- Winning Poker Network begins paying out $160 million or up to 95% of monthly poker winnings in Bitcoin
- This is a 155% growth from what the company was paying before when the money paid was roughly $100 million a month
- The majority of WPN players are from the United States and they use Bitcoin avoid issues with money transfers as online poker is illegal in most states
Winning Poker Network delivered some exciting news late last week when company CEO Phil Nagy revealed that Bitcoin’s recent bullish run has prompted many players to start cashing out in BTC, amounting to a total of $160 million a month, or roughly 90%-95% of the total handle.
In an interview for Bloomberg, Nagy revealed exciting news from behind the curtains, confirming how the recent interest in Bitcoin, which prompted the currency to hit another high and head steadily for the $19,000 price mark, has influenced poker players.
Winning Poker Network, best known for AmericasCardRoom.eu, has a sizeable poker community built around it, and $160 million in total poker payouts is impressive. Yet, what is more impressive is the fact that players have shifted to Bitcoin en masse.
It’s not just a matter of a few odd ducks playing poker, almost 95% of the community is now cashing out in Bitcoin.
Winning Poker Network Meeting the Bitcoin Bonanza in Full
The numbers are doubly impressive when you consider that earlier this year the business was paying out only $100 million in BTC, something that has clearly changed. Going up from $100 million to $160 million a month is a 155% result, with the currency buoyed up by the bearish run.
The interest in poker soared particularly following the announcement that PayPal would now accept and allow consumers to use Bitcoin, among other cryptocurrencies in the USA. Yet, this doesn’t come with a few caveats about this expected rally.
Yet, Bitcoin is again slipping, albeit a little, and Nagy is already prepared. As he noted during his Bloomberg interview, many people are happy to just open accounts and deposit Bitcoin to liquidate when great upheavals in the value of the currency transpire.
AmericasCardRoom and Winning Poker Network, though, don’t sit around and they turn any Bitcoin deposit into FIAT currency owing to the lower volatility of central bank issued currencies, such as the US dollar, Nagy specified last week.
Poker Community Finds Bitcoin a Convenient Way to Bank
Another reason for BTC’s apparent success is not only WPN’s marketing strategy but the pure baked into this payment method. For most of WPN’s community base, using FIAT currencies can prove difficult, simply because they live in the United States where online poker is mostly banned.
Playing in offshore poker sites isn’t, but local payment processors are reluctant to breach existing legislation, such as the Wire Act and UIEGA and would rather avoid or altogether block such payments.
To this end, Bitcoin has been a relief, allowing players to bank quickly and without any hitches. Yet, some have suggested that the method has been popular because it has allowed them to avoid taxation.
Nagy did mention that WPN has no obligation to report tax or enforce taxation on players. This, he clarified, was something that players should do themselves.
