Alternative Currency Use at Online Casinos

Once concept thought of from many online gamblers is whether you can deposit money with one type of currency and withdraw from another. Additionally, gamblers are also curious whether they can play at an online platform that doesn’t accept their local currency. In this article we take a look at whether these concepts are true in order to help give the reader a better outlook on making informed gambling platform decisions.

Currencies

The simple answer to the first point outlined above is no. A currency used such as AUD for betting on sports or for use in casino platforms will also be used to distribute winnings. If a casino platform accepts Australian dollars it means that it will also verify a player’s account with that currency he or she is registered with at the bank. If the player’s bank is located in England then the relevant banking currency used with the casino is pounds while for Aussies are AUD etc.

However, regarding the second point Aussie players can play at certain casinos located in the UK through English pounds. The UK is the hub of many gambling platforms and most casinos conduct transactions in local currency. This means you will be charged and allocated funding in that currency regardless if you are a local citizen and winnings will be placed into your bank account as such, which are then later converted into AUD.

The issue with this latter point is that there are converting fees that come into play such as a weaker AUD dollar compared to a strengthening pound. However, in some cases you might actually benefit from receiving English pounds if they happen to be down that day. Like a currency trader who hedges on currency fluctuations you could increase your earnings from having them turned into AUD even with the bank’s transaction fee but this would only happen in limited circumstances and would need to be observed carefully.

Some players also think they can use their currency at casinos based in countries where the currency is weaker in order to give them a bigger pool of money to bet from while maintaining the same chances of winning a jackpot. A scenario as such would be accessing a casino in Malaysia or Philippines in which the local currencies are much weaker compared with AUD. Wagering for example $400 AUD would be the equivalent to about 4 times the amount in local currencies within these two nations and therefore would increase your betting pool just as if you traveled to the countries and attended local gambling halls. Most online platforms however actually regulate this to prevent players from hedging on opportunities due to the geo-targeting installed and also require that banking info be matched with the player’s home country. From this the player’s local currency is used as the standard for betting so unfortunately the casinos have already seen this trend and players cannot take advantage like they could attending land-based casinos while abroad.

Considering Bitcoin

A decentralized currency such as Bitcoin may in fact be the answer you are looking to in order to get a fair playing field. This currency only has one centralized value that can be used anywhere it is accepted and the amount used for transactions conducted or goods purchased depends solely on the vendor’s value attributed to the goods or services. This means that a casino may require $100 in Bitcoin value to get started at a casino which when converted into AUD may be far less for the player to deposit and begin compared with a player using CAD. Therefore the pool of money stored in jackpots etc. would continue to rise in accordance with all bids allocated in the casino but yet have differentiating value for each player. Depending on whether your country’s currency is strong or the value it is assigned to a certain amount of Bitcoin is something you will have to calculate to determine if using this alternative currency is worth it.

Conclusion

The online world is much better at regulating and even controlling how currencies are used due to geo-targeting and IP addresses. At land-based casinos dealers do not know where a player is from and only care about whether they have obtained the standard currency used for playing regardless if it was switched from AUD to Euro or vice versa etc. In this sense land-based facilities have an advantage but they also have far less available games and are less convenient. The games also cannot be taken while on the go or be directly deposited into your accounts like they can at online platforms so we have to stick by our guns and state that online casinos are better despite their being limited room for currency exchange usage.