Bitcoin Forum

That's according to this news report https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-soccer-asia-corruption/soccer-asia-sees-sharp-decline-in-match-fixing-says-afc-idUKKBN2080EN

After linking bitcoin and other crypto with money laundering and online crimes, here comes another issue  :D


It doesn't sound good that crypto is being used by illegal gamblers but it is just a medium of exchange that any individual can spend like fiats. I guess they found crypto, being borderless and censorship resistant currency, more practical to use for gambling.

Crypto is of course being used for a lot of criminal activities and illegal gambling and match fixing is one of them due to the reasons you mentioned. Kidnappers, Hackers etc. often ask for Bitcoin as ransom. But fiat has been used for that as well in the past. And knives have been used for not only cutting your bread, but also to murder people.

People will always misuse good meant inventions for bad things. It's something we have to accept as part of the game of life in general.

What would you expect? They would really post up issues into things as long they do saw that it do increase criminality rate or transactions without even
thinking up that this had been done on fiat since in the beginning.You cant stop people not to use up crypto yet we know that its one of its main features
is anonymity or untraceable.Well, this is just an another negative news or image for Crypto once again.

Bitcoin has certainly increased the levels of match-fixing and online betting in Asian countries because there are countries like India for instance where gambling is actually banned, (Indian laws allow skill betting but not luck based gambling) people on such countries are overjoyed by the introduction of bitcoins not because they don't have to pay taxes on bitcoins but also because bitcoin gambling casinos do not ask for any sort of ID proofs or anything and that gives such gamblers a huge advantage and when there is more betting there will obviously be more match fixing and such incidents.

Match fixing is more common because Asian countries struggle to make money and so the players from their country and hence a soft target for big gamblers.

I am not surprised that cryptocurrency are used in criminal activities. Cryptocurrency are rival to local services in my opinion because no one will use theif services and would only use cryptocurrency services to send or make transactions. We all know that there is a service where you can use to send money but it is under management goverment unlike cryptocurrency which you don't have to go through verification and other stuff.

Well what do you expect? Cryptocurrency has allowed the gates of illegal gambling to open since it offers anonymity for those who wish to use it. Underground economies will always exist no matter how hard the governments impose the bans on certain facets of the economy.

At this point in time, people should accept the fact that bitcoin will always have its two sides: the one that the government hates and the one that the masses acknowledge. Most countries in Asia prohibit online gambling and want their citizens to just go to their accredited gambling houses instead. People patronizing online gambling over traditional gambling houses hurts the economy. Then again, we know that online gambling offers far more flexible, enjoyable and winnable games compared to what your local casino offers.

The subject didn't really point out that because of crypto, illegal gambling increases "in general". If we will understand the context and since there is no such thing as hard regulation in crypto gambling, betting in crypto is easy as 1,2,3 and everyone can bet without KYC or verification unlike regulated fiat-gambling, it opens opportunities to other people leaving in an area to gamble even gambling activity there was illegal. Plus there are crypto-gambling sites that operate without a license.

Illegal gamblers on the article literally not doing illegal things like taking drugs, kidnapping or any forms of the usual "illegal" activity we have known. They just became illegal because they are doing gambling under a country or areas where gambling is prohibited. If we bring these illegal gamblers into a gambling-free country,  they will not be called that way obviously.

Actually the subject is pointing out that fixed-matches in Soccer Asia now decline over the past 6 years on which more information can be found by reading the article shared by OP.

It is a no brainer for someone who wanted to stay anonymous to use a method that will keep them unknown.  And ever since the history of cryptocurrency, it always had been used in illegal trades and transactions.  But they should not blame cryptocurrency for it because as OP stated, it is just a medium of exchange same as fiat currency.

As of the increase of illegal gambling, I do not think that the existence of crypto has a major role in that. And the article stated that there is actually a sharp decline in these illegal activities even with this crypto option as means of transaction.  

Yes you are right like hackers now a days use it for ransomware hacks. But on a flip-side, when bitcoins did not existed it's not that there were no crimes and we were living in the golden age. I mean hackers and gamblers will always find a too for their gambling for instance there was Liberty reserve earlier which was almost serving the purpose of bitcoins and now there is Perfectmoney but LR and PM both being controlled by some organizations will always have their limitations though.

What I mean to say is that we will always have a tool that people will use for gambler and other activities and I personally see no problem if someone earns money and gambles it, it's their money and hey should have the power to spend it.

That is a very common thing since Bitcoin is anonymous, that is the reason why we could not blame every law that had been implemented of each country has. Governments are always chasing on those gambling companies that not registered and licensed to operate. This is the fact that Bitcoin might be used in such illegal activities. In this case, not only gambling is prone to illegal activities or even money laundering. Bitcoin mixers services or also known as tumblers are prone to criminal activities. This is what crypto works, as a users, we have our own responsibilities to use into the good stuff.

