As Bitcoin gains broader adoption, and companies refine the apps and websites that service the digital currency, it’s going to be easier for customers to learn it and use for their every day activities, like gambling. But for the moment, we sit in that awkward space where Bitcoin SV already has several advantages over other payment options, but public awareness and confidence in it isn’t where it needs to be.

So what is a gambling company to do if it wants to start pushing it as a payment option? Listing it on site, providing detailed explainers, and offering deposits bonuses are all very solid steps. But in my experience, if you’re starting from scratch, the first thing you need to do is get a healthy amount of buy-in from your workforce, and that is a task in and of itself.

Luckily, in a past life, advocating Bitcoin adoption was precisely my job. So let me share with you some of the best practices and missteps I saw along the way.

Crafting your training to be as simple as possible

The reasons Bitcoin should be attractive as a payment option, and beneficial for the company, are simple. It works, its cheap to use, and its fast.

The academic reasons for why Bitcoin is each of those things, and why it is far superior to fiat currency, are much less interesting to the layman in comparison. The blockchain that Bitcoin is transacted on is fundamental to its nature, but the average user needs to know as much about a blockchain as he does about the minting process for coins. Similarly, Bitcoin being decentralized, peer-to-peer and traceable are all benefits to the operation in one way or another, but unless you’re talking to a person who’s into that kind of thing, their eyes will glaze over.

So your training has to emphasize Bitcoin as simply as it would any other payment option. For a gambling operation, what matters is that with modern digital currency wallets it’s become very easy to use, and massive blockchain scaling has it made extremely fast and cheap to use and spend.

Find your Bitcoin champions

While not everyone in the industry has found and investigated Bitcoin, many have, and a healthy portion have made it a hobby to learn as much as they can about digital currencies. If any of these people exist in your office, they should be the first ones you talk to about spreading Bitcoin awareness.

In our office, we saw two distinct stages of Bitcoin advocacy. The first was a very top-down, lesson driven stage. In class lessons and digital correspondence taught about the advantages of using Bitcoin, namely that its fast, cheap, private and secure, but translating that into how it was a gamechanger was still half-baked.

The second stage was when adoption really started to pick up. When several employees started to use Bitcoin in their daily lives, they couldn’t stop talking to others about how fast and cheap it really was. That started a domino effect amongst all of the workforce, increasing their affinity for the payment option, and their ability to advocate for it, both in their work and with customers.

If we would have started with empowering our champions first, we may have saved a bit of time when crafting training materials, as they could speak most naturally about what made Bitcoin such a great payment option. They could speak to others as friends and colleagues, rather than as bosses and trainers.

And here’s a tip if you want to generate a few new advocates really fast: make their Christmas bonus a Bitcoin bonus. We tried this several times with token amounts, but later found out that many employees never bothered with it because the amount was too small. But when the amount was significant, people learned how to use Bitcoin really fast, and learned to like it quite a bit.

Make it a priority

Assuming your gambling operation has other payment options, players may default to the ones they are comfortable with until they no longer work. And in the customer service setting that we were in, agents were happy to let them so they could move on to the next email, call or chat.

For the agent, that makes perfect sense. Their job performance is often measured by the length of their interaction and customer satisfaction. In comparison, upselling someone on Bitcoin can seem daunting, difficult and contrary to every natural instinct they’ve developed over the years.

In our experience, Bitcoin went nowhere for those very reasons until we made it very clear that it was the single biggest priority to the company to push its adoption. But when it did, things changed.

At the top levels of the organization, Bitcoin became a factor in Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). From that, it cascaded all the way down to the employee level and made a part of their monthly evaluations.

Of course, we hit some bumps along the way. Telling agents they must offer Bitcoin simply isn’t enough, as it comes across as a half-hearted offer to a customer already dissatisfied with their options. But when the agent knows they will be judged on their ability to sell it as an option, their tone changes, and they begin to make it their priority to learn and offer the option.

And investing in their ability to sell matters too. Going back to the first point, make sure they are well trained on the top selling points of Bitcoin so they can talk about it. And get them some upselling training and materials so they don’t feel lost when they have to do so.

