A major driver for the popularity of online bingo is the improvement in payment options. First came credit cards, so you can use money that you don’t have, then came wallets so you can have money stuffed away just for bingo and useless for anything else.
Now, comes cryptocurrencies which give gamers another dimension for instant deposits and withdrawals and without the IRS or wifey knowing about it. Let’s look more at this new development that could shake up the industry and give it more momentum. It’s been doing pretty well like other online gaming pastimes whilst everyone has been sat at home, with no work, no sport, twiddling their thumbs. But as the world comes out of lockdown will crypto payments be a welcome boost to bingo platforms.
In other news, there is a world-first in Minnesota where bingo players can now play live bingo and real slot games at the same time. At the Treasure Island Casino Resort, they can sit down at a Video King gaming tablet with this latest advancement in non-stop high octane gaming.
Bingo Basics
For the uninitiated, bingo is a simple game that involves buying a card with numbers printed on it. The aim is to try and get a line of numbers or all the numbers on your card. The numbers are called out by a caller or shown on a digital display.
In online bingo games, the numbers are drawn with random generating software to ensure that the numbers are not fixed or favoring the house only. The lines can be vertical, horizontal or in some games diagonal, but the biggest prize is for the player who collects the entire card’s numbers. This is called “House” and gives the player the jackpot prize.
The 2 most played versions of the game are British Bingo with 90 balls and the US version which has only 75 balls. The British always have more balls.
UK Bingo Sites Explained
There is now a large number of UK Bingo sites to choose from – each one connects to a specialist aggregator such as Pragmatic Play or Playtech which are two of the biggest Bingo software providers in the industry. To sign up for an account as a UK citizen, you will need to make sure the site holds a UKGC license, while for most of Europe and countries such as New Zealand and Canada, an MGA or Curacao licensed casino is your best option.
Discovering the best UK bingo sites is down to your personal preference. However, you should make sure you check out hot player reviews, withdrawal and deposit limits offered just in case your bingo spending at online bingo sites exceeds the limit. Some sites even allow you to try out their real money bingo games free with a no deposit bonus!
Crypto Popularity
Cryptos have been hitting the headlines recently because of more widespread adoption. Tesla bought a 1.5b stake of Bitcoin and will start accepting bitcoin as payment for its cars, just like American Airlines or Microsoft accept the currency for purchases on their websites.
With this growing popularity, the price has surged from under 6k USD to over 55k USD in just a few months, driving retail investor speculation and more wallets being generated than ever to hold these coins or “Satoshis”, because 1 Bitcoin at 55k USD is quite expensive to buy. Anyway, with more people holding bitcoin or other coins like Ethereum or the impressively named DogeCoin then, any business accepting payments in this currency can capture some of that growth and spending power.
Cryptocurrency Advantages over Fiat Currencies or Credit Cards
The 2 big advantages over other forms of payment are anonymity and the cost of transfers. To deposit or withdraw Bitcoin can cost just cents instead of dollars or a hefty 5-10% fee for PayPal or credit cards.
The player can stay anonymous because the Bitcoin can be transferred in from a nameless wallet. That just has a series of alpha-numeric digits for the wallet name. No doubt as Bitcoin grows, we will see more widespread adoption of this amongst online bingo platforms.
