[xyz-ihs snippet=”gambling-warning”]
Promoted post – Part of our Bitcoin Gambling series
A cryptocurrency casino called 1xBit has been running for a few years now, providing a wide range of casino, live casino and sportsbook betting options. This Look At gives a rundown of how the casino works as a player, as we were looking to place a couple of bets on Ireland during the Six Nations.
With their own custom built platform, the casino contains a huge sportsbook including a pretty extensive (sometimes overwhelming) range of slot games, and a solid selection of live casino games.
I started off by registering an account. Registration is a one click affair, you register and are assigned a username and password. This means you can bet anonymously should you want to, although there is also the option to assign an email address, phone number etc for account recovery purposes. The site also has mobile apps, however the apps aren’t available from the iTunes or Google Play store, instead an app you need to manually install and enable through settings, or a downloadable APK, which may be a concern for some users who don’t want to install an app from outside of app stores. But they also feature a dedicated mobile site which works pretty well (I tested on iPhone).
The site is a crypto only casino, and supports most of the main cryptocurrencies, as well as a selection of tokens. The full list is: Bitcoin (BTC) ; Dogecoin (DOGE); Gamecredits (GAME); XEM/NEM; Litecoin (LTC); Dash (DASH); Ethereum (ETH); Ethereum Classic (ETC); Monero (XMR); Bytecoin (BCN); Sibcoin (SIB); Zcash (ZEC); DigiByte (DGB); BitcoinCash (BCH); BitShares (BTS).
1xBit’s 1st Deposit bonus works a little bit differently to most other crypto betting sites. The system works on a bonus points system, where as you bet you get bonus points, and as you bet 40 times what you deposit it’ll max out. This is up to 1 bitcoin, and must be done within the first 30 days as well as being subject to some other terms and conditions. As you accumulate points, you can then redeem them in the promo code shop, which lets you buy crypto which you can withdraw, or alternatively get a wide variety of bets you can place, as well as some games on certain slots. In addition to this, there’s a cashback system which works as you bet, letting you claim back between 5% – 11% of the value of your losing bets depending on your level, when your account balance is below 0.2mbtc.
So once I had deposited (and the minimum deposit is 0.0005 bitcoin), I was able to place sports bets straight away, although for live casino and slots I had to wait until the deposit had confirmed before I could play. Bets were priced in mBTC across the board. I started off browsing the range of slot games. There’s no other way to say it but, there is an extensive, to the extent of being sort of overwhelming, number of slots providers, which you can choose from. At this time of this article, this contained a whopping 80 providers: Pariplay, Endorphina, Iron Dog Studio, Play’nGO, Evoplay, Pragmatic Play, BetSoft, EGT, Playson, Wazdan, Genii, iSoftbet, Mr Slotty, ELK, Red Rake, Habanero, Spinomenal, Booongo, Booming Games, TopTrend, SAGaming, Join Games, Xplosive, Multislot, Gii365, BBIN, BetiXon, APOLLO GAMES, Fugaso, Rival, Spade Gaming, Omi Gaming, Zeus, Evolution Slots, Push Gaming, Relax Gaming, Synot Games, BeeFee Games, GMW, Agames, Firebird, Triple PG, Slingo Originals, Mikado Games, MGA, Gamomat, Aspect Games, Nektan, Worldmatch, Thunderkick, Fazi, August Gaming, Fantasma Games, Rakki Games, Leander games, Blueprint, Games Co, DLV, Kalamba Games, DreamTech, Revolver, Aiwin Games, PG Soft, KA Gaming, Play Pearls, Oryx, WeAreCasino, 1x2gaming, Gamevy, Spinmatic, Slotmotion, Betsense, BGaming, Concept Gaming, Ganapati, Belatra, Realistic Games, Spigo, Superlotto & twentyone.
Some of them were flash based, others html5 based, and I found them to be quick loading with decent audio and sound for the half a dozen ones I tried out. Many of the slots also have a freeplay option so you can test them out before spending real money on them. There’s a pretty good search option for keywords, as well as being able to narrow down by an individual provider. You can favourite games you like to play again, and there is a handy recently played so you can keep track of which ones you’ve tried. There’s also a good selection of video poker, roulette, blackjack and baccarat games to choose from as well. One thing I noticed is that some of the games ask you to convert your balance into USD though, and I wasn’t sure if this was a back-end thing, considering the site doesn’t accept fiat.
After playing around with the slot games for a while, I turned my attention towards the live casino. There are nine different providers, and each has different ranges of games. Included in one of this was an 18+ one, which has pictures of topless women on either side of the screen, but the dealers themselves are in lingerie. While it might be titillating for some, the background music was pretty loud, and you could barely make out what they were saying to you, and out of all the tables I sat at, they were some of the quietest tables with only a few players.
