Bitcoins Give Rise to Crypto Casinos

Many online casinos use auditing services that allow accountants to verify a casino's winnings. Companies such as PricewaterhouseCoopers are hired so online casinos can earn a certificate to proudly display on their website that claims they are honest and trustworthy. Gamblers have to trust the auditing service and the casino that their games are completely fair. There are some cleverly developed gambling websites, however, that utilize cryptography to provide a greater level of trust that no human-based auditing service can provide. Cryptographic casinos allows patrons to verify each bet and that the games are fair.

One such gambling service is "bitlotto.com" which operates on top of the bitcoin network. To play, one needs to send 0.25 bitcoins to a bitcoin address. The transaction itself is the lottery ticket. Because the bitcoin block chain is visible to anyone you can see how many bitcoins were sent to that address, and thus how many lottery tickets have been bought for that specific lottery draw. BitLotto claims to be "anonymous, transparent, and cheat-proof with a 99% payout."

Another gaming site that uses a "crypto-proof" to prove the honesty of their games is "bitjack21.com". This blackjack site allow you to bet with bitcoins but the proof does not use the bitcoin blockchain. Instead, bitjack21.com developed their own cryptographic method that relies on a random number generated by the client computer that predetermines the location of each card before they are dealt. Once a hand is complete the user can verify that the cards that were dealt were in the same order as the order generated by the random number, and that card positions in the deck did not change during the hand. bitjack21.com claims they are "the only bitcoin blackjack site on the internet that can mathematically prove, in a verifiable manner, that [they are] 100% honest."

Cryptographically fair games provide a much higher level of trust to the end user. If you want to gamble online look for gaming sites where you can check and validate each wager that you will make. Remember to gamble responsibly and at your own risk. :-)