Winning Poker Network, which supports a huge range of poker websites around the world, has reportedly begun issuing 95% of their payouts in Bitcoin. In a report in Bloomberg on 19th November 2020, the Winning Poker Network CEO said that up to 95% of players have a preference for collecting their winnings in BTC.
CEO Phil Nagy, said that the company has had to make more BTC purchases than ever thanks to an increase in demand, caused by the coin’s price surge.
“We are constantly having to go out and buy Bitcoin — lots,” Nagy said. He added that, according to estimates, the WPN are issuing payouts worth more than $100 million of BTC each month – translating to about 60% of all transactions on the network.
According to Nagy, most poker players on the network come from the United States, which could be a reason why crypto is so popular as a payment method. Online gambling is only legal in 11 out of all 50 states, so crypto could be used as a way around the regulations. Nagy, who resides in Costa Rica, admitted that they do not check whether or not players file their winnings for taxes.
“It’s a work around to flout the law, not really the adoption Bitcoin should be after,” noted Reddit user u/HighFivePuddy. “Not exactly great PR.”
Basically since Bitcoin was invented in 2009, online gambling and crypto have been inextricably linked. Even “Know when to HODL” can be linked to poker. Just last year, WPN set a Guinness World Record for the biggest crypto jackpot paid out for online poker – $1,050,560.
