Your all-new, full custom Bitcoin casino is here ;)

[ssaCEO]

I'm proud to announce that StrikeSapphire.com has become the first full-featured casino to support the Bitcoin currency and community! Our private-membership, one of a kind casino & poker room is now processing deposits and near-instant withdrawals in BTC.

VERY IMPORTANT: We can't accept players in the United States, France or Italy. I wish we could, but we're a responsible club and bound by law. We verify all members' nation of residence prior to their first deposit, and we are limiting signups to 50 new depositors per month.

Once you're a member, you can deposit Bitcoin instantly on the site. BTC is converted to USD in your Sapphire account at the live Tradehill buy rate. We normally process withdrawals within the hour, converted back to BTC at the Tradehill sell rate that was live at the time you requested the withdrawal.

StrikeSapphire SA has developed our very own, very original software. It's all multi-player, multi-table, and plays directly in any browser on Windows, Mac and Linux. We feature a lot of original games, self-structured odds, and a beautiful interface that lets you play six tables at a time in a single window. We're a software company incorporated in Costa Rica. Bitcoin is our club's first deposit method, and our player's club will remain private. We're primarily committed to continued game development and licensing our platform to full-scale operators.

StrikeSapphire offers our players a unique club experience with extended play time for your Coin. We think of our club as an off-strip Vegas casino for locals in the know. Many of our original games allow combinations with RTP exceeding 97.5%, and we maintain low stakes for longer play -- as low as 1¢-$5 Roulette, 10¢-$5 Blackjack, and 10¢-$1 Craps... all multiplayer and also available in private rooms.

StrikeSapphire is committed to extreme transparency, and publishes the results of real money hands, spins and rolls on our Transparency page, linked at the bottom of our site. Please enjoy our games responsibly, and we look forward to being your hosts.

Josh Strike
Founder/CEO
StrikeSapphire SA
https://strikesapphire.com
help@strikesapphire.com

[Chick]

I'm proud to announce that StrikeSapphire.com has become the first full-featured casino to support the Bitcoin currency and community! Our private-membership, one of a kind casino & poker room is now processing deposits and near-instant withdrawals in BTC.

VERY IMPORTANT: We can't accept players in the United States, France or Italy. I wish we could, but we're a responsible club and bound by law. We verify all members' nation of residence prior to their first deposit, and we are limiting signups to 50 new depositors per month.

Once you're a member, you can deposit Bitcoin instantly on the site. BTC is converted to USD in your Sapphire account at the live Tradehill buy rate. We normally process withdrawals within the hour, converted back to BTC at the Tradehill sell rate that was live at the time you requested the withdrawal.

StrikeSapphire SA has developed our very own, very original software. It's all multi-player, multi-table, and plays directly in any browser on Windows, Mac and Linux. We feature a lot of original games, self-structured odds, and a beautiful interface that lets you play six tables at a time in a single window. We're a software company incorporated in Costa Rica. Bitcoin is our club's first deposit method, and our player's club will remain private. We're primarily committed to continued game development and licensing our platform to full-scale operators.

StrikeSapphire offers our players a unique club experience with extended play time for your Coin. We think of our club as an off-strip Vegas casino for locals in the know. Many of our original games allow combinations with RTP exceeding 97.5%, and we maintain low stakes for longer play -- as low as 1¢-$5 Roulette, 10¢-$5 Blackjack, and 10¢-$1 Craps... all multiplayer and also available in private rooms.

StrikeSapphire is committed to extreme transparency, and publishes the results of real money hands, spins and rolls on our Transparency page, linked at the bottom of our site. Please enjoy our games responsibly, and we look forward to being your hosts.

Josh Strike
Founder/CEO
StrikeSapphire SA
https://strikesapphire.com
help@strikesapphire.com

Awesome!

