Vera & John Offering Bitcoin As Payment Method

[baldidiot]

Mentioned this briefly in a thread that looks like it got deleted thanks to the OP being a spam bot (wild assumption on my part). Anyway right after doing so I received the following via email:

http://www.mynewsdesk.com/vera-john/...bitcoin-954570

Vera&John Casino become the first regulated and licensed online casino to accept bitcoin

Thoughts?

[Voids]

As far as I'm concerned it's a rash business decision at best. It's a gamble at the end of the day, and they are probably hoping to earn more via exchange rates ( buy low insta-sell on markets).

If they are looking to hold the currency then they are taking bets with a massively unstable currency. Even if the currency "stabilises" it will still be fluctuating much more than a normal currency. Forex problems have caused bigger institutions to fail.

Unless they are looking to take bets from "unusual / untraceable " Sources then I can't see it being a wise business decision.

[TheGooner]

I don't know Vera & John Casino - and have never heard of them prior to this thread. I see they've been licensed for 15 months. (since Nov 2012)
Has any GPWA affiliate heard of or worked with them?

But it is interesting news - as previously the bitcoin casinos I've seen have been VERY low-rent places that could not be recommended as safe, secure, licensed places to play.

I would update our reviews (and possibly highlight) if any of my top-tier partners decided to accept bitcoin deposits ...
And I'd be fascinated to see how the program would pay me as an affiliate and what exchange rates would be used ...

[John US Traffic]

As far as I'm concerned it's a rash business decision at best. It's a gamble at the end of the day, and they are probably hoping to earn more via exchange rates ( buy low insta-sell on markets).

If they are looking to hold the currency then they are taking bets with a massively unstable currency. Even if the currency "stabilises" it will still be fluctuating much more than a normal currency. Forex problems have caused bigger institutions to fail.

Unless they are looking to take bets from "unusual / untraceable " Sources then I can't see it being a wise business decision.

I found this info a little while ago now and almost posted it here but decided not to. Voids, aside from the known aspects of risk associated with Bitcoin, it sounds like you may not be familiar with the known advantages as well for vendors/operators which are very compelling, including big savings on transaction fees and eliminating the risk of chargebacks. Imperator and I have been making the case for "a larger role in online gambling" for Bitcoin here, and this type of news is no surprise. It sounds like maybe you didn't see the recent huge thread/debate here on that as well in which we went over the advantages. I suspect the online gaming operators have been taking very close notice of the known advantages, however. It's interesting that you mention the "insta-sell on markets" too. One strategy some businesses like Overstock are using to reduce and eliminate risk as much as possible is to simply avoid holding Bitcoin. That "insta-sell" that you mention is actually one of the ways that type of risk-management strategy would be pursued, totally aside from any thoughts or intentions of trying to profit that way. So this latest news about adoption is no surprise at all, and I would certainly bet that before very long a number of the top-tier well known operators and programs begin incorporating Bitcoin as an option as well, just as folks like Imperator and I have advocated. This isn't my first rodeo so to speak, so it also wouldn't surprise me if in time some people's opposition to Bitcoin would tend to be swept under rug, as well as the advocacy of those of us who strongly supported its inclusion for "a larger role," and some who now oppose may even go so far as to suggest it was their idea all along, lol. Time may tell, but this is certainly both a welcome but also completely unsurprising development.

[baldidiot]

I don't know Vera & John Casino - and have never heard of them prior to this thread. I see they've been licensed for 15 months. (since Nov 2012)
Has any GPWA affiliate heard of or worked with them?

But it is interesting news - as previously the bitcoin casinos I've seen have been VERY low-rent places that could not be recommended as safe, secure, licensed places to play.

Yeah they're talked about occasionally on CM - that's how I first found out about the bitcoin rumour actually. I do also have an aff account with them and have them up on one niche netent site, but that's about it.

I'm with you though - I find the transition from it only being back-alley joints who solely using bitcoin to a licensed casino offering it very interesting. From an accounting perspective I'm assuming that they're treating it like most other land based businesses are and insta-converting to USD (or whatever).

