Bitcoin Forum

Hello Bitcoin and Gambling enthusiasts!

We at Bojoko had a great interview recently with Heathcliff Farrugia, the CEO of Malta Gaming Authority. The Gambling industry is getting more and more regulated, and we think it's important to realize what kind of change we are going through right now.

Responsible gaming is really the hot word right and we discussed that especially with Heathcliff. MGA is one of the biggest gambling authorities in the world and it was great to speak with him about the new gaming act, player protection as well as blockchain in gambling. Heathcliff mentioned that there are operators who are looking to implement blockchain technology more into their businesses.

Blockchain technology (and bitcoin) will definitely have a more permanent role in this industry, we firmly believe that.


You can read the whole interview here: https://bojoko.com/stories/interview-mga-ceo-heathcliff-farrugia/ (https://bojoko.com/stories/interview-mga-ceo-heathcliff-farrugia/)

Please move this here Gambling discussion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=228.0).

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Its only fair to regular the online gambling industry just like in a real casino. I just hope that MGA doesn't have a strict policy over online casino which players might think that is too strict for them.

Nice interview section. I like the aspect of the block chain technology being incorporated fully into gambling. This will give gamblers the confidence that the outcomes of their bets is not manually handled.

It is always better to use the report to moderator feature instead of asking the OP to move the topic. I have reported it few hours ago but seems moderator was not around.

It's a great piece of interview! It's amazing to know small countries like Malta, Macau, Gibraltar etc. Are doing well in gaming business. But Malta needs special mention because they are the front runner in both gaming as well as crypto adoption.

I like the piece when the CEO of GMA saying,

I believe it will help to increase the credibility of the online casinos which is really the need of the hour. A lot of crypto casinos are unlicensed and have no regulation to govern their activities. It's great that GMA is focusing on the players as well!

Can the blockchain ever be regulated or the activities that run within the blockchain, the gambling industry is one of the growing sector in the blockchain just like mining and exchanges, with regulations comes confidence because the players need some form of promises and trust in the system not to fail. Nice interview but will like to have the link to the documented commentaries and answers from the interview.

The most interesting part of the whole thing is; regulations in the gambling industry will ensure players right are preserve and interest. Although the Blockchain cannot be regulated but which run on the blockchain does, like the games on the blockchain.

I think, regulating the gambling industry in blockchain would gain trust from online gamblers. Through it, we can say that there would be less scammers and security on online sites would updgraded.

Ofcourse bitcoin has changed the way gambling is done and i really like the word "Responsible gaming" .  Bitcoin and crypto will keep on changing the gambling industry and the next step should be to implement decentralized gambling.

Great interview. It's also great that people are starting to regulate online gambling because it is alarming how people who knows how to create games sometimes take this advantage to take away people's money. With gambling being regulated, online-casino players will feel more secured because they know that it is legitimate. Good to know they are starting to regulate something related to block chain.

".....overall it is still early to assess the impact of this technology on the gaming industry."

Mind enlightened us or just give a quick definition what's behind with these statement?

Thank you.

This might be an eye opener, if the gambling industry are looking forward adopting this system, it only means that the network will be grow much higher, blockchain can be a good help for payment process, if the gambling business owners foreseen the success catering this new currency it will surely benefits both sides, though it's too early to conclude we still needs to wait for the final assessment.

It's an interesting website you got there, people sharing their views on gambling from different perspectives. I went through the interview. It's cool that it is now possible to challenge the decision not to give a license by talking to an independent structure. As for other things, they are rather general. And in the interview, the head of the authority right after the words the op quotes says that it's too early to evaluate the impact of Blockchain on the industry which imo is an unfair thing to say, because gambling changed a lot.

Nice interview with the CEO named Heathcliff, he has the name of the SAO creator in anime. And your site bojoko is a great source of gambling stories although I don't know if those casinos included on your site is accepting bitcoin.

Regulations is good but I don't know how this will be merge with blockchain technology since blockchain is a decentralized system and the regulations by governments agencies is not needed.  I think we are too early on this and the future will tell if people will build trust on a decentralized gambling system.

Thanks r1a2y3m4, we appreciate it. Our goal has been to make a community type of website where people can share their online casino stories, write reviews and help others to make better choises choosing a new online casino.

We are currently listing only licensed online casinos, because of the regulation side of things in this business (in UK especially). But licensed online casinos also do accept bitcoins as a currency. We have listed licensed bitcoin casinos here: https://bojoko.com/casino/bitcoin/ (https://bojoko.com/casino/bitcoin/)

Hi harizen,

We believe that Heathcliff means the same that many here have already mentioned.

It is still very early stages for blockchain technology being used in online casinos. The fact is that there are not many bitcoin casinos who can offer a clearly better solution for online casino games than the conventional ones are right now.

There is definitely some pros for blockchain technology in this industry but some cons as well. Farrugia mentioned his concerns about smart contracts. Those contracts need to be ensured they are ”waterproof” absolutely everywhere. Any bug in the code can lead to payments going to wrong addresses or wrong accounts. So this is one challenge we are still facing.

The conventional market is also evolving and getting better. Blockchain technology is actually a competitor for other technologies in this industry. Blockchain technology offers some great solutions but more traditional ways are also improving and the threshold for existing casino and gambling operators to change their technologies must be quite high at the moment still.

Aside from that also, staffs in this gambling industry will lie low in pocketing money, if there's any because of the transparency of transactions. Hopefully, there is a way to track all those money that got in with the utilization of blockchain technology. If not, at least we are seeing the approximate numbers involved.

That would be for the sake of every gamblers, regulations can attarct more players though.
Malta is such a great place for cryptocurrency, they’ve already produced many successful project and this interview shows their support for cryptocurrency. That gaming authority will play a big role soon.

Maybe regulations will be good for the gambling industry, but we should remember that in online gambling, there are so many gambling websites that need to regulate and many of them are not registered in one country. Maybe that will be easy to collect the online gambling domain and then send an email to the owner related to the regulations but to the other online gambling website, that will not easy. Maybe in the future, we can do this. There are many things that we need to prepare before it could work in all of the gambling websites and with the regulations, it will help the user to prevent from the scammers that searching the next target.

Well they can use the block chain technology but not the concept of using cryptocurrency or any decentralized currency. This because if they want to regulate gaming industry then they should a fix and not a highly volatile digital money. Thus, fiat money is needed in this particular.

But, I suggest to create an ICO and then see how you can make a decentralized game for yourself and let other enjoy it while you in behalf also earn from them through your gaming activity.