Bringing it all together

If you want your employees to be advocates for Bitcoin because its in the best interest of the organization, you need each of these elements to help them be successful at it. And each part works with the others to guarantee success.

Start by putting well crafted and easy to understand training materials in front of them that emphasize why Bitcoin is good for them personally, the organization as a whole, and the players that are coming in. Encourage those who take to this new knowledge so they can start reinforcing those lessons and spreading them through the office. And make it part of the job’s expectations, so everyone knows your serious.

If you do all of this, you’ll quickly see Bitcoin become a key part of your organization’s success. Soon, you’ll not only have employees who love and advocate for Bitcoin, but a player base who’s ready to spend it.

The post How to build a Bitcoin culture at work appeared first on CalvinAyre.com.

These are dark times. It’s been over 6 years since I began writing for CalvinAyre. I have to say, it has been fantastic, and I couldn’t be more thankful to the staff for the freedom they have given me to speak my own voice. As I look at the world crumbling in fear, distrust, mutual recriminations and accusations; as I see trade barriers rise up higher and higher and the cloud of war get thicker; as I see reason fly out the window amid wild racial tensions and censorship intensify as more and more are afraid to speak their minds amid the gathering force of mobs; it’s sites like these that stand for economic liberty that give me hope that there are still people to talk to in this world. I know there always will be, and that keeps me from losing my mind.

True, gambling proper is not my passion. I don’t play poker, I don’t visit casinos, I don’t stake money on games of chance, and I’ve never been to Macau. But in a way, I gamble for a living. I am an economic forecaster, and I stake my own money on my own view of the world. At least in that way I know the thrill of gambling. The only difference is that instead of betting on a game, I bet on reality. I’ve always imagined in the childish part of my mind that when I ultimately win, I would have happiness and security. But now that it is actually happening and I see the world tearing itself apart, mostly what I feel is sadness. A bit of relief that at least I saw it coming, but mostly sadness. In the center of that sadness is a kernel of optimism and hope that will never be extinguished, but right now it’s hard to drill down deep enough to really feel it.

True, I did not see the trigger. I thought the coronavirus hype would blow over. I was wrong. It hasn’t. Now I smell the end game. I believe it’s just around the corner.

The very first article I wrote for this site was dated March 3, 2014. The title was The China Bubble. In it I laid out the end game, namely that Macau stocks are toast and wouldn’t survive the relentless rise in interest rates that was inevitably coming. I linked to a Bloomberg report that the People’s Bank of China was no longer interested in financing U.S government deficits by increasing their holdings of U.S debt. Indeed, Chinese holdings of U.S debt securities topped out 3 months later, in June 2014.

And still, that was 6 years ago and interest rates have not risen. In fact, for governments, even and especially bankrupt ones, they’ve fallen below zero in real terms, in many cases even nominal terms. Even in Greece, the most bankrupt of bankrupt states, you can loan money to the government for 10 years for the privilege of a return below the rate of inflation. This is considered normal. And yet, despite all the new money printed to accomplish these crazy distortions, the all time high in Macau stocks was hit exactly three days after publication of my first article on Macau’s inevitable fall. The VanEck Vectors Gaming ETF (BJK) topped out at $56.26 on March 6, 2014. It hasn’t been back since. 

The long term technicals since then look dismal. We’ve seen lower lows and lower highs ever since, and the slope for highs is headed down. It looks like we just had another high on June 1. Fundamentally, the situation is deteriorating very quickly. The relationship between the two biggest economies the world has ever seen, the United States and China, is falling apart at the seams. Beijing has passed legislation that will effectively destroy Hong Kong’s semi-autonomous status, and the U.S has responded by revoking Hong Kong’s special trade status. Trade between China and the U.S will now proceed to plummet, cutting off the lifeblood of the mainland Chinese VIPs, and from there it will trickle down to gut-punch the mass market as well.

