Bitcoin Forum

Currently on a kick trying to find as much St Petersburg FL ESPN BitPay Bitcoin Bowl game stuff.  Anyways what I do have is both the yBitcoin magazines that were created for the event.  This was back in 2014 and man there are some really cool /interesting/funny/lame/laughable things in there...2014 bitcoin wasn't known well at all so this game was a big big deal.  Anyways came across this ad in one of the ybitcoin magazines and figured it'd be worth sharing..

  
Anyone know what RC Robocoin is/was? Anyways the D  Las Vegas claims to be first.  https://www.thed.com/casino/

Can anyone counter on that claim?  


https://i.ibb.co/F0RBh1V/IMG-6454.jpg (https://ibb.co/WPmcHXt)

From this mag - https://i.ibb.co/J3mFL1X/IMG-6440.jpg (https://ibb.co/MBZ5Tvq)

Good news for everyone, this is also the first time I have seen some posts or articles that the first physical hotel casino accepting Bitcoin.

I am curious how it is being done. Will we be only able to use Bitcoin to buy chips and cash out the chips?  I am hoping the spread on buy/sell prices is not that really high and will not hurt you.

Thanks for sharing @ChiBitCTy. It's the first time I heard about this. It's appropriate for both gambling discussions and Bitcoin discussions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_D_Las_Vegas

It came from Wiki so can we say that it's legitimate they are the first casino to accept Bitcoin? And a Bitcoin ATM. Hmmm, I hope they kept that machine because it will now be part of history and I bet it will become a rare item someday (maybe even now) and someone will buy it from them at a high price as a collective item that tells the history of Bitcoin.

That's possible if someone who has been to theD most times saw that Bitcoin ATM. I can't info about that and even in their website, it doesn't say much.

So going there needs booking before someone gets there or this is just another way of admitting guests on them since they're not just a casino, they also are a hotel and have other lodging services.

I hope someone who has been there can share somehow their experience how it went on those early days. I'm pretty sure people from that at that year spent a lot of BTCs for betting.

And these are the prices of bitcoins that year.

https://calendar.bitbo.io/price/2014/

As you can see, Bitcoin wasn’t that popular back then, judging by its price. This hotel casino played a big role in introducing Bitcoin to more people. No wonder Bitcoin gambling became even more popular as time went on. Establishments like these, which supported Bitcoin during its early stages, really helped pave the way for its growth and exposure, so they need to be recognized.

This is the first time for me as well because I have actually heard of hotels that accept bitcoins as means of payment for hotel bills but not hotel physical casinos accepting bitcoin for payment. It is a new innovation and just like other new innovations they always give the innovator an edge over other companies or establishments that have the same business. Maybe owning this physical casino that accepts bitcoin will motivate them to open up an online casino to be able to reach more people and not just people in their hotel to gamble.

Thats quite something an all accepting bitcoin venue. Everything can be transacted in crypto. Wow, pretty sweet deal if you ask me! I have to hand it to Chi he has not given up on his search for the ticket stubs! I hope you find this one day m8, surely its out there in some forgotten drawer and the owner you see probably doesn't even know about them!! At least right now :P

I haven't given much thought to this before but hearing it now I also think that it's a great innovation for hotel casinos to accept Bitcoin. This will help to drive the adoption of Bitcoin, guests that are not into Bitcoin can give a short at it to make deposits and eventually begin to use it for other purposes. Other physical casinos and hotels can also take the initiative from this hotel casino and begin to also accept Bitcoin, it's a win win for the casinos and Bitcoin, the casinos will get more Bitcoin holder customers and hopeful adoption of Bitcoin by none holders.

Anything that pertains about adoption or recognition or integration on any industries out there which is always that a good thing since we are seeing that adaption and recognition is really that on the move.
With these kind of acceptance or application of Bitcoin in terms of payment then pretty much sure that it will really be that mostly be talking about payment terms and  set up on which same as you said that this will really be that talking about Bitcoin to be used on buying chips and able to cash out possibly with Bitcoin directly and other correlated things as well.  Hope that we will really be seeing even more casinos
that will really be accepting Bitcoin specially into those physical places on which at least those gamblers offline will really be able to at least wary about Bitcoins existence at least.

Well, like it's done with normal fiat cash payment, I am guessing it's also the same with Bitcoin payment.

You walk into the Casino to gamble, walk up straight to the cashier to buy chips and opt to pay in bitcoin instead of fiat, they provide you with a bitcoin address to send funds to with the equivalent amount of bitcoin to send depending on what you requested for, you send the bitcoin, the confirm the payment and then release your chips to you, I guess it's this simple.

