Bitcoin gambling has increased over time. It represents an opportunity for players to make big money in the digital currency. The gambling space is one of the largest in Bitcoin.
Erik Vorhees, for instance, sold Satoshi Dice for $11.5 million in July 2013, which many experts cite as the first major Bitcoin business buyout.
John Bridge, MD at BitCapital, told CoinDesk his opinion of that sale: “I presume it’s a significant existing gaming institute that’s bought it. If it has gone to one of the major players in the gaming industry and they’re looking to expand beyond the SatoshiDice model, that would be positive for bitcoin as it would give it greater exposure to people who don’t currently know about it.”
The sites are big money, and that means some have won – and lost – big sums by gambling online with bitcoin. In 2013, one individual won 11,000 bitcoins on a Bitcoin gambling site, a sum of $1.3 million at that time. The man, known as Nakowa, sparked an Internet debate centered on whether or not he was a cheater, a genius or lucky.
One of the biggest gambling winners in history, he did not slow after winning the fortune and continued his betting on European-based Just-Dice.com.
Nakowa originally lost. On one hand, Just-Dice won 7,000 bitcoins, marking its largest win in site history. Soon, the Nakowa fortune would turn. By Monday, Just-Dice’s profit had been cancelled out, and the player handed the site a 2,000 bitcoins loss.
Founded in 2013, Just-Dice holds just a 1 percent edge and boasts a “provably fair” system so people could ensure the site wasn’t fraudulent. Up until September 2014, when the site started using a different wallet, the Bitcoin wallet associated with Just-Dice had received 382,908.16002512 bitcoins.
To this day, no one is sure who Nakowa is. […]