Fair play to them for keeping up with the times though - am intrigued to see how the players respond. At the very least it should give them some good publicity/exposure.

[Viriatu]

i find this one of the best new outfits i found so far player wise... i had some problems also, that i never tried to resolve tbh. About the move, i will say its a awesome move to be forward on this trend. To the one speaking and comparing this to forex its very hard to really explain in depth in one post only, lets just say bit coins have lots of pros and not so many cons. I grab all the coins i can.

[grem]

Vera&John casino has a great marketing team and affiliate manager.

With their casino they take the best games from the softwares.

[Korto Maltese]

We are working with Vera & John and as far I know, there is nothing to complain about. But it's not my part. I guess bitcoin transaction represent a fraction of the deposit so the risk for them is quite limited (It's a guess I have no idea). Hopefully it won't end up à la Charlie Shrem.

[Virtual Marketing]

Its great to see high reputation brands crossing the thin line and adding Bitcoin to their portfolio.
Great operators like PT and MG are doing the same step, like small and medium size brands ( mostly Asia and UK )

[thebay]

I am not sure if i would accept payments in Bitcoins! It can be a bubble and to be fair for all of us who live on affiliate sites we should definitely make sure we get paid in real currency. Now on Vera and John all I want to add is that I have heard they do really well with Scandinavian traffic but I don't operate there so I am not working with them. Good to get more feedback on their performance.

[universal4]

I agree, as an example, MtGox halted exchanges yesterday and bitcoin lost 15-20% in a day.
http://www.businessinsider.com/mtgox...drawals-2014-2

They will have an answer next week....so if the value continues to slide you can't even turn what you have into dollars.

From what I have red about this so far it is just a "technical issue" so it may be fixed but it makes one wonder how much you could lose until this issue is fixed.

These kinds of issues also raise a number of other questions, such as what caused the issues and how many might benefit but grabbing what they can after the drop and then wait for the hype (price) to catch up again.

Rick
Universal4

[TheGooner]

The slump seemed to cause the issues ... which added to the slump ...
I note that Mt Gox is back up now - but the latest Bitcoin price is $645 - about half of what it was at it's peak in early December.

Another report at International Business Times reports that nearly all virtual currencies are slumping.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/cryptocurre...rawals-1435513

I did not know there were 86 different virtual currencies out there .... WOW. Hype-heaven.

[Virtual Marketing]

I did not know there were 86 different virtual currencies out there .... WOW. Hype-heaven.

Did you knew about all these brands? @bitcoingg

[Imperator]

MtGox needs to close. It will relieve the bitcoin eco-system out of a growing cancer.

[John US Traffic]

I am not sure if i would accept payments in Bitcoins

The only "hype" and extremist thinking I see here in the forum is from those who oppose Bitcoin. Some people post as if it's all or nothing - you're either at great risk of suffering huge outrageous financial ruin or not. I'd be happy to have Bitcoin as a payment option that I can choose or not choose at my own discretion, particularly and most especially for any program which either has no payment option for US affiliates otherwise if it's one that I do want to promote, or may only have one single option which I consider to be completely inadequate and unacceptable at best. As I've written elsewhere, I already stopped promoting one of the best known programs here for that very reason, but I'd rather still be promoting them. Assuming you don't do something wild like bet the farm and put all your resources into promoting a program like that if it starts to offer Bitcoin, which of course is hardly likely, your real risk is extremely minimal - practically only one single monthly payment. Not from all programs you promote either, but only from those with which you opted for Bitcoin. Big whoop. That's one month's income from only one program or some programs with which you accept Bitcoin, and probably not even all your income from them either, most likely more like taking a partial loss on the income. Then you have choices to make: you simply opt out of Bitcoin after that one month, for example. If the program is still earning income for you after that, you either bite the bullet and accept the one bad payment option you didn't like to begin with, or you wait until an opportune time to collect later if you can. But in addition to opting out of Bitcoin, you also have the option of ceasing to promote the program and allocating any resources to it. All of that is to cover various nuances and possibilities, but overall your only practical significant risk is a single month's income from only the Bitcoin-option-offering programs for which you elected to give Bitcoin a try. And you're still at "risk" of coming out ahead for that month, too, not just having a loss. So in the current example, if you decide to dump Bitcoin because of the latest volatility, your loss would be roughly 30-35%. If you made $1,000 or $10,000 from one or a few programs because of having chosen a Bitcoin option, you took some risk and now you're down a bit. This is not financial ruin, this is not losing your house, your car, the sky falling, or any "hype[r]" risk like that.

