Best Bitcoin Poker Sites

Bitcoin poker is a rapidly growing trend in the poker world. After all, the Internet has served to unite poker players around the world in an unprecedented way, so using a currency that international players can use seems like the next logical step in that progression.

Choosing reliable bitcoin poker sites, however, is another matter entirely. While many of the top poker operators have embraced bitcoin, and several newer sites are using the cryptocurrency as their main banking option, there are quite a few less-than-reputable rooms that have recently added bitcoin to their list of deposit and withdrawal methods.

Which pages are which? That's what we're here to help you with. We've outlined our review process in the next section, and below are the top bitcoin poker sites.

Why These Bitcoin Poker Sites?

As we mentioned earlier, there are currently an overwhelming number of sites offering Bitcoin poker. So why do we recommend these sites over all the others? It comes down to a few key reasons.

Why Play Poker with Bitcoin?

Depending on your level of experience with bitcoin, you may be looking for a site or just thinking about playing at a bitcoin poker site. We've provided more information to help you make a decision.

We always strive to provide our audience with the dual aspects of each story. We're going to follow the same policy here. We'll begin our discussion by listing the many reasons that lead many people to believe that poker sites that accept bitcoin are the ideal choice. Then we'll switch gears and look at some of the counterarguments.

Nobody Can Stop You

This is often enough justification for some participants to continue playing poker with bitcoin. Its decentralized nature means that it's outside the authority of any financial body, so no one can dictate regulations regarding it, including the various national governments that would like to prevent their citizens from participating in online gambling activities.

This is how mysterious programmer Satoshi Nakamoto designed bitcoin. He envisioned a world where anyone, anywhere could send and receive money to anyone, at any time, without having to ask permission from any authority or institution.

We don't need to go into too much detail here. Let's just say that a lot of online poker players love the idea that they can do this with their own money, right from the comfort of their own home, without having to ask anyone if it's okay.

You Can Play Poker Anonymously

One of the great attractions of playing poker with bitcoin is financial privacy. If the sites offering it understand what bitcoin is all about - and they should if they're at the stage of accepting it - they know that many players value privacy.

Although you will still be required to provide your personal information when you register with these sites so that they can comply with anti-money laundering laws and the like, the point is that you will never have to provide your financial information, such as credit card numbers or bank account details.

This has two privacy benefits. First, if hackers compromise the site, they won't be able to make off with your financial information. All they'll have is your bitcoin wallet address and transaction history, which is useless to them without your secret keys. Second, the banks and financial institutions operating at the front end of the gambling sites will have no idea you're doing it at all.

In an age where your information is available, sold to the highest bidder, and used in ways you can barely imagine, let alone approve of, keeping your Internet gambling private, even to the point of not telling your credit card company, is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

Bitcoin Poker Pots Can Increase in Value

If you take a quick look at the history of Bitcoin, you will quickly understand that this currency has been on a roller coaster ride in terms of its value against most other major world currencies such as USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, and CAD.

In fact, bitcoin has gone from $1,000 per coin to nearly $20,000 per coin in six months. It doesn't take a math whiz to see that if you won a $1,000 pot in June and held onto it for six months while it increased in value by a factor of 20, you would surely be an ecstatic (and wealthy) individual.

Some players let the price fluctuations of bitcoin discourage them from using it. Others see the volatility as an opportunity. It all depends on your perspective and how patient you are.

This instability can be undesirable because it can cause you to lose 10% of your winnings in just one night if the price of bitcoin crashes. Fortunately, there is a way to prevent this from happening, and it is the next reason why many poker players prefer bitcoin.

Pot Withdrawals Are Much Faster and Cheaper

Imagine you are a banker who has made a fortune over the years by charging your clients a percentage of their assets to move their assets digitally from one place to another. You can rest easy knowing that even if it sometimes takes a week for your clients' transactions to actually occur, they have no choice but to use your services.

Now suppose you days, on not set clearly when, up a piece of invented was awakened to realize software that can program, cut, settle global transactions it for minutes, and you on to pay a peer-to-peer few network where hurt fees it in image, as right the you of to process transactions with software as is in another sort of canceled network to pay one in quit even those achieving just over image processing the somehow software. And as with all software and networks of this kind, the really interesting part lies in the applications. From cryptocurrency to executing smart contracts, the potential of this invention for global change is enormous.

It is completely understandable if you were concerned. Bitcoin solves the two most glaring problems with online poker for players - transaction costs and slow payout times. We have harped on these issues in the past, and for good reason. It is no fun waiting 3-5 business days to get your money back, and even less fun paying your bank up to 5% for the privilege of using your own money.

Your Bitcoins will be with you in minutes when the cashier clears them, even if you're playing at Bitcoin poker sites on the other side of the world. Of course, you still need to choose a poker site with fast transaction times, but that's what our reviews are for.

The point is this - you can use Bitcoin to play poker online, and you can use it to move your money around without waiting and without paying exorbitant fees. This makes an online poker site that accepts Bitcoin (and a few other cryptocurrencies) as your currency of choice a step up from many other online poker sites.

Bitcoin Poker Bonuses Tend to Be Bigger

You can always bet that the online gambling industry is way ahead of the rest of the global economy when it comes to adopting cutting-edge technology. For years, bitcoin has been associated with web-based poker sites, online casinos and sportsbooks. Meanwhile, the rest of the world thought of it as "funny internet money.

