Are web3 casinos actually decentralized?

[Charles-Tim]

There are real web3 casino that operate effectively and everything they do is what web3 looks like but I fear that such casino wouldn't last because of regulation, they will not get license and approval to operate if they don't do KYC and will likely get attack for money laundering by law enforcement. They are really good for some privacy and decentralized to some degree but the government wouldn't let you have peace of mind.

Let me give you examples of what are decentralized. Example is a decentralized file storage. Another is Tor. Another one is the bitcoin network. All these that I mentioned make use of no central server but making use of nodes. The nodes are what that makes them decentralized. It will be hard for the government to go take them down because they have many nodes from different countries across the world. Government will need to take down all the nodes.

Web3 gambling sites all have a central server which is run by the gambling sites themselves and that is the reason they can easily be susceptible to regulations and control. They are all not decentralized. Profit making can not let them be decentralized.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

If it was before, I think that web3 casinos can offer non KYC service than web2 casinos. But when I am reading some people's post, they talked that web3 casinos are decentralized in a way that the gamblers will be in control of their coins using a noncustodial wallet. But according to how I know about web3 gambling sites, they operate in a way that once the gamblers connect their wallet and make payment, the gambling site is in control of the money. Which means no gambling site to be decentralized as the gambling site and the money is controlled by the gambling site owners and not any other parties involved that can make them decentralized. Am I wrong? J think many of us do not know what decentralization is.

I think there are a number of things that needed to be iron out from this, we have the way a web3 gambling casino can appear to be a kyc casino and some a no kyc casino, this does not end there, some of these platforms also have their own different policies which we may have to understand part of what they were being made up maybe by going through their ToS, because as a matter of fact, they can act for anonymity over the user, but they are not decentralized since they are not giving us the wallet keys they have created for us, as they are commonly refereed to a custodial category, why should they be addressed being decentralized when they have in their custody the private keys to their users asset, they have license they operate with and they mostly demand for kyc.

[justdimin]

If it was before, I think that web3 casinos can offer non KYC service than web2 casinos. But when I am reading some people's post, they talked that web3 casinos are decentralized in a way that the gamblers will be in control of their coins using a noncustodial wallet. But according to how I know about web3 gambling sites, they operate in a way that once the gamblers connect their wallet and make payment, the gambling site is in control of the money. Which means no gambling site to be decentralized as the gambling site and the money is controlled by the gambling site owners and not any other parties involved that can make them decentralized. Am I wrong? J think many of us do not know what decentralization is.

Even the Web2 casinos before are like that too (not requesting a KYC) but things have changed later unfortunately. But as of now, there are still Web2 casinos that doesn't require a KYC, or they have it but doesn't mandate it. It will only get triggered if some conditions are met.

As of now, I think Web3 casinos are still the same decentralized and I think it will never change anymore as that was their main concept. In a Web2 casino, we are still in control of our coins. It is our money and we only deposit it in the casino to be able to use their games. It is just that we might get blocked when withdrawing but that is if we did something shady, or even if not but the casino is only a scam. The info that you heard about Web3 might actually be from the Web2. Or there is a chance that they are only spreading fake info.

[ryzaadit]

In my opinion, the meaning of true decentralized service is that the transaction is not required to connect a wallet or account. Most the transaction is based on-chain transaction, have you ever heard of guess hash numbers? basically these gambling to gues the last number/word from the block mined. There has some certainly casino offering the gambling site required user to just guess > deposit your fund to destination address after filling (withdraw address) > If you win, then the prize is automatically sent to your address.


The problem for decentralized gambling/casino are to much transaction are being made + limited game we can play. Mostly just (Dice On-Chain, Guess Hash or mostly Jackpot Pools). That's why, these scheme never success.

[Nwada001]

I think decentralization in gambling is just a fiction, those words are just used for marketing, but the fact is that web3 is not really decentralized, but I don't really care because I keep using a new wallet address if I want to connect my wallet

Using a new wallet each time you connect to a web3 casino only limits the money you can lose if anything goes wrong, but it does not save you from the risk that a non-decentralized casino offers.
 
If you are using a new wallet, you have to fund it and make sure you have enough money to use to gamble in that casino. Connecting that wallet to the casino exposes your phrase to them, depending on how the site is built.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

In my own opinion, it's not actually the true definition of decentralization because while gambling there, you are not the only one in control of your wallet because the moment you connect your wallet to the site, you have grant them access to your asset and if it's a scam web3 casino, they can steal your funds. Like someone already mentioned, it's better to create a new wallet and use it to connect to the web3 casino.