Additionally, regarding this latest Bitcoin event, Mt. Gox is not the only game in town. Note this:

Mt. Gox, which is based in Japan, isn’t even the largest bitcoin exchange. The largest by 30-day volume is Bitstamp, which based in Slovenia, according to data from bitcoincharts.com. The second-biggest is BTC-e, which appears to be based in Bulgaria. Mt. Gox is third.

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell...market-action/

[universal4]

OK, since you feel it is ok to try and ridicule people who have a difference of opinion, let's talk about the hype behind bitcoin. I guess that makes you a bitcoin extremist and me a non-bitcoin extremist, although I would prefer not to assign any labels since I feel we are just humans that disagree on a subject.

Bitcoin would not even exist if it wasn't for those creating all the hype behind it, and le's be clear here, the hype was started and came about by those who mined it and owned the lionshare of it in the beginning because they wanted the value to climb.

This hype skyrocketed even more when big money investors bought in very low and put their money behind making sure bitcoin got plenty of press to raise awareness (and thus bitcoin value) even more.

You are correct that "Mt. Gox is not the only game in town" but as it stands, depending on how they come out of this, Mt Gox prior to this issue was one of the largest exchanges for bitcoin, and let's not forget the very First, and for them to halt all exchanges it really is a big thing. (I was unable to find a recent chart, but searching for exchange rankings as of March of 2013 MtGox was far ahead in volume of all other exchanges and actually close to doing more volume than the remaining top 7 or so combined)

If Chase, Wells Fargo or Barclays suddenly stopped allowing their customers access to their money, that would be a really big deal and I doubt much of anyone would sit back and say big whoop.

Rick
Universal4

[TheGooner]

I see apple has dropped the Blockchain Wallet bitcoin app from it's app store.
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell...pple-products/

Means nothing to me as I do NOT own any i-ware, using android instead, but this seems to be a big thing for bitcoin users based on the whining noise being generated from the community?

I'm still amazed at there being 86 different "coin" systems out there - but maybe that's an inflated count as Wikipedia only list 8 as "major".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrencies

My favourite seems to be Dog-e-coin ... at least they have a cool symbol ..
http://dogecoin.com/

[John US Traffic]

I haven't been ridiculing anybody, but I have received my share of something like that or worse for my strong support of merely including Bitcoin as a discretionary option among others in online gaming and affiliate programs. I have also accurately characterized what I have been doing in the forum regarding Bitcoin as advocacy which has nothing to do with "hype," while the opposition has clearly engaged in a lot of extreme-possibility and theoretical worst-case-scenario focused "negative hype."

To claim that Bitcoin wouldn't even exist were it not for all the positive hype behind it is also very ill-conceived and a very inaccurate and uninformed way of viewing it in my opinion. The time was right for something digital like Bitcoin, and some person or group of persons was brilliant enough and motivated enough to come up with a very strong even if not absolutely 100% perfect or "non-improvable" way of going about it, "block chain technology," which is also regarded to have other potentially valuable uses besides for digital "currency." The benefits are also well known and well desired, which is why there has been so much growing adoption for use in commerce. While everyone knows that some people may be motivated to make a quick buck and try to engage in "hype" tactics, any suggestion along the lines of Bitcoin being nothing but a "pump and dump" scheme built purely on hype would be absurd and absurdly uninformed and extremist given everything already known about its growing adoption and use, and I know I'm hardly alone in that. However, I have no problem whatsoever believing any suggestion one may wish to make that the latest "technical problem" with Mt. Gox could indeed be nothing but some cynical fraud and attempt at temporary price manipulation in order for some to profit by it. I'm a realist, not a polyanna.

