Bitcoin Forum

I no longer reside in the US, but online gambling was a huge issue there when I did. Now with BTC being declared a commodity rather than a currency, what does this mean for online gambling, especially sports betting? Does anyone know what the legal authorities have said about services like Cloudbet?

Bitcoin gambling has been here since the past 4-5 years, and as long as these businesses are not based in US, they haven't had an issue running them.
They have closed some of these businesses down that were based in US. I think satoshi dice had a problem. Also Sealswithclubs had some kind of problem.

What happened with Sealswith clubs ? didn't know they were shut down by the government.

Well they weren't shut down but Micon had a warrant from the gaming commission and had some issues with the cops entering his house . He also posted a statement about it on youtube.  Its still running , with Micon now living out of the country.
EDIT: Here is the video about the situation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaD8ion8iGI

I don't think that the OP is interested in running a gambling site, instead I guess he is more interested in playing there.
Also, yes swc was closed down due to similar issues but they soon started operating again after fixing up things.

@OP, cannot quote a statement regarding the status of gambling, but sports gambling is still illegal in the US, and I don't think it matters whether bitcoin is a commodity/money/token or etc etc.

Well he did ask "Does anyone know what the legal authorities have said about services like Cloudbet?" which I replied to what happened to services like those.
And what the situation is overall.

Bitcoin gambling is not prosecuted right now so you won't have any problems playing anywhere. A lot of americans are betting online with bitcoins and no one cares.

Many americans play at Bitcoin casinos and as long as they didn't used Coinbase as their wallet to send and receive  coins to those sites, they didn't had any problems.

The problem is if someone is running a Bitcoin gambling site from within USA or using servers which come under US regulation, then they're considered illegal because gaming authorities cannot allow UN-licensed casinos, on-line or off-line.

If you are only worried about sports betting, then no, there will never be a problem at all. I think you can also bet on some fiat sites which accept Americans . If you are worried, you can always use TOR as well.

It should be legal in China.

China bans gambling, but many big internet companies have gamble games, like Tencent, it has many poker games, people can play with game-coin, and they can buy or sell game-coin to exchange fiat money. So this kind of gamble is OK in China.

Chinese central bank defines BTC as game money, not a currency, btc gamble should be legal in China.

I'm in Europe, Greece and none of the websites that only accept bitcoin get blocked here. Unllike many other major gambling websites that get blocked automatically by ISPs due to Eu regulations

It depends on goverment where do you live.

I'm live on Indonesia and there's no policy that restrict online gambling yet especially using bitcoin as the bet currency. It means my country is allow betting with bitcoin

really? As far As I know, Indonesia government banned all online gambling which you can check from here

https://www.gambling.com/online-casinos/country-overview/articles/overview-of-online-gambling-in-indonesia



I suppose you are one of them who are exploiting this loopholes, it is hillarious how someone from his country doesnt know rules regarding gambling

Anyway this is not really a problem as there are alot of way to bypass this, as far as I know, you can always use hola to change your IP or rather access the sites from VPN for safety

The government here is regulating the online fiat sportsbooks and one can't gamble on them if they don't have a license but this doesn't pertain to bitcoin. You don't need to change any IP address or use a VPN service. Your access is filtered automatically through your ISP.

Bitcoin casinos can almost never be banned by countries. Since there are too many gambling sites accepting bitcoin ,its hard for governments to have knowledge of each, and since bitcoin is a grey area in many countries, its only considered as play money.

Some countries can definitely enforce a ban by the keyword method, instead of manually blocking all sites. Specially ISP's in the US could possibly bet the famous gambling sites of bitcoin.


I would recommend changing your IP, as they might be monitoring your activity, and its best to avoid any trouble, if your country is not gambling friendly.

I don't think any player would face any legal issues playing at any BTC casino on-line, the simple reason for that is, it's mostly anonymous. There's no KYC requirement to play at any Bitcoin Gambling sites. One would only need to hide his IP if he wants to be too cautious.

And if you're playing from a country where Bitcoin is still in a grey area and it's not considered money than it would be considered as playing online games with play money with no value and therefore it can't be called illegal.