[terrific]

Are web3 casinos are still a thing? I don't think that there is such as a decentralized casinos. All are covered by regulation and no matter how advertised they are as a decentralized casino, it's not going to change the fact that one government instruction and regulation, they'll adhere to that. So, decentralization has become a buzz word on the crypto gambling community but then, everyone who has stayed here for quite a while now understands that there's really no decentralization if a casino thrives for so long and have been introduced as one.

[Churchillvv]

Every one is just saying the same thing here and I wouldn't say anything different. fact remains that decentralisation can not be seen a in a business owner by an individual or group under government control or regulation as they will in one way or the other still have your assets or money in their custody one way or the other.

Web3 is no different from every other casino it's just a matter of time that we will realise what they meant with the word decentralised.

[robelneo]

Am I wrong? J think many of us do not know what decentralization is.

You are right, bro, On some of what you believed in, web3 casino are striving to be a decentralized platform for gamblers because they are smart-based contracts and utilize a decentralized protocol, but it depends on the kind of chain and smart contracts they are using and the composition of the platform. For me to trust a web3 casino, it should be properly audited periodically.
From my experience, I prefer playing on a centralized platform because I have a worse experience investing my money on smart-based contract platforms because they can do a rugpull anytime, but its still up to the user's preference.

[dappcasino]

When we started dappcasino.io, we only listed real decentralized casinos "gambling dApps." These allowed players to send money directly from their wallet, and if they won, the money went straight back to their wallet. But most of these casinos had big problems. They were slow, full of bugs, and hard for people to use. They mainly worked on the EOS network, but sadly, none of them exist anymore.

Today, many crypto casinos say they are decentralized, but as others have pointed out, this isn’t true. Once you connect your wallet to the site, you lose some control.

There is potential for decentralized casinos, but the risks are high. Right now, the talk about decentralization is just marketing.

[viljy]

A decentralized casino means that payments are made through a smart contract. And if the smart contract is written in such a way that the client's funds really cannot be controlled by a third party, then this is decentralization. It is also important what permissions you give to the smart contract when connecting the wallet. You need to read carefully before signing a transaction. If a smart contract does not contain vulnerabilities (often intentional), which must be confirmed by many independent auditors with records about it in their registries, then such a smart contract can be considered truly decentralized.

As for KYC, the authorities may require any platform to introduce this requirement. And even decentralized services will have to comply with this requirement. How exactly technically is the second question. But one way or another, non-compliance with the requirements can lead to consequences up to criminal prosecution, or at least marking all transactions of this service as "dirty money".

[dansus021]

If it was before, I think that web3 casinos can offer non KYC service than web2 casinos. But when I am reading some people's post, they talked that web3 casinos are decentralized in a way that the gamblers will be in control of their coins using a noncustodial wallet. But according to how I know about web3 gambling sites, they operate in a way that once the gamblers connect their wallet and make payment, the gambling site is in control of the money. Which means no gambling site to be decentralized as the gambling site and the money is controlled by the gambling site owners and not any other parties involved that can make them decentralized. Am I wrong? J think many of us do not know what decentralization is.

You are not wrong frenn some online casino is offered two type of payment

1. Is like you said you need to deposit some money and you play after that if you win than you can withdraw your money back

2. But there is also a crypto casino that offered non KYC and they using smart contract to play the game usually is on EVM Chain with the cheap fee like Polygon but nowadays there are ton of evm layer 2 offered less fee or even gasless fee

and basically you need install metamask deposit some fund to play when you win their smart contract send you the money but when lose your money is gone hahah obiously haha

[Fivestar4everMVP]

When we started dappcasino.io, we only listed real decentralized casinos "gambling dApps." These allowed players to send money directly from their wallet, and if they won, the money went straight back to their wallet. But most of these casinos had big problems. They were slow, full of bugs, and hard for people to use. They mainly worked on the EOS network, but sadly, none of them exist anymore.

Today, many crypto casinos say they are decentralized, but as others have pointed out, this isn’t true. Once you connect your wallet to the site, you lose some control.

There is potential for decentralized casinos, but the risks are high. Right now, the talk about decentralization is just marketing.

