Prepaid online gambling is all about playing your favorite games and betting on you favorite sports without having to use time-consuming old-school funding methods like checks, bank wires, or credit cards.
And while there are many different prepaid bet funding options (i.e. prepaid cards, P2P vouchers, and so on), the best of these – by far – is cryptocurrency.
The best sites all offer Bitcoin gambling deposits and withdrawals along with Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Ethereum options as a matter of course, but most prepaid gambling sites also support a host of other cryptos in their banking menus.
These include altcoins such as Cardano, Solana, Ripple XLM, Stellar Lumens, Dogecoin, Chainlink, stablecoins like USD Coin and Tether, and even brand-new options like Binance Coin, Avalanche, and Shiba Inu.
However, all crypto betting deposits come with one big hurdle: You actually have to buy the crypto before you can send it to your online gambling site.
While you can accomplish that pretty easily using any reputable online crypto exchange (Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Bittrex, etc.), there’s a snag in there for first-time crypto buyers. And since the majority of new crypto bettors are also crypto beginners in general, this applies primarily to you.
Here’s the issue:
If you’re a new member at any major commercial cryptocurrency exchange, you have to go through a signup process and an account verification process. This – on the surface – isn’t too much different than how you sign up at any reputable prepaid gambling site.
Granted, crypto exchanges are regulated like banks and require you to share more personal information than legit online betting sites (i.e. your social security number, government-issued ID, mother’s maiden name, etc. – you know, typical bank account stuff), it’s all fairly mundane in the financial/fintech sector.
If you’ve ever opened a bank account before, you’ve gone through this process, and there’s no risk of identity theft or anything like that, as these exchanges are – for all intents and purposes – governed like major banks and maintain all the same cutting-edge security systems.
But that’s where things stop being mundane and start being annoying.
For new members, your first purchase of crypto (and, in many cases, your next several purchases of crypto) are delayed by 5-10 days before you can actually send the stuff off-platform – say, to an external crypto wallet used by, say, your prepaid gambling site.
Generally, inside that window, you can trade your coins on-platform or cash back out, but you can’t send it anywhere else or use it for anything except trading.
If you’re a casino gambler, this might not be such a big problem, as the games are always there whenever you want to play (outside of scheduled online slots tournaments and online blackjack tournaments).
The same is true for most poker players, as cash games are ready for you whenever you’re ready for them (though, again, online poker tournaments are very time-sensitive).
However, for online sports bettors, this can be a real problem.
If you want to bet Bitcoin on tonight’s NBA game or this weekend’s NFL game – and you don’t already hold Bitcoin – you’re out of luck. Sure, you can deposit using a non-crypto method (or even try using a standard credit card or debit card, UIGEA be damned), but then you won’t get all the great perks of gambling with crypto in the first place.
Fortunately, there are ways to buy crypto more quickly, reducing the multi-day waiting period down to just a few hours – or even less – before you can move those funds into your online gambling bankroll.
The earliest option for this was to use Zelle to buy Bitcoin at the private P2P LocalBitcoins exchange. However, this requires a significant amount of coordination and back-and-forth between buyer and seller, and most sellers charge a not-insignificant premium for the privilege.
The Zelle-to-Bitcoin method is also limited only to Bitcoin, so if you’d rather gamble using a different cryptocurrency – like something that costs a bit less in native transaction fees – you’re out of luck.
Similarly, you can now use Cash App to buy Bitcoin, and you can send that BTC to any external wallet address as soon as you receive it. This is an even faster, more straightforward option than using Zelle, but it’s similarly limited to Bitcoin only.
Then, Atomic Wallet – the most well-known and well-established “universal” crypto wallet app – launched the Atomic Wallet store. Here, you can use your credit card to buy every popular gambling crypto accepted by the top sites (with the sole exception of Avalanche AVAX coins) and immediately send them anywhere you please.
Atomic charges a 5% fee for the convenience, but that convenience – when you really need it – is well worth the surcharge.
There’s also the Coinify store to consider, though this is a slightly more limited option than Atomic in both the coins it supports (no AVAX or XRP) and in the number of US states where the service can be legally accessed. As of Q1 2022, Coinify is not available in these 17 states: AK, AL, CT, FL, GA, HI, ID, LA, MI, NC, NM, NY, RI, SD, TN, VT, and WA.
And now, there’s a brand new option in the same vein – which, we’re sure, is a trend that’s only going to keep picking up steam.
Today, if you download the multi-crypto Jaxx Liberty Blockchain Wallet for iPhone or iPad (or desktop/Chrome extension), you’ll be able to buy a handful of popular gambling cryptos with no waiting and with full off-platform sending rights right from the start.
Jaxx Liberty supports crypto trading through its Changelly partnership, natively offers safe storage for over 80 different coins, and the Jaxx crypto store – powered by Simplex – allows users to purchase these widely accepted gambling-friendly crypto coins:
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Dogecoin (DOGE)
- Tether (USDT)
- Binance Coin (BNB)
While it’s surprising – and, frankly, downright befuddling – that Jaxx Liberty doesn’t yet support the buying or storing of Cardano, Solana, or Avalanche (which are three of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap), we assume those options are coming soon – especially once Jaxx is technologically able implement ADA, SOL, and AVAX staking right within the Jaxx app itself.
At any rate, the point is simply this: If you want to buy crypto with which to bet online right away, you now have more non-exchange options than ever, and that list is only going to continue to grow going forward.