That's true with every advantage will come a dis-advantage because bitcoins being controlled by people means that it's people who decide which purpose bitcoins will be used for.

Not really, if countries can restrict access to such websites maybe that will reduce the gambling to at least some number but I know most of the people who are into gambling and crypto will already know about VPNs and other stuff so it's almost impossible to stop such things like you rightly mentioned, part of the life.

That last paragraph was more headed towards the fact, that you can't stop selling knives for example, just because people misuse them for murdering other people. There is a lot of things that are misused for bad purposes and not for the usecase it was intended to. Even cars are used as weapons nowadays sadly. This is also the point Kim Dotcom used to defend Megaupload and I think he is right in arguing like that. He just provided a platform, where users could easily exchange big amounts of data, that couldn't be sent via email for example. People then misused his platform to share all kind of copyright stuff like music, videos, whatever. I don't think he was sad about it, because it brought him shitloads of money, but it (probably ;D) wasn't his intention. 

So just because crypto is used for illegal gambling activities, doesn't make crypto a bad thing per se. Restricting access to certain websites is never a good thing imo, you are just opening Pandoras box with it, because where is the boundary ?!

Crypto being used in illegal activities is not really highlighted in the article. It just mentioned once which is obvious that crypto-gambling is not that strict and govern by any regulations.

The article didn't really mean that crypto is most used in illegal activities, there is no statement for that. It just that it was seen contributing to the advantages of those people who want to do illegal gambling since they playing anonymously here.

Don't take this issue as a big deal. The point here of the article is, game-fixing activities minimizes this past year which is a good sign of a healthy sports.

What a surprise! Honestly, the crypto community has gotten used to this sort of news on a regular basis op. Negative propaganda against crypto is not a new thing since majority of the news regarding cryptocurrencies is negative propaganda.

We have learnt to dismiss this sort of news over time since we believe the positive aspects of cryptocurrencies outweigh its disadvantages. This is the primary reason why Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies have survived for so long and will continue surviving for a long period of time.

Lets not kid ourselves here. Illegal gambling has been around far longer than Bitcoin. Bitcoin is just one small part of a problem that has far more deeper roots than that. it's not like match fixing was invented following the release of the Bitcoin Whitepaper.
But Bitcoin has already gotten used to being a scapegoat so that is nothing new.

its because gambling in asia is already popular and it became more popular because of the release of crypto    . football games or sports game is also becoming popular and many illegal sites pop up lately   . ilegal because these sites dont have licenses or permit to operate  . after the release of crypto  , many people then relate it to crimes and bad doings   .  its too obvious that those people only want to damage the reputation of cryptocurrencies but for the avid users of crypto we know the real truth   .

just like other illegal Bookies worldwide,these people are always looking for place to earn easy way and that is why those latest Gambling that can be uses by Crypto is the best place they know.
and expect more of this kind when other games come in future.
exactly but the thing here is even what kind of gambling are we talking still they can copy the games to have illegal counterpart and in this they are experts.

That's true, gambling become more popular when crypto become part of it but it doesn't mean it is the reason why illegal gambling increase. It is still depend to the users because they used crypto to do illegal transaction or gambling. The users of crypto should be the one who blame because crypto is just a tool but the user still do bad thing by using o crypto.

They say partly now because the numbers aren't concerning for them yet but when these organized illegal gambling groups are able to gain numbers again, they will probably blame it all on cryptocurrencies.

You mean the illegal gamblers? Nah, they wouldn't really care if the reputation of crypto is damaged or not because of their involvement. All they want is the money they can get.

Cryptocurrency had become a safe haven for illegal activities. It is not actually shocking that illegal gambling will use crypto in their activities since it offers anonymity. It is just sad that Satoshi dis not intend for crypto to be used to that extent.

It's probably thesame way sites or online things that are banned in other countries are accessible in other countries.
I guess the best way to handle this problem is to ask the sites to censor or block people  from the countries where those things are illegal. But what if they use VPN? Harder censorship? Too much of such censorship not a good idea in my opinion. It could be abused eventually.

I the problem could be handled better on Blockchain/decentralized systems. Too dangerous on centralized systems or societies.

This calls for a legalization of crypto then, if the government won't act on legalizing crypto, it will continue to be use for activities like gambling.
With that nice, I think it's a positive news for the crypto market because more and more people are using crypto to gamble, and me personally being a gambler I am more comfortable using crypto than a wire transfer where my information is being shown to the interested party.

It is not the cryptocurrency that is the safe haven of illegal activities, it is the gamling sites that uses cryptocurrency in a negative way that makes its reputation go the other way around instead of gaining positive trust from the people.