It is only going to get worse as the U.S continues to fall apart in a meth-fueled orgy of money printing that just will not stop, or even slow down for a second. Soon, all foreigners will cease financing Americans sitting at home watching Netflix paid for with government checks. China will very soon sense the danger of holding any more U.S debt and dump its Treasury holdings as they will literally have no other choice. The counterargument is that it is not in China’s interest to sell U.S treasuries and bankrupt the U.S. But what if the alternative is that their debt holdings fall to zero? In the end reality always wins. This simply cannot continue much longer. Interest rates around the world will skyrocket, and U.S casinos operating in Macau may not survive at all, as they will be under both political and economic attack.

And so I hate to say this, but it’s time to go in for the kill. My bet is that by 2022 interest rates will have skyrocketed and the China bubble I wrote about over 6 years ago will have finally popped for good. Macau is going down. Could I be wrong on timing? Yes. Of course I could. But there is no need to stake a lot of money on these bets. If you’re an avid gambler you understand position size and to never be irresponsible.

Here are the bets. Before you take any of these, make sure you have enough hard money in gold and silver for safety, and some amount of Bitcoin (BSV) for speculation. That’s because even if I’m right about these bets, the dollars they are denominated in may not be worth much in the end anyway. Also, these are speculative, and should not exceed 2% of total portfolio value.

1. Las Vegas Sands (LVS) falls below $20 by January 21, 2022. Puts are going for $1.65.
2. Wynn (WYNN) falls below $20 by January 21, 2022. Puts are going for $2.14.
3. Melco (MLCO) falls below $5 by January 21, 2022. Puts are going for $0.40.

My specialty though is not gaming. It’s the gold market. That’s what I understand the best. In preparation for the end game and in the interest of preserving and adding to the real wealth of my followers, I have launched a subscription-based investment service called The End Game Investor. There I give a daily commentary on precious metals markets, central banks and the economy, with two model portfolios, one conservative and one aggressive, so you can see what I’m doing and when. I hope to see you there.

The post So long Hong Kong, and the Macau Apocalypse Trade appeared first on CalvinAyre.com.

Evolution Gaming has extended its existing relationship with Rush Street Interactive, the iGaming division of US regional casino operator Rush Street Gaming, with the launch of six of its Evolution First Person games in Colombia with RushBet.co.

The expanded deal includes Evolution’s First Person Roulette, Lightning Roulette, Blackjack, Dream Catcher, Baccarat, and Mega Ball.

All of the above are RNG versions of Evolution’s Live Casino games that are all extremely popular across various European markets and North America.

As part of its extended relationship with Rush Street, Evolution will be able to add the six First Person titles to the casino operator’s RushBet.co Colombian iGaming platform. The games will be rolled out gradually over the coming weeks and will be available to RushBet.co players across desktop, tablet, and mobile.

Evolution first teamed up with Rush Street Interactive in 2018 to launch its Live Casino range with PlaySugarHouse.com in the regulated New Jersey online gaming market. The casino website now features a mix of Evolution’s live table games, including Blackjack, Roulette, Slingshot Roulette, Baccarat as well as two exclusive firsts in online live poker in the US – Evolution’s Three Card Poker and Ultimate Texas Hold’em.

Evolution said that a “similarly rich” Live Casino offering is set to be expected to be launched by the provider and Rush Street in Colombia over the next few weeks and months.

Offering Premium Live Casino Mobile Playing Experience

Commenting on their extended deal with Rush Street Interactive, Evolution Chief Commercial Officer Sebastian Johannisson said that they are “delighted to be growing” their existing relationship with an online gaming operator that is “at the leading edge of gaming industry convergence, constantly innovating and pushing boundaries.”

Mr. Johannisson went on that Evolution shares the same ethos and that it looks forward to building on the successes it has achieved together with Rush Street Interactive to date.

Richard Schwartz, President of Rush Street Interactive, said that his company has joined forces with Evolution “because we wanted to offer our RushBet.co players in Colombia a premier Live Casino mobile playing experience.”

Mr. Schwartz added that the “breath, variety, and innovation” of Evolution’s Live Casino portfolio and the provider’s services and operational excellence give them full scope to achieve their Colombian objectives.