There’s all the games you’d expect, blackjack, baccarat, some have poker, and then some have spin the wheel type games. It is a little hard though to search across the different providers, ie to see all the ones which are using blackjack, so having to jump between providers made the experience a little disjointed, but once you were in it was fine to move between tables.
So after looking at the live casino, I turned my hand towards the main reason I’d come to the site, to look at the sports betting options. Ireland’s playing in the Rugby Six Nations at the time of writing, so I wanted to place a couple of bets on some of the matches.
The sportsbook features an extensive range of options, which cover all the major sports, including a number of minority sports, but then also bets on entertainment shows and even the weather! The full list of supported options are as follows: Air race, Alpine Skiing, American Football, Australian Rules, Badminton, Bandy, Baseball, Beach Volleyball, Biathlon, Bicycle Racing, Boxing, Chess, Cricket, Darts, Field Hockey, Floorball, Futsal, Gaelic Football, Golf, Greyhound AntePost, Greyhound Racing, Handball, Horse Racing, Horse Racing AntePost, Hurling, Inline Hockey, Lottery, Martial Arts, Motorsport, Netball, Olympiad, Poker, Rugby, Ski Jumping, Skiing, Snooker, Speed Skating, Squash, Streetball, Swimming, TV-Games, Trotting, Trotting AntePost, UFC, Water Polo, Weather, Football, Tennis, Basketball, Ice Hockey, Volleyball, Handball, Badminton, Baseball, Snooker, Futsal, Water Polo, Rugby, Australian Rules, Chess, Boxing, American Football, Athletics, Bandy, Bicycle Racing, Billiards, Bowls, Cricket, Crossfit, Darts, Figure Skating, Floorball, Formula 1, Gaelic Football, Golf, Hurling, Motorbikes, Motorsport, Netball, Olympiad, Short Track Speed Skating, Ski Jumping, Speedway, Squash, Surfing & UFC .
Being Irish, it was interesting to see Gaelic Games and Hurling there, and while I didn’t bet on them, they had some college games, as well as club and inter-county options available. On the Six Nations, it was easy to filter the game you wanted with icons, and then see all the events within the sport going on, and then the games to bet on. There was also a pretty good search, but I did run into a couple of times where the menu began to act up a little bit, and again it can be a little overwhelming with the choices for some of the more popular sports. There is an option within user settings though that lets you disable viewing some sports which makes it a little more manageable.
I was hoping to try out an accumulator bet, betting on the results of the three Six Nations matches happening at the weekend (which I lost and got completely wrong ;p results ). This was easy to build out, as you place a bet in your betslip, it adds up to the accumulator. The site defaults to decimal format, but in the settings there’s an option to switch to the UK format which gives odds in the format I’m used to, ie 15/1. I did notice the odds seemed a little bit lower than other (non crypto) sites I compared to at the time for reference.
I monitored the results as they came in, and it was pretty quick to settle the bets after the events I bet on. Given I was taking a rugby theme, I noticed there was an option to bet on your national team. It picked up a couple of sports and events that Ireland was playing with, and interestingly also some Politics and TV shows. Peter Stringer was in Dancing with the Stars, and you could bet on him to get knocked out, along with the rest of the dancers!
There’s also a very large range of esports matches you can bet on, and watch the events happening via live streaming. I had a look at a couple of matches of CS: Go, as well as League of Legends. There was also plenty of others, Starcraft, Call of Duty, Mortal Kombat, Overwatch, Dota, Rocket League, basically all the competitive esports were there.
I also tested support twice to ask some questions about the interface. The first time, I waited a very long time for a response, but the second time I was answered within a minute which was good to see. At the end of the session, I send in a request to withdraw my funds, and this was processed pretty quickly and received into my Trezor shortly thereafter.
So overall, the site is pretty comprehensive in the range of cryptos it supports, and sports and betting options it has. A criticism might be that it has too many options, with the interface being pretty busy in some sections, although once you get the hang of how to navigate the site it’s ok.
I also did some general research on the site, and there were a couple of things that did pop up. Some of the issues I found when Googling seemed unfounded to me, and there have been some reports of people betting larger amounts having issues around withdrawals and KYC, although I didn’t have any KYC to do, nor did I have any issues getting crypto onto or off the platform. The site doesn’t seem to be a regulated one, there was a reference to a Curacao license which has expired, although while the site may have been fiat accepting in the past, at the time of my playtest it was 100% crypto so it’s not unusual for crypto only sites to operate in this grey area.
So overall, I had a pretty good experience with the site, the slots and table games I tried were what I hoped, the live casino was a good quality, and it let me do my sports bets, although I just got everything completely wrong so lost them all! So if you are looking for a crypto casino and sportsbook, 1xBit is an option for you and you can also get 50 free spins on your first deposit when signing up via our link.
