If you are doing any type of sports betting online from the United States, you should be aware that most offshore books now prefer that you deposit using Bitcoin (BTC) instead of USD to workaround anti-gambling legislation. That is all well and good for depositing into a sportsbook, but the tricky part comes with cashing out after a winning season.
Most US based exchanges will ban you if they suspect your wallet addresses are being used to deposit and withdrawal money from sportsbooks....this is especially true if you are a Coinbase user. Of course the workaround has always been to use an intermediary wallet (middleman) to break the link in the chain (and hopefully the connection). Coinbase also charges outrageous fees for exchanging and transferring your money and it takes a lot longer to get your hands on your cash. Generally, you need to wait 3-5 days for an ACH bank transfer.
One popular solution is the Bitpay debit card. You can purchase the card for $10 worth of BTC. It may take a week or so to get your card but if offers a lot of advantages. First, it allows you to send BTC directly to the online wallet associated with the card. The card then converts all BTC to USD at the current bitstamp rate and is available immediately after the required blockchain network confirmations. Second, the card has effectively 0 fees if you use it like a debit card for purchases. You can check out the fee schedule here.
You can not buy BTC with the card....it is simply a cheap and quick way to cash out. Finally, you can skip the $2 ATM fee by purchasing a money order with the card at Wal-Mart for $0.70 cents per $1000 and cash/deposit it for the cheapest cash out option in the business.
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If it becomes global I may actually get one.
Should be easier to deal with sportsbooks outside the US legal system without such hassle...but certainly depends on where you are.
Good posting buddy. Is the card available globally? followed, upvoted and resteemed
US residents only I believe
OK thx
Do you know poker sites that take BTC?
BetOnline is probably the best. They also accept Litecoin for deposit and withdrawals now.
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