Categories: Bitcoin

Crypto Facilitates Illegal Gambling in Asia, Report Claims

A recent report compiled after a study of the Asian marker revealed that there has been an upsurge on illegal and unregulated crypto-based gambling. This has been attributed to the meteoric rise of digital currencies and the advancement of blockchain technology over the past few years. The report further showed details and highlights of how big the crypto-gambling industry has grown with the gamblers now being able to place bets that are substantially higher than what they could before.

Illegal gambling activities are still a huge problem across the globe. In Asia alone, the market was estimated to be worth a whopping $400 billion back in 2018 – it has definitely grown bigger now.

Why Crypto?

Digital currencies have lived up to their potential in so many ways. The core promise was to deliver fast, reliable and cheap payments to consumers and operators. They have managed to achieve this and more. Moreover, considering the legal standing of gambling activities across the globe, it is easy to see why the gaming operators would opt for digital currencies – in Asia, crypto offers the best alternative to the available restrictive banking options.

“Card issuers have made it so difficult for people to gamble (deposit and withdraw) even when the transactions are legal. As such, it is not surprising that people are looking for alternative currencies and payment methods. Cryptocurrency is an excellent facilitator for online gambling, which is a huge industry even without it,” a crypto lottery company executive explains.

Is Crypto Solely Responsible for Illegal Gambling?

Well, even though the crypto and blockchain technology has grown immensely over the past couple of years or so, fiat currency still rules. On that note, a lot of illegal gambling activities are still carried out using traditional currencies from Asian currencies.

It would seem like the reason why crypto is being cited as a major contributor is the fact that it remains unregulated and out of the control of traditional financial institutions. It is therefore much easier to point fingers at crypto than to highlight the shortcomings of the other players in the financial sector.

In fact, crypto is slowly beginning to shed off some of the baggage that was associated with it. It will definitely take some time before we can safely assume that everything has been cleared up but the progress that is being made is certainly very significant. Perhaps soon it will be much easier to identify, prevent and reports illegal gambling activities that are utilizing digital currencies. It may also be important for Asian countries to review their gambling laws in order to give their citizens good options when it comes to gambling platforms. This will keep them from turning to illegal and unregulated platforms.

Laura P.

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