The issue isn't about that no one cares, its about that its still not allowed(even if noone cares), and if they start caring then you can be in a trouble.
Yes, there are a lot of American users but I feel that the gambling websites should at least blacklist the American IPs(it will at least keep the sites safe and more trustable ) however people who gamble wont stop gambling this way.

well, my country also not using bitcoin as currency and its commodity too

but as we know that bitcoin decentralized and we can do anything but the risk is on ourselves..

If you live in a country where unlicensed gambling sites are prohibited you would know that the country ISP's automatically block the websites in question. If they pass a bill to render bitcoin sites unlicensed these will get blocked too. Till then enjoy. Everything else is just chit-chat.

But don't you think that as a responsible website the site needs to blacklist the users who are gambling from a country where gambling is illegal?
Luckybit does it, everyone should follow them.

Some website does indeed banned the IP from specific country, i.e Satoshibet, if you are a resident of US, you cant play in there, as for luckyb.it, It does not really a matter if they did bann specific IP from a country because player can play the game without opening the sites

Still the main point is that it is easy to bypass all of this IP issue, so I dont think this will be a problem if you are playing it safely by connecting with a VPN

Well most UNLICENSED gambling sites here are banned but I can open Luckybit just fine and click on the 'Agree' button just fine and proceed to gamble some coins right away. There is a misunderstanding between licensed and unlicensed online gambling. Because guess what bitcoins don't need a license. For now 8)

It probably isn't banned right now in most parts of the world because Bitcoin is pretty new. BUt eventually if it keeps gaining popularity then it probably will get banned everywhere.

when we using btc in countries where btc was not yet defined as money legally, we have to bear all risks by ourselves because all transaction with btc have not yet have the legal authorities' guarantees from the goverment.. of course for gambling too..
and even in countries where btc was a legally currency, their goverment have not definitely give a legality for gambling..

If you live in a country that is against BTC gambling, you could just use a vpn or tor or something. I live in the US and so far it seems that the government only seems to persecute owners of the gambling sites.

So far no statement about the legal status of people using BTC for gamble. I think it is a big grey area, so far, but no risk if BTC is not illegal where you are.

If you don't want to hear "it is not legal", just dont ask the authorities and be happy with your gambling

My personal opinion is that any law against liberty is a crime against humanity.  It's odd that there are so many states that can get away with having laws against gambling especially when it is not hurting anyone.  Make aggressive crimes  illegal but something like gambling should 'almost' never be illegal. 

The reality is that unless a government has specifically said that it's illegal (as I believe the UK have now), then the legality will only be known for sure once a) someone is prosecuted and convicted, and b) those people who are convicted exhaust all possible means of appealing their conviction. The question is, do you want to risk being the first to go through that ordeal if governments/prosecutors do decide it's illegal under existing laws, and that they're going to come after gamblers (rather than only going after the gambling sites).

As far as Seals With Clubs, wasn't the main guy operating out of Las Vegas? That seems like the worst possible place to be doing something like that and drawing attention to himself - he seems a bit like the Mark Cuban of bitcoin gambling. I'm not surprised he was run out of town...

America is not allowed to online gamble. Does that include Central & South America?
On Cloudbet's website they said their casinos are in South America and in South East asia, so I am guessing that it is allowed there.
I doubt they are in either countries they listed  :P

It's not quite that simple - as far as I'm aware, the laws in the US don't relate to gambling specifically, they relate to transferring money for the purposes of gambling (although they're loosening these laws with respect to online gambling within your own state, which is why we've recently seen a number of states allowing it and awarding licenses to Pokerstars etc.). As long as bitcoin is not classed as a currency, then it's not black and white as to whether gambling with bitcoin is legal or illegal. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if some agency there decides to it is illegal in which case the high-profile sites like Cloudbet, Primedice, Nitrogen, etc. would likely be the ones in the firing line (assuming the government has a way to get to them).

Whether bitcoin is considered as money or as a commodity doesn't matter. Look what is happening right now with gambling websites and USA residents.

Gambling is a very risky topic to begin with. Doesn't matter what happens with bitcoin in a legal aspect.

in the USA, bitcoin gambling is a gray area; PD has cut off USA players to cover themselves in the case bitcoin gambling, specifically, becomes illegal in the US. many casinos still do allow betters from the states to play though.