If you go to your favorite online news site almost every day now, one of the top headlines will invariably be about cryptocurrencies. And we’re not just talking about the massive speculative gains that have made many people rich or the subsequent downturn blips that invariably follow.
You can find the biggest names in sports, like quarterback Tom Brady, announce that he is all aboard the Bitcoin train. Or Tesla CEO Elon Musk continually showing his support for Dogecoin, even joking about it during an appearance on Saturday Night Live.
One thing we all know is that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are here to stay for the long-term and will continue to be adopted more and more by mainstream society. But there is one prominent online presence that has already fully integrated cryptocurrency into its business model, creating huge benefits for them as well as their customers. It’s a US-facing poker site Americas Cardroom.
Americas Cardroom is not exactly new to the online poker space, far from it. They’ve been servicing players from the U.S. and the rest of the world since way back in 2001. But it was a strategic decision that they made about six years ago that changed everything, moving their popularity into an entirely different stratosphere.
After getting tired of relying on traditional payment processing methods like credit cards, and the hassles that periodically came along with them, Americas Cardroom decided to start accepting Bitcoin for deposits and withdrawals in 2015. This allowed the site to stand out from their competition and show the world what a forward-thinking company they were.
Players at Americas Cardroom started reaping the benefits immediately and not just because of the lower transaction fees. They loved how using Bitcoin made their deposits and withdrawals anonymous, quick and easy, while also providing the safety and security they required.
Fast forward to today, and if you go to the Americas Cardroom website and look at all their accepted cryptocurrencies, it’s almost hard to believe. There are over 60 different options, which is the same amount they’ve had for the last few years, with some new ones added and some removed when it is warranted. The three most popular ones right now are Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple.
Perhaps Dogecoin will move up the ranks at some point, much to the delight of Elon Musk, but that’s not really the point as far as Americas Cardroom is concerned. Their goal is to provide as many great options as possible, and then let their players decide which ones are the most beneficial to them.
Here’s how it works. A player makes a deposit in Bitcoin, for example. Americas Cardroom quotes the player a price of conversion in USD. Then the player plays at the site in USD and cashes out their winnings back out in Bitcoin.
So the next question is, “how has the acceptance of cryptocurrency affected the bottom line of their business”? While Americas Cardroom is not divulging just how much net revenue has increased due to crypto, they do say it now accounts for over 60% of their business (up from 3% in 2015), with that figure increasing every day.
With a huge increase in their number of players, thanks in large part to cryptocurrency, Americas Cardroom knew they had to up their game in terms of product offerings. One of the ways they did this was by offering the biggest tournament selection for U.S. players.
Their Venom tournaments are the most prominent example. They started in 2019 and the first one had a $5 Million guarantee and finished with a $6,382,500 prize pool, all while breaking a world record for the largest cryptocurrency winning jackpot in an online poker tournament ($1,050,560). Today, the Venom runs up to four times per year, has both traditional No Limit Holdem and Progressive Knock Out versions, with guarantees up to $8 Million and final prize pools approaching $10 Million.
Now, we peek into the future and predict what Americas Cardroom will do next in the cryptocurrency world. What we don’t see is the number of cryptos they accept increasing dramatically as there is really no reason to.
The poker site did offer an extra incentive for players to deposit for the first time using a crypto. It was double the amount awarded compared to a traditional deposit method like a credit card. However, what they found is that crypto has become so mainstream in the online poker world, and such an advantage to players, that is no longer necessary to provide any extra incentive.
We are confident that Americas Cardroom will continue to be a cryptocurrency leader in their industry as they have the infrastructure and knowledge base in place, plus the will to execute their mission as it’s a huge benefit for both their business and players alike.
For more information on this revolutionary online poker site, visit AmericasCardroom.eu.
Image by Thorsten Frenzel from Pixabay