Cryptocurrencies are currently in the midst of a bull run. As adoption slowly grows, the question has come up as to when sportsbooks in New Jersey will accept them as a banking method?
Sports Betting With Cryptocurrency in NJ
Sports bettors who have played offshore in the past know that crypto was one of the most convenient methods for banking back then. Now that legal sportsbooks are readily available in the Garden State, depositing and withdrawing with traditional methods – like credit cards, PayPal and cash – has generally been much easier to do.
Will sportsbooks in New Jersey start accepting cryptocurrency as a method of payment? Let’s take a closer look.
What Are Cryptocurrencies?
Setting aside the technology behind them for now, cryptocurrencies are essentially a method of payment. You can send and receive money to anyone or anywhere in the world, and generally speaking, the fees are quite low. While that sounds great, there are a couple of hurdles. To start, cryptocurrencies can be volatile. You can exchange some U.S. dollars into Bitcoin and then by the time you send it over, the price could have changed.
It’s all gravy when the price goes up and you get more, but it stings when the price drops and you get less. The other issue is where do you exchange your dollars for crypto? At press time, we’re seeing some rapid adoption as now PayPal will allow Americans to buy crypto and we’ve also seen apps like CashApp allow it. Still, you can sometimes get hit with some nasty fees when buying it.
At the end of the day, though, cryptocurrencies are going to be a solid option in the long term. Once more people have them available, the fees to send them to the sportsbooks should be minuscule and the transactions should (and could be) instantaneous. That means you’ll be able to deposit easily and get withdrawals in a flash. Who wouldn’t want that?
Check out this youtube page run by Former UFC fighter, Ben Askren, called the Funky Crypto Podcast. They have a lot of good information.
Why Would They Allow It?
Sportsbooks have an incentive to allow cryptocurrency because, in the end, they will benefit. Right now, sportsbooks use a lot of traditional payment methods and that’s fine and dandy. They’re safe, they’re secure and they’re well-known. However, they also tend to have some high fees.
For example, something like PayPal or credit cards could take 3% off of merchants. When you start dealing with hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in payments, losing that 3% is going to hurt. Cryptocurrencies could offer sportsbooks the opportunity to cut down on those fees dramatically. Using something like Bitcoin, Litecoin or Stellar – especially the latter two – could mean not only cheaper transactions but much faster as well.
The bigger concern right now is regulation. With cryptocurrencies, it’s still a little bit of the Wild West. People can send money from anywhere and there isn’t always KYC (Know Your Customer), so the sportsbooks could get into legal trouble accepting money from just anyone.
At least with credit cards or PayPal, those companies have already vetted customers and asked them to verify age, address, and more. There is also some concern about money laundering through cryptocurrencies, which the sportsbooks would prefer to avoid.
However, in the long run, these issues will be minor. When you take a look at companies like Coinbase, who are now openly traded on the stock market, it’s quite conceivable that they partner with sportsbooks in New Jersey and process deposits and withdrawals through cryptocurrencies.
They’ll verify customer’s accounts and make sure the process is completely safe. Even if it’s a bit of a leap of faith at this point, this is likely the future within the next handful of years. When you see a number of companies starting to accept crypto as a payment method, you know it’s only a matter of time.
Some Kind Of Already Do
What’s interesting to note is that while you might not think that sportsbooks currently accept cryptocurrency as a payment method, in some ways, they kind of do. Could you actually make a deposit with Bitcoin into DraftKings, FanDuel or any other sportsbooks? Definitely not. However, PayPal is a common payment method that’s accepted by many of the best books in the Garden State.
Well, PayPal now deals with cryptocurrencies, so it’s conceivable that someone receives crypto into PayPal and then sends cash over to a sportsbook. The same goes for the popular e-wallet Skrill. The company currently allows you to instantaneously buy 40 different cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and more.
Skrill is also a common payment method that’s accepted by many books in the state. That means that we’re almost all the way there already. We’re right on the cusp of it; it’s just a matter of whether the gaming commissions and the legal teams in the state want to go there.
Sports Betting With Cryptocurrency – What’s The Verdict?
At this point, you can’t deposit, withdraw or play in cryptocurrency at any sportsbook in New Jersey. However, don’t be surprised to see happen within a few years. Cryptocurrency is seeing some impressive growth and adoption but we’re currently in a bull market. As prices appreciate, everyone wants to get in and earn a piece of the pie.
However, this market moves in cycles and it’s likely that once things turn bearish, the enthusiasm to buy, sell or use cryptocurrencies to deposit at sportsbooks in New Jersey dies down a little bit. That means that while it makes sense for the books to offer it and the players to use it, it’s not likely that it’s going to be used for gaming in the short-term future. However, in the long run, it’s a safe bet that we’ll see this available as an option.