And when you want to cash out your chip and receive payment in bitcoin as well, you follow the same process but in reverse, that is return the chips, they calculate how much it's worth in total, find out the equivalent amount in bitcoin, you make your address available and the funds will be sent to your bitcoin wallet..

And as for their exchange rate, we never can know until someone walks in there to test this out and return back here with an update, but on the norm, their exchange rate should be the same with the market.

The times require every business to be able to take innovative and smart steps to retain or attract customers, what the casino hotel is doing is certainly one of the right steps given the development and also the enormous popularity of bitcoin today, indeed online casinos are the originator in the application of bitcoin as one the options for gambling choices, but nowadays many traditional hotels and casinos have actually started to open up to bitcoin,  although before we very rarely hear of hotels or casinos that accept bitcoin as payment given the different regulations in each country, because I think if now people are starting can be accept bitcoin as an alternative that can be a solution to many problems that exist in our sector of life, especially finance sector.

You are right and I completely agree wit you, Trump winning the US presidential election have opened alot of doors to bitcoin and increased its popularity, this is why I am of the opinion that we are yet to see the best of bitcoin and the entire crypto market at large, lets actually wait until Trump is sweared in as the president of the United States of America, and him begin to fulfill his campaign promises as regards to making America the headquarter of bitcoin, I trust that alot of business around the would, not just physical casinos alone, will rush to start accepting bitcoin, as a way to attract customers because many people around the world will also be adopting bitcoin as their major payment options for goods and services.

I think the time is near when we as gamblers will no longer be able to spend our cryptos on online casinos alone, I will be very happy to see more and more offline casinos introduce crypto payment into their system, not just bitcoin alone.

I love the headline on the second magazine - yBitcoin - Introducing the Future of Money. These guys were fortune tellers. This is what having visionary leaders is all about.
As at 2013 they started to accept bitcoin, these guys were way ahead of their time leaving now to think of the other bitcoin technologies that they have already started their application in the hotel only to be revealed to the world in the next 15 years. At that time, they will also be recorded to be the first to incorporate it.

The wiki link mentioned that it was handed over to new management in 2012  who started this. I seached to see it I could find a name but didn't. I would like to read more about the new owners. They are bitcoiners is what I can guess.

This was back in 2014 where only a few people knew about Bitcoin, let alone trusted it enough to buy and use it. I thought that Cryptocurrencies being used in gambling came from the emerging market of online casinos but I guess am proven wrong since it seems like physical casino like The D in Las Vegas was able to utilize Bitcoin even before the surge of cryptocurrency.

Hats off to business owners who knew how to keep up with recent developments and trends. This is how you ensure business success and how you keep your customers excited and entertained. Most importantly this for sure has attracted even new customers so that’s really good both for Bitcoin and their Business.

I was curious about that too, but from what I’ve read, they don’t actually accept Bitcoin for gambling. They only take fiat for that. The Bitcoins they accept are strictly for hotel transactions and services, not for placing bets...

Coming across this update on the first time and I bet gamers would be tempted to sign in and play with this hotels game site.

You can imagine having these opportunities to consideration while you are camped or hanged out within the this hotel.

I am just slightly feared that gamblers does not have to feel at home with this attractive and comfortable gambling environs of this D Las Vegas casino because there would be bettors who would get loosed and goes home empty due to the comfortability and offers of this hotels gaming features.

Back then, AFAIK huge establishment still doesn’t use Bitcoin especially a hotel casino. There’s no popular hotel casino back then that accepts Bitcoin since dice game and other basic games are still available and popular for casino that accepts crypto.

So their claim might be possible assuming they really offer this services back then. Even now, Only few physical casino accepts Bitcoin as currency.

So safe to assume that they are accepting bitcoin for their services besides gambling itself. I wonder why they dont accept crypto to pay or change chips in their casino. Based on the title first ever Casino to accept bitcoin seems subtle and probably everyones thinking that they accept bitcoin for gamblimg and not only to transient affairs.

That is a good news for Bitcoin but in the other sides, I just worry because people around that city will thinks that Bitcoin is only for playing gambling. Many people will not trying to research for more that Bitcoin is not only for playing gambling but for the investment and payment system.
The government may checks their citizen who often visit on that casino and trying to for more and will impose tax to them regarding to have Bitcoin.

But we will see what will happen to that if the news spread in more cities. But that news really help the popularity of Bitcoin in that cities so people will use it even if that is for playing gambling ;D

Bitcoin was not really well-recognized back then, that even big time casinos do not give emphasis on bitcoin, but majority are focused on fiat. However, with the information OP has introduced to us, it only means that bitcoin was already recognized as a mode of payment back then. So it’s a big revelation for us that weren’t aware of that, only to realized that this D Las Vegas Casino was probably the first to attract gamblers and other gambling casinos to accept bitcoin in the gambling arena.