We won't go into the reasons for this, except to say that it boils down to the fierce competition in the industry. The bottom line is that poker site operators recognize that cryptocurrency is the future of both money and online gaming. And they want to amass as much of it as possible today.

One effective way to do this is to encourage individuals to bet with cryptocurrency. On poker platforms, they generate bitcoin from rake and tournament entry fees. For them, it's basic bitcoin, so they want to entice players into the fold by offering meaningful bonuses that make it worthwhile to actually play poker with bitcoin.

This is nothing to be ashamed of. This, like all bonuses, is a smart marketing strategy, and it comes with all the other benefits I mentioned earlier. The icing on the cake is a bonus like a free bitcoin poker chip. However, if you want to play poker with our free chip, you will have to use a site that not all major poker sites authorize.

Why Some Players Don’t Use Bitcoin Poker Sites

Like any technological advance, this one has its upsides and downsides. Nothing under the sun or otherwise has ever been perfect (with the possible exception of Floyd Mayweather's boxing record), and bitcoin poker sites have some significant drawbacks that you should be aware of up front.

Some People Find It Confusing

Many new users of bitcoin find the whole idea of obtaining and using it to be pretty awesome and a little sobering at first, especially when it comes to sending or receiving a significant amount.

You must enter the wallet address of the bitcoin poker site correctly before clicking "Send". Click incorrectly and you may well lose your precious Bitcoins - not to mention the hassle of trying to get them back, if you can find them at all.

If you want to reap the rewards of playing poker with Bitcoin, this is one hurdle you're going to have to clear. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. But you can't cheat it. You just have to face it and learn like any other good Bitcoin user.

It's not nearly as complicated as it seems, and after a transaction or two, you'll have it down to a simple and elegant process.

You Can’t Get Bitcoin Refunds

Getting your Bitcoins back can be nearly impossible if you are taken in by a fraudulent Bitcoin poker site. Because bitcoin is not the property of any one company, it can be very difficult to remedy a situation where you've sent it somewhere and not received what you expected in return.

There are undoubtedly many scammers in the bitcoin poker world. You can avoid them by researching and reading reviews of the trustworthy bitcoin poker sites listed above.

Don’t get ripped off. Take the time to pick a Bitcoin poker site carefully.

Some Other Cryptocurrencies Are Faster and Cheaper

Believe it or not, there are poker sites that accept altcoins such as Litecoin and Ethereum. These cryptocurrencies are usually faster and cheaper to send than bitcoin.

In truth, bitcoin is the "oldest" cryptocurrency, and it has some limitations that newer ones don't. If you want to play poker, you might want to do it with Litecoin or one of the other altcoins to enjoy even cheaper fees and faster transaction speeds.

If you are just starting out with cryptocurrency, we recommend that you try playing with bitcoin first. Altcoins are more complicated to obtain, and using them from the beginning can easily lead to confusion. Instead, focus on learning how to use bitcoin before thinking about switching to another coin.

There Are Fewer Bitcoin Poker Sites

Several of the most popular online poker platforms do not yet accept Bitcoin for two main reasons: First, the virtual currency is far too unstable. And two, it is far too unregulated and far too often associated with criminality in the public mind.

Large corporations that answer to shareholders cannot accept a cryptocurrency that can plummet in value by 10 percent in a matter of days. It's hard to see how these companies can go to their investors-the thousands of everyday people who invest in their stock and expect dividends, not to mention all the pension funds that have invested in them-and explain that everything is fine, that the giant website they own is doing just fine, that it's not a cash flow nightmare, and that they're not doing a lot of business in a currency that looks like an investment to a lot of people but is not an investment in any traditional or SEC-mandated sense.

Some players like to limit their activity to a few large sites that they know well and have been betting on for years. If those sites don't accept bitcoin, then those players don't use bitcoin. It's as simple as that.

How to Pick a Bitcoin Poker Site

If you’re ready to give Bitcoin poker sites a try, follow this three-step procedure to pick a site.

(1) Read Our Expert Reviews

Our reviewers are bound to uncover and highlight aspects that you may not see. Because we work as a team and have decades of industry experience between us, we often see things that regular players might miss, like a nasty clause in the fine print, or an instance where one site offers something that another doesn't.

Reading our gambling site reviews doesn't take long. Spend 10-15 minutes and you can get the most important information and make a shortlist of sites you think are worth checking out.

(2) Visit the Sites and Register Accounts

Here's a little-known insider secret: Typically, the full range of features - like the full range of games - is simply not visible on a bitcoin poker site until you create a player account. This is why we register at every site we review.

You can have multiple accounts; there's no law against it. You only have to deposit if you want to. We recommend that you sign up at as many different sites as possible and play any free poker games they offer. Evaluate each site on your shortlist and form an opinion. What do you think?

(3) Pick the Sites You Like Best and Play

This is the easiest step in the process. Once you've found one or more reputable bitcoin poker sites, you're ready to log in and start playing!

Even at this stage, we recommend that you make a small deposit to get started. After you have been playing for a while, go ahead and make a withdrawal. You will be able to see for yourself that the site is legitimate, trustworthy and offers fast and fair payouts.

After that, you can go all out and play for bigger stakes. You can put real money on the line at a number of different venues, taking advantage of the unique tournaments and promotions they each offer almost every day of the week.

Bitcoin Poker Sites – Frequently Asked Questions