You are right, you pointed out everything well, every talks about decentralized casinos today is nothing but marketing indeed.
Personally, I've always known what a decentralization really means, so, I had a clear understanding of what a casino that claim to be decentralized should look and operate like, and this is the reason why when I first played on owl.com,: one of the self acclaimed decentralized casino, I knew the casino wasn't decentralized and got turned off, till today, I still have some left over balance on the site, of which if the casino was really decentralized, that balance should be in my wallet and not on the site waiting for me to possibly withdraw it.

The potential for decentralized casinos is high just as you have said, and I actually don't see any risk higher than normal, it's just that developers are not ready, possibly because they are yet to find good value in building a truly decentralized casino, or perhaps, maybe no one is ready to sacrifice their control, to build a truly decentralized casino.

[dimonstration]

If it was before, I think that web3 casinos can offer non KYC service than web2 casinos. But when I am reading some people's post, they talked that web3 casinos are decentralized in a way that the gamblers will be in control of their coins using a noncustodial wallet. But according to how I know about web3 gambling sites, they operate in a way that once the gamblers connect their wallet and make payment, the gambling site is in control of the money. Which means no gambling site to be decentralized as the gambling site and the money is controlled by the gambling site owners and not any other parties involved that can make them decentralized. Am I wrong? J think many of us do not know what decentralization is.

Most web3 casino are just part partly web3 since most of their games is not on chain while you still need to deposit money from your non custodial wallet to your casino balance in able to play.

So technically they are not fully decentralized since you can’t play without transferring balance to your casino balance. Web3 just offer the convenience of automatically create an account using a wallet address and transfer quickly without the need to manually transfer using your wallet app.

[crwth]

Hmm. Once you establish yourself in Web3, it's not fully controlled by one person or entity. It's more likely that it's shared among people. Maybe it's better if it's a DAO, right? A genuinely decentralized one could be good for maintaining control over the funds and not being controlled by a central authority.

If it were to be done, it might be somewhat balanced. Some parts are better off being centralized or managed by a single entity, and others are better off being decentralized.

[coin-investor]

We all love decentralization, but if we look at the gambling industry, there's not one stable or popular web3 casino; there are some, but they cater to one community of chains like the Tron or Solana community. Centralized casinos are preferable because they are flexible and compliant; they serve the needs of the players through their support.
Not all web3 have support; you are left on your own if issues arise.

[Questat]

Lets clear this confusion with few simple facts. The question is if web3 are actually decentralized?

so let's talk about what is decentralized first, if I'm not mistaken, the understanding of all about decentralized is that they are not controlled by the government, right? Meaning, no KYC... So we have a good example of a web3 casino and that is Metawin which I believe is very popular in the forum.

Is Metawin regulated? yes, because it has a license..

https://cryptogambling.com/casinos/metawin

Is MetaWin legit?
Yes, MetaWin is a legitimate Web3 casino operated by Asobi N.V. The site is licensed and regulated by the government of Curaçao (license OGL/2024/1695/0935) and it hosts fair, trusted games from companies like Pragmatic Play. MetaWin also has strong security features, and you can disconnect your wallet at any time.

So that concludes that web3 are not generally decentralized.

[SamReomo]

I don't think that web3 casinos are decentralized and that term is only used to attract players and nothing else. I personally haven't used any such web3 casino because for me web2 casinos work like a charm and I don't even think about moving to web3 when it comes to gambling.

[Hatchy]

  Am I wrong? J think many of us do not know what decentralization is.

Can casino actually be decentralized? Web 3 or not, they will have a way to control their users funds when need be. What I understand about these casino is that even if they make it decentralized, it actually won't be fully decentralized in a way. Like you said, you connect your wallet to these web3 casino and immediately they have access to your funds. That's no longer a decentralized system as they can now acts as a central authority over your funds. Even if they offer the non kyc services, I think decentralization part is different.

[_act_]

I don't think that web3 casinos are decentralized and that term is only used to attract players and nothing else. I personally haven't used any such web3 casino because for me web2 casinos work like a charm and I don't even think about moving to web3 when it comes to gambling.

It is true that web2 works like a charm. I have used many web2 gambling sites before and they are all good. I mean the ones that I registered on that have announcement thread on this forum. But you can also try Metawin. What I like about Metawin is that it is both web3 and web2 as you can connect to your noncustodial wallet, you can also pay with fiat or crypto just like web2. They offer no KYC up to a large withdrawal limit.