Although the news has to do with gambling, in the end it is spreading the popularity of Bitcoin in real life business, so I don't think it will have a negative impact. If some people think that Bitcoin is only for gambling, it is an error and they'll find out sooner or later that this is only a use case, just like with fiat.

Quick lookup and it says they accept Bitcoin payments via BitPay. Seems like just an integration of a popular service that integrates Crypto payments to merchants and businesses. It might've been different before though? I'd assume they were using Paypal at first since it was part of sorts of their advertisements.

Anw I don't think this fits in gambling? Since the place itself doesn't exactly accept crypto for payments in their casinos. Probably much better if its in Bitcoin Discussion or something.

There’s nothing negative about connecting Bitcoin to gambling because the crypto gambling industry has played a big role in making Bitcoin more popular. We’re talking about a billion-dollar industry here.... In fact, we should be thanking the gambling industry as it’s a prime example of real-world adoption. Gamblers are actively using Bitcoin as a currency, not just hoarding it for investment. That’s what true adoption looks like, and it’s helping Bitcoin stay relevant and practical.

Casinos played a major role in the growth of Bitcoin, they were the one of the few places where actually people spend it as money that gave the purpose and confidence to the people it's a money too.

Due to the strict regulations and KYC policies people saw Bitcoin casino as an alternative to satisfy their gambling needs and also it created the ecosystem of Bitcoin monetary system by accepting and paying Bitcoin as rewards that worked perfectly fine and helped Bitcoin to reach more people over the years from the technology niche oriented to real world application.

Wow what a blast from the past. I didn’t know that there are some people who have really put their businesses on the line before when no one is not that into crypto yet. I believe they have probably come along way and have probably made money with accepting crypto just from the price itself.

I don’t have anything to dispute that But does anybody know that it still continues to operate?

Yes they are still operating now, they have a website you can check. -- https://www.thed.com/

And here's what you need to know about them.
https://vegasexperience.com/downtown-insider/15-things-you-have-to-do-at-the-d-las-vegas/

Information about the first hotel casino that accepted Bitcoin is sketchy. But I got this information from a 2014 publication; Las Vegas Hotels Become First Casino Properties To Accept Bitcoin. (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/las-vegas-hotels-become-first-casino-properties-to-accept-bitcoin-241259831.html) For now The D Las Vegas Casino Hotel and Golden Gate Hotel & Casino are the first hotels that first accepted Bitcoin until it is proven otherwise. Derek Stevens and other co-owners of these hotel casinos saw a future that many other operators didn't see.    

This is the first time I'm coming across any of such usually what i know about very well is the online casinos that does accepts Bitcoin, but for land casinos especially hotel casino, I have not really seen any or heard but seeing this now I would go make some more research about it and for now cannot tell or counter the idea already about the actual first hotel casino to accept Bitcoin.

For sure, they are still accepting btc to date especially now that btc is like penetrating the mainstream market. But good to know that a decade ago, they were the first physical establishments to recognize btc as one of the payment methods.
Before, btc was not their payment method inside the casino itself. It was more on the payment in hotels and other related businesses but not with the casino games. Wonder if they are already starting to accept crypto payment inside the casino premises?

In my country, unfortunately, this is not possible.

To start playing in an offline casino in my country, you must first register at the reception. To play, you must present your passport and receive a special casino guest card.

This is due to the fact that the casino performs the duty of a tax agent - from the entire amount of winnings, the offline casino must withhold at the source and transfer to the budget the amount of personal income tax. In my country, taxes can only be collected from cash payments in fiat money. Bitcoins are not an official means of payment (they are classified as property).

But I hope that over time we will come to the point where all offline casinos will accept Bitcoins.

Are you really asking how it will be done in the hotel? It will be a simple method, where you can insert your automated Bitcoin card which will be used for payment in the hotel and accessing the facilities as well. Of course, it will make use of chips and QR codes too.

To be honest, if it was possible i would definitely have attended this even in Petersburg. But am way far from there, in a Cozie place in Africa and still i can't cover my flight.

Getting to know about this for the first time ever and I am baffled at how they choose to accept the use of bitcoin exclusively for the hotel services, their kiosks and shop but restraint from extending that to their casino. What could have been their reasons?

 Or perhaps was it that as at 2014 it wasn't appealing for casino businesses and they just wanted to experiment it in the hotel aspect first!

I don't want to rain on this parade, but looks like that they had accepted a service that third party (robocoin) provides.

