Jon Southurst\u00a0<\/p>\n
The legendary gambling centers of Las Vegas and Macau are\u00a0suffering from lockdowns\u00a0triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. With their immediate and longer-term futures looking uncertain, it\u2019s time to talk again about the \u201ciGaming,\u201d or online gaming industry.\u00a0Bitcoin SV\u00a0(BSV) is well primed as a platform for data-heavy and provably fair gaming that doesn\u2019t care whether its players enter a casino or stay in their living rooms.<\/p>\n
According to the Bitcoin Association,\u00a0iGaming\u00a0was valued at US$48 billion in 2018. Projections at the time indicated that figure would grow much bigger as mobile internet devices continued to proliferate around the world. But with a new drive to move more real-world applications online and less physical interaction\u2014and whether that\u2019s a good thing or not\u2014there could be an even bigger boom for online gambling alternatives from here on.<\/p>\n
iGaming and trust<\/strong><\/p>\n One aspect of iGaming that has hampered its growth so far is trust. Physical casinos, for all their flaws, are regulated in most of the jurisdictions in which they\u2019re located and must follow strict rules on game fairness. Their owners invest a lot of money and effort in building their premises, which can be closed down or disciplined if local officials are dissatisfied with their actions. The owners themselves must be identifiable. That isn\u2019t always the case, or at least the jurisdictions and rules are not always clear, in the online gaming space.<\/p>\n Blockchain technology, whether BSV or otherwise, has long been touted as a solution to this problem. Publicly verifiable and immutable records of games and rules are a big step towards establishing reputations and winning players\u2019 trust. If you can see whether a game is running fairly or not, the location or identity of its operators becomes less important (though still relevant).<\/p>\n Even with blockchain, though, there are issues. Some apps\u2014such as many employing\u00a0Ethereum\u00a0smart contracts\u2014run their gaming logic on-chain, meaning they\u2019re limited by that platform\u2019s performance issues. Others use the blockchain only for recording player-owned game assets, with the gameplay logic happening off-chain. Even in the latter case, apps may be\u00a0limited by performance and scalability issues\u00a0if the blockchain itself can\u2019t handle everything at once.<\/p>\n This is also an issue in a separate-yet-related industry: video gaming and esports. Companies like Kronoverse ran into similar problems when developing their flagship product,\u00a0CryptoFights.<\/p>\n Enter Bitcoin, built exactly for the purpose of handling everything at once. Even if the game logic isn\u2019t running on-chain, it has the transactional capacity to record (and verify) its operations, as well as interactions and asset ownership records for all players. BSV\u2019s unlimited scaling capacity is perfect for\u00a0iGaming blockchain\u00a0applications, with the added assurance the base protocol cannot be altered at some future date in a way that impacts economies and business models.<\/p>\n Again, trustworthy online gaming was one of Bitcoin\u2019s earliest promises\u2014and for a while, one of its biggest success stories. But BTC\u2019s deliberately limited transaction capacity knocked most of its operators out of business as usage grew. Gaming development has been either stagnant or moribund on BTC as developers sought alternatives.<\/p>\n BitBoss has the industry experience and talent to make iGaming work<\/strong><\/p>\n BitBoss is one of the more experienced companies developing iGaming platforms on Bitcoin BSV today. Its CEO and co-founder, former lawyer\u00a0Matt Dickson, is well established in the gaming world. He founded Poydras Gaming Finance Corporation which once owned almost 3,000 slot machines, before selling it to Las Vegas gaming company AGS recently. Together with CTO Alex Shore, an entrepreneur and enterprise software developer, they settled on BSV as the most suitable platform for their new operation.<\/p>\n BitBoss\u00a0has developed a suite of iGaming products that run on BSV and can be used online, in real life, and even to integrate the two. These include the \u201cBridge Link\u201d hardware device that communicates between mobile apps and physical gaming devices in casinos, the multi-asset Cabbage Wallet, and a range of mobile gaming apps. The company also has a number of patents pending for its technology, and the platform is available for third party developers to build upon.<\/p>\n With BitBoss\u2019 technology, Dickson said, casino operators can integrate other aspects of their business\u2014such as promotions, restaurants, entertainment and incentives\u2014without the operator or their users even needing to know they\u2019re using the Bitcoin blockchain. Casino operators have attempted to create apps for this purpose in the past, he said, but implementation has been generally poor.<\/p>\n They\u2019re also missing out on customers who can\u2019t or won\u2019t physically visit the casino premises, a problem that has existed for decades but has been exacerbated by the\u00a0COVID-19\u00a0pandemic. It\u2019s highly likely casino operators will ramp up efforts to go online and recover the millions they\u2019ve lost as casinos lie darkened. Casino operators in the past have had a poor understanding of the iGaming world or considered it too expensive to develop and link with their ecosystems. They now have added incentives to explore online options. Companies like BitBoss and other budding entrepreneurs on BSV would be happy to show them the way.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n