the player interface. 

Self-Hosted Casino Solutions Provided Better Implementations

Because of the many problems that client-server solutions have, self-hosted casino solutions provided better implementations. In this scenario, everything having to do with the gaming platform gets hosted by the online casino. It has helped in many ways. The casino could now function independently. It is without the need for reliance on an outside server. The major problem that this presented was that self-hosted options have higher levels of complexity. Self-hosted platforms are more technical and require a fully operational technical support unit. It also requires a certain degree of tech-savvy on part of the casino owners. Another problem is that the self-hosted technology presented with it a propensity for fraud by the tech support staff. Blockchain technology, on the other hand, solves more problems than the other two methods. 

Regulation of Regular Online Blockchain Models has had its Problems 

When it comes to casino operations, the regulation of your average online casino comes with many problems. From the various laws that regulate or outrightly ban online casinos to the offshore implementations, it is safe to say that online gambling has faced many difficulties in regard to regulations. Blockchain gambling regulations, on the other hand, have presented several advantages over regular online gambling activities. Since knowledge about the blockchain space is uniform across the globe, it has become easy to create uniform laws that work for just about every blockchain casino. 

Blockchain Technology Reduces Human Interference in Casino Operations

Before the advent of blockchain technology, online casinos have relied on human interfaces to run several operations. Since blockchain technology projects run primarily on distributed ledgers, their operations have reduced the need for human intervention in casino operations. It is one reason why many online casinos now prefer cryptocurrencies for their financial flows. In other instances, there is no need for human intervention in casino games as fully-fledged blockchain games run on an almost automated basis. 

Understanding the Digitization of Casinos

Back in the day, casino operations and gambling were mostly a traditional conservative affair. People came to casinos, did their thing, and went home. The rise of the Internet was a disruption that changed just about every industry on the globe. The Internet worked so well that there was the rise of new technologies that allowed people to gamble from the comfort of their own homes. This then led many governments to believe that they had lost control of an important sector. So, laws such as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 and others like it came into being. Then Satoshi Nakamoto did his thing with the release of his white paper. Several years later, a user named Fireduck on the Bitcointalk forum invented Satoshi Dice. Satoshi Dice is the world's first fully blockchain-based gambling platform. Things took off, and other online casinos realized the power of blockchain casinos. Today, a significant number of online casinos implement blockchains in one way or another.  We have those that interact with cryptocurrencies for their operations. We also have those that run off their blockchains. Casino operations are becoming highly automated. It has reduced many casino's margins of error while improving their profits. Soon, casino operations will become fully automated affairs without the need for human intervention. 

Blockchain Technology Offers Several Benefits to Casino Owners

There are many benefits that blockchain technology offers to casino owners. The first of them is security. Casinos that use blockchain technology realize that blockchains are quite secure. The fact that they work with one form of cryptographic technology or the other has something to do with this. Distributed ledgers use some of the most advanced forms of security available. As a result of this, many gambling platforms now offer cryptocurrencies as their only forms of deposits and withdrawals. Another feature is that blockchains are transparent. The use of distributed ledgers has allowed for the kind of transparency that wasn't present before in the gambling industry. This transparency has also created a safe environment for players. Now, players can track the movement of funds without the need for the usual bureaucratic red tape that followed such activities. They can also check if casinos are provably fair by analyzing the cryptocurrency flows across blockchains. The new blockchain-based games give out the maximum of the cryptocurrency flows and take a fee. It, of course, has increased their popularity and is a model that many blockchain-based games will perhaps copy in the future. 

Blockchains have Global Implementations

Blockchains also can be deployed regardless of location. This characteristic has allowed for many casino operators to create platforms that reach global audiences. It has increased the profit margins of many casinos as well. Rather than focus on a single market, casino operators can now focus on several markets without the need for expanding their. Blockchain’s global implementations have also allowed for privacy, as many players like to keep their identities private. Casinos use blockchains and their cryptocurrency tokens to achieve a certain level of pseudonymity for such people. As a result, these individuals can enjoy their gambling activities with some level of comfort. 

How Blockchain Casinos Handle Bets and Payments

Cryptocurrencies have proven to be the most popular best use-cas scenario for blockchain technology. Cryptocurrencies are a new way of transacting business globally. Based on this fact, online casinos have chosen to work with the public blockchains that use fungible cryptocurrency tokens. These tokens have served as a means of exchange. The great thing about public blockchains is that their communities are bound by certain ideals. They form the core believers and adopters of blockchain technology. They have been able to, for the most part, create most of the innovations that drive the blockchain space. Their open-source ideology creates another layer of transparency. When everyone knows what kind of code exists on the blockchain, it is easy to spot problems that can then be easily patched. It also makes the code easy to audit for security reasons. Auditing such activities occurs continuously. In terms of betting, most blockchain casino operations have been able to use decentralized applications as a starting point for betting on blockchains. The dApp interacts with data coming in from the data oracles. Data oracles provide real-time data for action on blockchains.The reason for this is that the data on blockchains is immutable. Once players interact with these dApps, they make betting choices based on information coming in from the oracles.  Bets are entered and when the scenarios have played out, winnings are calculated and allocated (if any). In other implementations, blockchain technology verifies whether the bookie is provably fair. In this case, code within the casino’s ecosystem provides real-time information on the accuracy of winnings and the percentage payouts. 

In yet another scenario, odds are determined by information from oracles and given to the player to enter bets based on odds improvement. In all these cases, most of the work is performed by the code and not by humans. Humans get to make the choices and they either win or lose based on these choices. 

Casinos Will Fully Integrate Blockchain Usage in their Applications and Operations 

Within the next decade, new use-case scenarios for blockchain technology in the gambling industry shall occur. These scenarios shall also be new forms of implementation for blockchain technology. As these scenarios thrive, the mass adoption of various forms of blockchain technology shall then ensue. It is this mass adoption that will catch the eye of many online casino operators. It is also what will give them the incentive to move all of their operations to blockchains.