In terms of running a gambling games, gambling industry should have their own standards that will check, whether a particular gambling site is adhering the their protocols to ensure that transactions and games are legal, and will not induce people to tolerate the use of it without adhering to the rules.

Yep, crypto, especially Bitcoin, is neutral money, and you can do good things or bad things with it. It's up to the users what they will do with their money. It's not someone else's business.

However, for the so-called "privacy coin," that's entirely different because it has a built-in tumbler to anonymize its transactions; in other words, it's no longer neutral. This situation is terrible because governments now have reasons to crack down the crypto industry.

Anyway, CMIIW, they could still play sports betting legally on licensed sites, such as bet365. https://onlinebettingcodes.co.uk/bet365-legal-countries/

I hope they will accept Bitcoin payment directly (without Neteller).

And also there is another accusation that gambling sites were used to mix stolen bitcoins and launder it into safe money when they move to their wallet but at the end if they are using a service to bet they will get caught at some point just like what happen with banking transactions.And if someone using cryptos they can never erase the trace of their transaction this could be seen as an advantage to identify who is abusing the payment.

I am not sure about that, but yes, cryptocurrency helps people to play gambling without their government knows their activity in the gambling games. People can hide their identity, and that can increase the number of people playing gambling. But I don't think that people only use crypto for playing gambling because many people use crypto for good things. Sometimes they only say or expose something bad that is happening around them, but they don't say the good thing that already happens in society. So people will think that crypto is only for illegal things, but crypto is more than that.

Yes, it could be that some bad actors are taking advantage of crypto and used it as a tool for illegal gambling. But it doesn't mean that crypto per se is bad.

I wouldn't list the positive benefits of it, but as crypto enthusiast, we already know it. Sooner or later though, this criminals will be caught by authorities. And btw, fiat system has been abused and used by illegal criminals or bookies as well.

Convenience for use in illegal activities is a fundamental property of cryptocurrency (because in the crypto there is no division into legality and illegality). Therefore, in such news there is nothing surprising. The bad news is that under this pretext, governments can begin to destroy the cryptocurrency industry. Tight regulation I also call destruction, as this contradicts the basic crypto principles.

I tend to disagree into the point that sooner or later they would be caught.Using up crypto is the best recipe on doing illegal acts due to anonymity which is really hardly to be traced.

These kind of news arent already surprising if were to say yet weve been slapped for a thousand times on negative news that do only emphasize cryptos negative usage.

Why they cant post up illegal thing while using fiat? ???

I think that crypto is not the main reason because I know illegal gambling activity,match fixing and other related illegal activities has been happening in Asia since the early 2000 or may be earlier.I don’t know if you guys remember sbobet.com that was the biggest global gambling portal in the 2000 and up to 2010.They accepted huge amounted bets for low divisions like 8th or 9th in Norway,Denmark and Sweden and people who placed those bets strangely lost them even if they were convinced of having valid info that the match was fixed.Probably the people running sbobet fixed for themselves.This has been going on at those times and I think it still does in some other illegal forms.

From the time of creation Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are blamed for money laundering.
We cannot say that it is not used for that, it is a real case. However, only the opponents are going to keep this as a feature of Bitcoin and neglect all the other positivities that stem from cryptos.

The funny thing is: switch "Bitcoin" wirh "Dollar" and your statement is still valid. Bitcoin has a real value in Dollars, so it is no surprise that it is misused as a way to launder money, pay drugs and so forth, but so is almost ANY currency out there.

Regarding the topic:
Illegal gambling and sports manipulation is as old as competitive sport is and has nothing to do with Bitcoin. Of course it is used for such manipulations, too, but as said, almost any currency is. 

in spite of anything still Crypto will be remain whether it used it in illegal or not, also not only Crypto can used for illegal gambling because most of the time they used fiat, they only used crypto when they know its really forbidden by law to not discover by investigation. Even crypto is the reason why illegal gambling is increase still there's a lot thing about that why many people are interested to it.

But that's not what the topic is all about.

The topic is pointing out that illegal gambling partly increased since everyone can gamble with cryptocurrencies and people will get away from the countries regulation and law about gambling.

They have a point as people can gamble even in a country where gambling is declared illegal with the use of crypto. These gamblers have the freedom to gamble whenever they want.


Read and understand fully the article mate lol.

Don't fall for the headlines and do your own research. It has been pointed out so many times, even by both sides of the regulation that so little of Bitcoin and crypto activity is related to illegal activity.

Banks and fiat currencies and other jurisdictions are safe havens. Not crypto.

This isn't a new one, it is the same scheme has been here since day one. Most of them are created by Chinese nationals. It's just that its really easier to make transactions with cryptocurrencies.

Illegal gambling is really one of the reasons why the governments are noticing the crypto-space already. I hate it when I see these kinds of news on my screen. But we cannot do anything about it but to avoid joining the same schemes, that basically it.