As far as comparing the latest snag with Mt. Gox to Chase, Wells Fargo or Barclays suddenly stopping allowing their customers access to their money, there is no real comparison there. The withdrawals from Mt. Gox have temporarily been halted, but the Bitcoin has not been frozen - the Bitcoin is being or already has been returned to people's "wallets," so they should be free to use the Bitcoin in those wallets at any other exchange if they choose, or spend it, or hold onto it waiting for a price correction if they want. In other words, they and their Bitcoin are as free as a bird.

As I've already pointed out, issues and expressions of volatility like the latest hardly constitute "great risk" of dire financial harm or ruin. As I've also pointed out, again, we are only talking about potentially one month's payment here, or merely a fraction of it, currently down around 35% give or take. In fact, if an affiliate hasn't even been paid yet or was only just paid, it's even possible that the affiliate receiving this single month's payment in Bitcoin would actually make more money because of this fluctuation, not less, if they are paid the equivalent of $1,000 of real money in Bitcoin worth now only around $700, and the price goes back up closer to $1,000 by the end of the month. Not only do they earn the affiliate income, but an extra $300 or so on top of that. That's called coming out ahead, and that's the "risk" of coming out ahead. Finally, as I also pointed out as well, if someone doesn't like this kind of element of "risk," they simply go into their affiliate account, choose a new payment method and leave Bitcoin behind. Yes - it's big whoop indeed. I wonder how many times all this will have to be pointed out.

The development with Apple is unfortunate, but hardly catastrophic. In reality Android is bigger than Apple in terms of market share.

I'm not surprised by many others trying to cash in on the "crypto currency" phenomenon, that's just normal. The creme and the fortunate rise to the top and the rest may fall by the wayside. Dogecoin is one example of a success story. From what I've read, it even started out as something of a joke, but now it's made some quite wealthy.

[universal4]

When MtGox suspended bitcoin exchanges they did in fact limit those with MtGox accounts the ability to access their accounts and their funds. That is EXACTLY a comparison of and bank limiting access of account holders to their funds.

Temporarlily halted is the same thing as "you can't have your money until we tell you you can have your money". Sure you still have access to the money in your wallet, but not what the bank has.

Since bitcoin is not real money yet, those that need money and had all intention of turning their bitcoins into money on Friday afternoon in ther MtGox exchange accounts could not do so for DAYS. They "might" be able to tomorrow, but they did NOT pay the bills they planned on paying with that money Friday.

There are plenty of folks with bitcoin funds in limbo, and plenty of others scrambling to get exchange accounts open with other exchanges since the trust in MtGox will likely be crushed or at least severly damaged by this.

If it turns out the entire episode is fraudulent, I hope they do in fact find out and crush those behind it.

Many might agree that there are actually world powers in existience that can (and some speculate do) manipulate currency worldwide. Here we now have speculation that a single company/bank/bitcoin exchange had what they call a minor tecnical problem and it detrimentally affected what many want to see as tomorrows currency in the world.

Personally I am hoping that it does NOT turn out to be any kind of fraud perpetrated on the system, but it does make one wonder how vunerable the entire "virtual currency" market/fad truly is.

Rick
Universal4

[Voids]

A drop due to the instability of the currency was exactly what I was worried about for the business itself. Imagine the hypothetical scenario.

A business hold all its $1200currency in bitcoins in early december, closing price above $1200. The current value of that currency is now around $600.

No other currency has such wild swings and companies can't increase their uptake of bit coins due to this Forex risk. The only way bitcoins can be accepted on a large scale is for the currency to stabalise. Many people don't even like putting their money in banks, never mind a cryptocurrency they've barely heard of and no nothing about.