[lemonginger]

Are you going to be licensed in a jurisdiction that offers casino licensing?
Is your RNG and gaming history going to be audited by a third party auditor? (I see you are publishing it, but of course there is no guarantee that what you are publishing is the full/actual history of wagers)
Do you have a statement about keeping player funds segregated (or not) from operating expenses?
Why did you choose to roll your own software when there is lots of established casino software out there? (Microgaming, RTG, etc)
Do you have people involved that have a history in the online gambling industry?

(thanks! questions not meant to be harsh, but as you know online casinos have the potential to be quite shady and have been in the past)

Also thanks for differentiating mathematical "advantage play" in your TOS from exploiting bugs advantage play! Too many casinos treat them the same way.

[SlaveInDebt]

Within the US you deposit BTC that's then converted at the current exchange rate for play money represented as denominations of dollars according to your video and then converted back to BTC upon withdrawing at that current exchange rate. You are saying that the US players are purchasing chips with BTC and then cashing out in BTC with no actual US currency used correct?

EDIT: Sounds more like your running as a payment processor for BTC to USD. Would it not be much wiser/safer to solely have US players play only in BTC denominations given resent events?

[lemonginger]

Lastly...

we are limiting signups to 50 new depositors per month

what??

[DonnyCMU]

Another good-looking Bitcoin business, great!


First suggestion: you might want to check your grammar and wording properly for good credibility-
"We cannot accept real-money players at or resident in the United States, nor any form of payment which originate in or passes through US banking institutions and/or financial instruments."    -__-"

Also, this note should be above the registration in normal font, not a small footnote in the bottom.

[Newton]

Great looking site.  This is going to be a big business.

[YoYa]

Excellent, been looking for a good place to play roulette

[ssaCEO]

Are you going to be licensed in a jurisdiction that offers casino licensing?
Is your RNG and gaming history going to be audited by a third party auditor? (I see you are publishing it, but of course there is no guarantee that what you are publishing is the full/actual history of wagers)
Do you have a statement about keeping player funds segregated (or not) from operating expenses?
Why did you choose to roll your own software when there is lots of established casino software out there? (Microgaming, RTG, etc)
Do you have people involved that have a history in the online gambling industry?

(thanks! questions not meant to be harsh, but as you know online casinos have the potential to be quite shady and have been in the past)

Also thanks for differentiating mathematical "advantage play" in your TOS from exploiting bugs advantage play! Too many casinos treat them the same way.

Hi lemonginger, let me answer your questions since you've hit a lot of interesting points and hopefully this will explain things further:

1) We are incorporated in Costa Rica as an information processing entity, granting us the legal right to run the casino under international law. We're discussing acquiring licensing in a larger jurisdiction, and we understand the reservations some players may have about CR-based casinos. For this reason, we are going to extreme lengths to show transparency, including daily publishing every complete card shoe, roulette spin and craps roll on the site. We expect players to scour these numbers, and we also expect players to win much more than they would in, say, Vegas, because our games are 100% fair.
2) We are reserving 200% of player funds on a rolling basis to cover daily payouts.
3) This software has been four years in the making. To (legitimately) lease a Microgaming license, for instance, comes to around $100k per month if you're doing any kind of serious business. The way this started was, about 3-4 years ago I came up with an idea to make a different kind of casino, all in-browser, all in Flash, and at that time the world was a different place. The nice thing about it is that we have a lot of really different, really original games that the big guys would be scared to death to actually put into practice ("when will we get our investment back?!" and that kind of thing). So we're a little startup with a lot more flexibility, and that's actually how we were able to move so quickly toward taking Bitcoin. Because no other casino will be accepting it for quite awhile, from what we've been able to ascertain.
4) The people involved in this project are mostly new to the industry, but we have some excellent advisors who have worked (and do work) on gambling sites you would have heard of. One of our managers was a producer on the top-selling videogame of all time; another has long-term experience in the London land-based casino market. That's all I can say to the question. I'm personally an open book, if you want to look me up, it's joshstrike.com, and you can always get a hold of me there.
5) You're not being harsh; these are great questions. If you'd like more explanation, just keep askin

[Newton]

One thing I would suggest is a small howto for getting bitcoins.