The day will come and the Bitcoin will be fully regulated by the government(ain't know when its gonna happen or never be happen). The sense of Bitcoin gambling will die then.

It's been used as we knew about it, but it's already evolving and many investors and establishments who also seen the benefits of this industry. We should look for the good side and not being stuck with the bad things that being broadcasted around the news. Look for the best side and aim to earned from this market.

It is pretty obvious that there are really illegal gambling in any games especially with sports and even Esports, there are so many illegal gambling that is happening but the thing is they are using cryptocurrency especially bitcoin in their gambling or making transactions because they already know that it is really easy to make a dealing transactions through the use of cryptocurrency so many gamblers and illegal gamblers are doing it. I hate to admit it but it is true about what you have been said about the government is noticing cryptocurrency because of the reason that a lot of illegal gambling is rising because of this so called cryptocurrency.

I don’t understand why you argue with him. The fact is that cryptocurrencies have the properties of fiat money (anonymity), but they can be exchanged online. This makes them very convenient for criminal activities. The fact that other types of money are also involved in crime activities does not cancel this fact.

Ever notice the news about statistics of illicit activities tied up with crypto doesn't follow up with updates regarding to arrests and seizure of operations? It really makes me wonder how the hell they even generate this data in the first place if you won't see any kind of action taking place after they provided it. I know Reuters is a reputable website to get some news in but what they provided is some kind of skit where it lacks informatio, they didn't even provide how Transparency International has come up with those numbers in the first place they simply just cut it off with the number without further explanations. Illegal gambling has existed for years now and suddenly this becomes a concern when cryptocurrencies are involved?

easy man . many have claimed that this news is not legit  . not only this but other negative news related to crypto are prolly the same  . these guys prolly dont know if what is crypto and they are only linking it to many bad activities they can think of  . on asia , china is popular for illegal gambling operations like for example here on our country many chinese here owned and operate illegal gambling business without permit but not totally realted to sports  and crypto 

Some groupd of rival gambling made a lot of trolls on fake news, so right now we must seek fact checking before considering those news becomes believable. Illegal gambling is rampant we don't have a proper confirmation yet that those are related to sports actually, through some per to per arrangements making their own bet but it's really beyond control because it's usually happening particular with football fanatics.

Not sure according to the article if those Asian countries are actually happy and glad that because of crypto currencies, match fixing on sports have reduced steeply and are grateful to crypto currencies or they are really frustrated and annoyed by crypto currencies due to "illegal gambling" activities. Really sad that they are blaming it all on crypto currencies. But yeah, its somewhat true that crypto currencies have made things like these easier to commit, but this doesn't means that crypto currencies are all bad and we should stop using them. Even before crypto currencies existed, people used to commit illegal activities with fiat currencies, but we are still using it!

No wonder why many people are having doubts on engaging into using cryptocurrencies because of this kind of people that uses cryptocurrencies for illegal activities and criminalities. Instead of using it for more useful ways for good adaptation, some people are making use of cryptocurrencies borderless features and capacities to provide convenient ways of payment. It just saddens me why people think negative ideas about the usage of cryptocurrencies because of the illegal activities that involves using of cryptocurrencies. But we must not inhibit a wrong generalization about crypto usage that it is just used for illegal purposes because it just depends on the individual on how they are going to use cryptocurrency.

Illegal gambling in Asian Football was a fact way before cryptocurrencies.
Those who are telling that cryptocurrencies are to be blamed for the rise of illegal gambling in Asia, are trying to do a propaganda.
I remember myself 20 years ago where people were trying to bet of Malaysian sportsbooks and gamble on Korean games in order to make some money from illegal betting.

The fact that cryptocurrency is used for some illegal activity only says that it is a good tool, but not that it is a criminal tool. I do not know how true the information in this article is, but in any case it is obvious that this cannot be a claim to cryptocurrency. A good tool is used by both honest citizens and criminals.

I agree both. Even before crypto was born, those illegal activities are already happening. Now, that they have seen a good alternative option, they are just using it but I think they are just making a fuss out of it blaming the presence of crypto with the rise of illegal gambling activities. It just shows that crypto has a lot of applications and can give convenience to a lot of people. Sometimes the media will give the notion that it's crypto to blame with negative things whereas it has been in existence in the industry for so long already.

Nothing new and it would be always like that on where these shitty media will always focus out on negative aspects towards bitcoin or crypto.
They arent telling something negative towards traditional things which is far more worst but we cant really deny on how crypto would be the best place
to continue such act due to anonymity so these kind of things arent really that surprising though.

They are just pointing fingers especially those who are against crypto industry. This propaganda work just as  to  discredit the spread of knowledge about crypto currencies, placing negative things behind will also gives ideas to people that surround the place.
In anyhow, there are people that will continue to seek for real deal behind this industry.