This article will teach you how to make bitcoin sportsbook deposits, which can help you with the most complicated thing about online sports betting – funding your account.
We love betting sports at online sportsbooks for so many reasons.
You can:
- bet 1 game at a time (Canada’s provincial sports lotteries don’t allow that)
- shop around for the best odds on every bet
- bet on pretty much anything you want, from props to futures to game lines to live betting
- take advantage of signup bonuses to fatten your bankroll
But funding your sportsbook accounts can be a real headache, because a lot of banks won’t allow you to deposit at gambling sites using your credit card.
Instead, you might have to use an intermediary like iDebit, Instadebit or Entropay. Those sportsbook deposit methods are actually pretty easy to use once you have them set up, but there’s a bit of a learning curve at first and it can discourage you from making your first deposit.
Bodog is probably the easiest sportsbook to deposit money at. They offer you the ability to send them money via Interac email transfer, the same way you’d send your buddy money for picking up your share of the tab at the bar last night. In the past, they’ve even allowed you to send them money the same way you’d make an online bill payment.
Now Bodog’s added another option that is quickly becoming a very popular way for people: Bitcoin sportsbook deposits.
We’d heard about Bitcoin before, but never really gave it that much attention. However, with Bodog, 5Dimes and BetOnline now offering it as a deposit method, and the likelihood of more sportsbooks doing the same in the future, we thought we’d learn more about Bitcoin, use it to fund our Bodog account, and show others how to make bitcoin sportsbook deposits.
** Note: The first time we tried Bitcoin sportsbook deposits, it was a 3-day process. Day 1, we signed up at the bitcoin exchanger; Day 2, we were verified and able to purchase bitcoin; Day 3, we were able to withdraw our bitcoin to deposit at the sportsbook. **
First, what’s Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a digital currency that is created and held electronically. It’s best described as cash for the Internet, a way to send and receive money online without using a middleman like a bank.
It’s a young currency and there’s a limited amount of it in circulation, so the value of it can fluctuate greatly. In other words, it’s not something you want to buy a bunch of and then save for a rainy day.
(Screengrab from www.coindesk.com)
But if you acquire it and them immediately use it to make a bitcoin sportsbook deposit, the value of it shouldn’t change very much in that short time period. The sportsbook will credit your account in your preferred currency, based on the value of the bitcoin you deposit.
What are the best Bitcoin betting sites I can join?
Like we said earlier, there are already a few sportsbooks accepting bitcoin and we expect more will in the future.
Bodog is the best bitcoin sportsbook for Canadians in our opinion. BetOnline and 5Dimes are excellent sportsbooks that also accept bitcoin deposits, but they deal in American currency. That might not matter to you if you’re depositing and withdrawing with bitcoin, but you’ll be wagering in U.S. funds.
You’ll need to sign up at one or all of those before making a bitcoin deposit.
How do I acquire bitcoin?
You can get bitcoin via Bitcoin ATMs, local bitcoin exchangers or online bitcoin exchangers.
Bodog’s website was really helpful with this. When we clicked on bitcoin as a deposit method, Bodog gave a step-by-step description of how to do it.
The first step was to sign up for a Bitcoin Wallet, and Bodog recommended using either Kraken or Circle.
We signed up at Kraken, and were quickly impressed by the security measures they have in place. It took a few attempts to complete the signup because the password had to include non-alphanumeric characters (at least one character that wasn’t a letter or a number) and we couldn’t use a password that contained a commonly-used name.
You also have the option to create a Master Key (a 5-plus digit code) to improve your account security, or a PGP public key to receive encrypted email. When you complete your signup, an activation key is emailed to you.
E-wallets like Kraken follow Know Your Customer (KYC) protocol, which requires them to obtain and confirm your name and residency before you can deposit or withdraw money.
For Tier 1 access, I submitted my name, birthday, country and phone number, then went to grab a coffee. By the time I sat back down, we were already verified for Tier 1.
In order to fund our Kraken account with Canadian money that we could then use to acquire bitcoin, we had to upgrade to Tier 3. It didn’t cost any money – all you have to do was give your address (Tier 2), and then prove your identity (photo of my driver’s license) and address (photo of a recent bill).
Kraken’s site said verification could take up to 48 hours. We were approved to Tier 3 status within 20 minutes. It took until the following day, however, before we could actually deposit money.
The next step was to deposit some Canadian money so that we could then purchase some bitcoin. We had the option of depositing via either EFT (electronic funds transfer) or via Interac (Vogogo). The minimum deposit at Kraken was $50.
Once we deposited money to our Kraken account, we could now purchase some bitcoin. The market price for 1 bitcoin that day was approximately $545 Canadian, so we put in a bid at that valuation. It would buy us .091 of bitcoin.
If your bid isn’t accepted right away, you may need to increase your valuation slightly until someone agrees to your offer. We were able to purchase some bitcoin for around that price, and the transaction fee from Kraken was 7 cents.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to withdraw our bitcoin as soon as we purchased it. We had to wait a day until our purchase was completely processed.
How to make bitcoin sportsbook deposits at Bodog
The next day, we went back to Bodog.eu, logged in, clicked on the Deposit icon (the $ at the top right of the screen) and selected the Bitcoin deposit option.
It brought up the same screen as we’d seen before:
We’d already done the first 2 steps, so we went to #3 and selected an amount to deposit.
For this example, we chose to deposit $25, which brought up this screen:
This screen displayed the amount of bitcoin we needed to deposit $25 Canadian at Bodog (.0440714) and also gave us a Wallet Address to send the bitcoin to.
We copied and pasted both of those pieces of information into our withdrawal form at Kraken.
There was a .0005 bitcoin fee for withdrawing from Kraken, which amounted to approximately 20 cents. Once we confirmed the withdrawal, we went back to Bodog and clicked on the ‘I’ve completed my deposit’ button at the bottom of the Bitcoin Deposit Pending screen.
Five minutes later, our Bodog account was credited for the deposit!
Do you recommend bitcoin sportsbook deposits?
Learning how to make bitcoin sportsbook deposits was a bit nervewracking at first. We didn’t know very much about bitcoin, and any new technology – especially currency – can be pretty intimidating.
There was a bit of work at first, signing up for a bitcoin wallet and then getting our account verified. We didn’t love how it took a few days to get set up for the first deposit.
However, once you’re set up, bitcoin might be the best way to make a sportsbook deposit!
You can fund your bitcoin wallet by making a direct payment from your online bank account, then purchase your bitcoin right away. The next day, you can use bitcoin to deposit at an online sportsbook – completely anonymously as well.