Actually, they have little directly in common but they are two of the hottest subjects in online casino gaming these days! The free chip promotion is very similar to a no deposit bonus while banking with bitcoin is becoming more and more prevalent not just in casino gaming but in commerce generally.
In this article, Slots Play Casinos will talk about the free chip promotions so popular at many only casinos and we will then address the bitcoin and crypto-currency revolution.
What is a Free Chip?
At a land-based casino, a free chip is an actual chip. A player can use it at the blackjack table, at the craps table, or at the roulette table. It is impractical for a land-based casino to reconstruct a slots terminal to accept a free chip so this type of promotion s not available to slots players at land-based casinos.
Online casinos are increasingly offering a few free chips to new gamers. These often take the place of a no deposit bonus. Every online casino will have its own rules for how a gamer can use the free chip or chips. Some may track games played with the free chip and may limit the size of wins a gamer can enjoy with a free chip.
The best way to visualize a virtual free chip offered at many online casinos is to see the free chip as real money usable only at that casino.
This is the perfect segue to a discussion of bitcoin and crypto-currencies generally.
Bitcoin is Real Money
Many people have a hard time visualizing bitcoin and other crypto-currencies as representing real money. This gets us to the definition of money. If bitcoin fits the definition, then we should see it as real money.
Thomas Sowell is one of the most acclaimed economists of the 20th and 21st centuries. He said that, “Money is very simple. It is an agreed-upon intermediary for exchanging anything between people.” it is obvious, then, that anything we can use to create a fair exchange between or among people can fairly be considered money.
Kids all over the world trade in baseball cards and the cards of other sports. People buy sports memorabilia as an investment hoping to sell the item at a later date—often years later—for a good profit.
Many corporations use stock options as an enticement to middle and upper management. The stock option is, in the terms of the corporation, almost exactly like a free chip at a casino: it can be used only at that corporation and you can’t go to the ice cream shop and buy ice cream with a corporate stock option!
Now, many people might not be able to fully visualize bitcoin as real money but there is no denying that bitcoin and other crypto-currencies are used every day to affect exchanges between and among people.
What Can We Do to Make it Easier to See Bitcoin as Real Money?
Step one is to stop using the term “crypto-currency”! This is a term created by government functionaries or people with banking connections to the central banks of countries. You see, countries create their own currencies. Any currency that attempts to challenge the prevailing currency of a country is a threat to that country’s government.
Therefore, central banks and government treasuries started using the term crypto-currency as a way of making the average person feel that bitcoin and the like are not a real currency.
But based on the definition of money as offered by Professor Sowell, bitcoin is real money since it can be used—and is used often—to create exchanges between people.
We feel that it makes bitcoin a lot more intellectually accessible to simply call it alternative money.
Doesn’t the Talk about Alternative Money Make Bitcoin a Very Political Matter?
Yes, it does and yes, it is!
At a casino, whether online or land-based, the casino may accept bitcoin as it does any other leading currency. The casino may accept United States Dollars, Australian Dollars, Euro, Swiss Francs, Yen, United Arab Emirates Dirham, British Pound Sterling, and many other leading world currencies.
Bitcoin and other alternative currencies are now widely accepted in casinos and at many companies, especially online casinos.
We have no problem visualizing these currencies as being real currencies. We feel the same about all of the more minor currencies that most casinos don’t accept. These currencies have to be converted into more prominent currencies.
But isn’t Government Money the Only Real Money?
Actually, no, and that is the point. We don’t have to know how bitcoins and other alternative currencies are “mined” to know that they are real currencies. So, why did bitcoin come into being?
Here is where the discussion gets most political. If you just want to play casino games, you can easily skip this next part but if you are curious, here goes.
There was a time when all currency was defined in terms of gold. Many people hated gold. Most of the hatred of gold was caused by central banks hoarding the majority of the world’s gold.
Despite holding the vast majority of the world’s gold, many governments began spending money they didn’t actually have. This caused problems in the world’s monetary system. We are not here advocating for central control of the money supply nor are we advocating for a more laissez faire money supply.
We are just trying to explain how bitcoin came to be. It came to be because some people—enough people—had lost faith in central banks to hold down the expansion of the money supply.
In other words, as governments printed money and played bookkeeping tricks to hide the fact that they were printing money, the need for alternative currencies began to take hold.
What does it All Mean for Casino Gaming?
In terms of your ability to play casino games, bitcoin is just an option. In terms of buying anything online, bitcoin may be just an option. After all, we are by now quite familiar with and comfortable with ewallets. But when ewallets were first introduced, they were met with a generalized skepticism.
Today, most gamers bank through a credit card, and ewallet, or an alternative currency none of which were readily available even as recently as the 1960’s.
Slots Play Casinos Reports on All Things Casino
The rise of alternative currencies was one event in the monetary systems we use. For gamers, it might make no difference at all! Still, alternative currencies are in the news and online casinos are increasingly accepting them.
This is just one of a myriad of ways that Slots Play Casinos keeps gamers informed. READ SLOTS PLAY CASINOS OFTEN!
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