GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 36 - October 2016

not classify bitcoin as money; in August, the U.K. Gambling Commission added bitcoin to its list of approved payment methods for online gambling licensees. “For most currencies, there are standard operating proce- dures that have been developed over decades by banks and other cash-heavy industries,” said Dustin Ford, a regulatory compliance attorney for the gaming industry. “One of the things that’s going to be a big issue when you’re converting currency from bitcoin into other currencies is — especially in the U.S. — if it’s from online gaming, you have to ensure that those funds came from a jurisdiction in which you’re operating, and you have to have certain internal control procedures, at least enforced at the state level, that require you to ensure that you know who you’re dealing with. And this may make things very complicated.” Walters points out that gaming transactions can be very com- plicated when dealing with regular currencies, too, and attrib- utes part of the popularity of bitcoin in online gaming to “the hesitancy of the international banking system to allow financial transactions in the gaming market.” “We’re seeing more and more hesitancy and difficulty with people maintaining bank accounts and the processing systems, and that isn’t the case with bitcoin,” he said. COVER STORY Bitcoin transactions are instant. There are no chargebacks — the transactions are irreversible. W W W . G P W A T I M E S . O R G 22