This site will appeal to gamblers far outside of the bitcoin community, and once they realize the ease with which they can transfer bitcoins in and out of the site they will be in gambler heaven.

Wouldn't take much, just a link to the buying bitcoin wiki, and maybe a quick outline to convince first timers how easy it is (1) Open a Dwolla account (2) Buy bitcoins from Tradehill (3) Instantly use here.

[ssaCEO]

One thing I would suggest is a small howto for getting bitcoins.

This site will appeal to gamblers far outside of the bitcoin community, and once they realize the ease with which they can transfer bitcoins in and out of the site they will be in gambler heaven.

Wouldn't take much, just a link to the buying bitcoin wiki, and maybe a quick outline to convince first timers how easy it is (1) Open a Dwolla account (2) Buy bitcoins from Tradehill (3) Instantly use here.

I agree -- it's goin' on the top of the list.

[GoWest]

Wow - what an uber-slick interface.  I guess that's the end of betco.in!!

Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03C4tnCFEMQ

[BitVapes]

most online casinos offer deposit bonuses, especially for new players.    The b&m casinos in Las Vegas give you free hotel rooms, free alcohol and free entertainment to entice customers to play and keep playing.   The online casinos give free chips as their version of player enticement.  Do you plan on offering some deposit bonuses?   I'd be interested in playing if so

[ssaCEO]

@GoWest -- Thanks, I take that as a compliment  

@BitVapes. We do plan on offering promotions based on both player points accrued (see the terms of service for details), and also ongoing for high-rolling players through the Silver and Gold-star preferred customer plans.

Aside from that, we've got a choice of referral programs that will give you 20% on your friends' deposits, or a larger first-time bonus, however those are subject to wagering requirements like most other bonuses.

We're a small house and offer relatively small stakes; we also offer a very personal atmosphere where you can get to know us and your fellow players. The vast majority of bonuses out there are absolute BS, designed to suck you in but never pay out. When we give you a bonus with 30x wagering requirements, you can withdraw your winnings instantly, and you can withdraw the first $1 of the bonus instantly if you've played $30. No other casino does that. More than that, our games are extremely, flawlessly fair, and we pride ourselves on it. We're the only casino that shows you the full shoe of every blackjack hand you played -- maybe the only casino that actually deals a whole show, because we're not sure how Microgaming does it, but they're clearly full of crap.

So the bottom line is that our bonuses are going to be small, and it'll be up to you whether you want to chase a bonus with a huge provider like MG, or just sit down and play a fair game (and maybe earn a few points on the side) with us.

[billyjoeallen]

How do you verify nation of residence? 

[GoWest]

I tried the phone number, I tried Skype (can't find them), and now I'm *trying* Google Video Chat but can't seem to get it going.

[foggyb]

What formats of NL Texas Holdem are available?

I am unable to find this information without signing up. I have to add that I like sites that let me try the games before requiring me to register.

[ssaCEO]

I tried the phone number, I tried Skype (can't find them), and now I'm *trying* Google Video Chat but can't seem to get it going.

Try again on skype man...we're online.

[ssaCEO]

What formats of NL Texas Holdem are available?

I am unable to find this information without signing up. I have to add that I like sites that let me try the games before requiring me to register.

You can play for playcash, it's just that no one's playing yet. Give it a couple days
We have Holdem, 7 card stud, mississippi and omaha, in NL, PL and Limit varieties (no NL for stud and no Limit games for Mississippi). The stakes go from $0.25/$0.50 up to $250/$500, and the rake structure is listed here:

https://strikesapphire.com/rakes.html

Let me know if you need more info!

[GoWest]

I tried the phone number, I tried Skype (can't find them), and now I'm *trying* Google Video Chat but can't seem to get it going.

Try again on skype man...we're online.

Success, thanks.