And once again, it was going to be automated service where third party is selling your bitcoin for money and keeps the fee from it. Hotel casino never holds the bitcoin, because it doesn't even see the bitcoin. All they see is that they are being paid with fiat money.

It's same way taxable transaction as selling bitcoin, and that wouldn't contribute to the ecosystem in any other way but dumping it. To user it might seem convenient, but in reality, you had these kind of services in few places 2014-2015 but it wasn't ever working like advertised. And these days you can do this via crypto debit cards faster.

I'm not surprised this is happening in US with the high number of casinos in the states. US is a liberal state with freedom to accomodate new innovations. With Donald Trump as the president, I see more of license hotel casino accepting and transaction in Bitcoin.

D and golden gate become the first acclaimed hotel casino accepting Bitcoin speaks of more adoption and growth in the crypto innovation. This will surely push in fresh money into the market and market cap will also increase.

Good to see physical businesses adopting Bitcoin and helping to spread awareness on this matter to different niches of the market. This measure can be effective to introduce Bitcoin to more gamblers who still gamble only through fiat currency. Hopefully Bitcoin is going to gain more enthusiasts, what will also have an impact over Bitcoin price in a near future, as more businesses follow the same tendency of this hotel.

It means these businesses have a commitement with the future of finances and long term goals in mind, so they don't stick only with what is traditional, rather they seek for innovation and originality compared to their competitors.

Maybe they're not accepting bitcoin as a payment method in the physical casino because they would need to create ways for people to pay when they play. I imagine that this brings more operational costs. I haven't seen any physical casino saying that they're accepting bitcoin as a payment method. I only see online casinos accepting bitcoin as a payment method. Because I keep wondering the following, but slot machines take coins for people to play, so how would the casino owners make it so that people can pay with bitcoin and coins on the slot machines at the same time? The only idea that comes to my mind would be for the casino to have chips and people who wanted to pay with bitcoin would pay and convert that amount into chips, and people would insert the chips into the slot machine. The same thing would be done with fiat, where people would compare chips and then insert them into the slot machines to play, and this could be done for all casino games. Unfortunately, the level of adoption of bitcoin as a form of payment is being very slow in my opinion.

Back in the days also there were events like hotdog eating contest and the winner gets BTC and the hosts are popular hotdog houses. We don't see these events anymore but yup The D ad must be true. There is no one claiming it to be real and have participated to confirm though.

Or this could just be the same claim from Argentina where their businesses are accepting Dash coin. Crypto projects in the beginning do have list of merchants accepting it just to spark adoption.

Your question is in order and that is what I also am curious to know. But it looks like the only articles written about this casino -hotel are from ten years ago. There is no new info anyone can find on them in 2024 to settle their curiosity. For example, I am still curious to know if they later extended the bitcoin acceptance to casinos, if they are using lightning network, how it has affected their business.

Now that there are more bitcoin holders and people willing to spend bitcoin than there were in 2014, they would be receiving an influx of customers who are eager to spend their bitcoins. This should prompt someone to further do more research on this hotel and provide us with a second part to this thread. I will do my bit unless someone beats me to it.

There are many things to uncover from the history about bitcoin, i believe this is also one of its kind serving a reminder, the link is there and some could even relate already about it, i found it an amazing experience then, seeing that bitcoin was also recognized in a casino for making payment and the first one to initiate such, this is going to be amazing on so many of us to discover about this for the first time, there's a lot about bitcoin starting form its early days to where we have been to this day, we still hope for more better days ahead with it on the gambling sections.

Apparently it’s a discontinued Bitcoin ATM (https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2016/01/15/former-atm-maker-robocoin-ends-bitcoin-services). They pulled out their services in 2017 after announcing it on 2016 so their customers can withdraw their funds. They seem to have focused more on software services rather than hardware.

It might not be robocoin, but The D still has Bitcoin ATMS, no?

It’s nice that the hotel casino never gave up on bitcoin and instead kept allowing progressive services to be featured in their business.

That's a good initiative. Whether this is going to be successful or not depends upon how good they serve and have the acceptance. In most businesses, having bitcoin acceptance doesn't last long. They just begin to accept bitcoin into the business, and at some point they don't get the desired income and end up accepting bitcoin. Here they're on the right track, and at the beginning itself, they've limited the acceptance in the hotel and gift shop and not in the casino. Also, it looks like they're planning to have their native token, Robocoin, for which initially they're going through Bitcoin.

Oh, no, don't take me wrong. I don't think that there is anything negative about that. Not in countries where it is not forbidden, legally or because of a religion.

I was only answering to the previous post, because it seemed that traderethereum was worried about a potential negative impact of that mental association: