The use of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology by a number of mainstream commercial sectors has increased rapidly, but some doubts remain as to its suitability to gambling. 

Appearing on CoinGeek’s latest edition of Hashing it OutVeridat CEO Phil Runyan spoke to Becky Liggero about the adoption of stablecoins in betting and gaming, sharing his views on what he believes is a strong opportunity.

“We’re starting to look more at stablecoins, and this is really going to be the game changer, because at the end of the day when i make a deposit or if I win $10 I want my $10 to be $10 today, I want it to be $10 tomorrow, and I want it to be $10 100 days from now.”

He added: “Stablecoins, especially with Bitcoin SB (BSV), will allow for that $1 payment to be a one dollar payment today and tomorrow, so operators aren’t constantly in this state of ‘we have to sell it now because there could be a massive swing’.”

If a massive swing in value were to occur, he noted, operators ‘are not going to stand for that’, meaning that a stablecoin is perhaps the best crypto option for the betting industry. 

“It’s going to be really important that you do have a high throughput, low transactional fee stablecoin, and BSV does an amazing job of that,” he concluded. 

Also observing the significance of social responsibility and problem gambling minimisation in the contemporary betting space, the CEO asserted that blockchain technology has strong benefits in this area as well.

“If you are having a bad time and have consciously said you have had a problem and need to take a step back, but as problem gamblers tend to do, they change their minds pretty fast,” he detailed. 

“If your ID exists on chain and on token, that token validates who you are and so any other operator out there can say that they have utilised this technology to allow people to come in and utilise our service, from that if your taken has been flagged as a problem gambler and the duration that is set on it, that person can be rejected.

“This then keeps the operator from having fines levied against them for allowing self-excluded players from operating on their platform.”

Phil Runyan – who also disclosed his views on blockchain’s additional compliance and KYC benefits – is not the only figure from the crypto space to have praised BSV’s potential for the betting sector.

SPeaking to Liggero last year, Alex Shore, Founder and CTO of B2B and B2C blockchain-based gambling company BitBoss, praised the dynastic update made to BSV, – which increased the ‘unconfirmed transaction limit’ from 25 to 1,000 – as ‘huge’ for gambling.

“This is huge for us, because with a gambling on a blockchain, you can prevent cheating or what’s called double spending, by associating a player’s bet with the bet result or payout that is sent back to that player,” Shore explained. 

“That’s what we do to secure our system and it’s a huge advantage over non blockchain based online gaming platforms. Every time a player places a bet, it gets sent over the blockchain and one of our games services, let’s say Blackjack for example, processes the action that the player took and decides if there’s a payout.”

Phil Runyan: stablecoin could be gambling industry ‘game changer’