In separate news from earlier this week, Evolution announced that it has made an offer to acquire fellow Swedish online casino games provider NetEnt in a deal that values the latter company at approximately SEK19.6 billion ($2.1 billion).

Evolution Chairman Jens von Bahr said that the proposed strategic deal will mark a significant step towards his company’s “long-term vision of becoming the global market leader in the online casino industry.”

A majority of NetEnt’s shareholders have recommended the company’s tie-up with Evolution.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date on the day’s top casino news stories

The post Evolution Extends Rush Street Partnership with First Person Games Roll-out in Colombia appeared first on Casino News Daily.

During a year where most of the poker world has been forced to play online poker, it’s perhaps fitting that the best story of 2020 in poker so far is an online poker challenge that was set up long before the global Coronavirus pandemic hit.

Phil Galfond’s ‘Galfond Challenge’ attracted plenty of headlines when it kicked off, with at least five challengers each bringing something different for the man himself to combat. Could Phil Galfond still be called one of the best players in the world?

After the early exchanges of his first challenge against online player VeniVidi93, Galfond was behind. It didn’t immediately get better for him, the player known as VeniVidi going an incredible $900,000 ahead in the challenge. Galfond considered his options, with many commentators on social media claiming the comeback was impossible.

Not only did Phil Galfond recover his loss, but he won the challenge outright in an amazing final day of play. We spoke to the Run It Once creator and owner to find out what lay behind his comeback and subsequent victory in the second completed challenge against ‘ActionFreak’.

It would be fair to say that the original aim of the Galfond Challenge has been far exceeded.

“My original aim was to prove that I could still play, mainly in order to let Run It Once Training members know that they were learning PLO from the right guy,” says Galfond. “From there, I realized that it would be a great promotion for Run It Once Poker – showing off the slick software to a lot of viewers who hadn’t given it a shot yet. At this point, those things are still very important to me, but I really am just having fun playing poker and I want to keep challenging myself.

Galfond had only played a few hundred hands against VeniVidi before their challenge, but he soon started studying the patterns of his tricky, talented opponent.

“After the first few days of the challenge, I spent a lot of my off time studying his game. I did a lot of stat breakdowns, as I often do against heads-up opponents, but to be honest, that didn’t help me too much,” says Galfond. 

What helped Galfond, who has previously won almost $3m in live tournaments but far more online under his ‘OMGClayAiken’ alias, used the Run It Once replay software.

“I found that what helped me most was that after every session, I replayed every hand that went to showdown and saw how he played his hand. I didn’t take notes or break down any of the spots, but I just processed the information and let my brain digest it. By the end of the challenge, I really felt that I had a good handle on the way he thought about a number of different situations and the way he’d play a lot of hands. Although, to be fair, he changed his style over the match, as did I.”

In the days after Galfond’s victory over VeniVidi, many thought he would take an extended break. We ourselves wrote on the lasting effects of the challenge perhaps being the positive attitude Galfond had shown throughout. Instead, Galfond jumped right back into the action.

“I was exhausted, but I was on a relatively short trip out of the U.S. and I had taken a lot longer than I expected to finish the first challenge,” he says. “I wanted to get going and power through these challenges as quickly as I could. It ended up being over a week off before playing ActionFreak, so I was well rested.”

The battle of the mind is the most difficult yet most rewarding in poker. Galfond’s mastery of that element of the challenge against VeniVidi amazed many observers, including this reporter. But what was the turning point for Galfond himself in the challenge?

“Towards the end of the downswing, I realized that my game was starting to fall apart, and that’s when I decided to take a break.” Admits Galfond. “I guess that break was a turning point in that I was able to mentally reset and recover, but I really don’t feel my game suffered much before then until the last couple of sessions.”

That break wasn’t the only one forced upon Galfond during that first challenge, as the global Coronavirus outbreak forced the world into a lockdown that would see millions of poker players and fans focusing solely on the action online rather than at the live felt. It didn’t affect Galfond’s poker game, but the impact was still felt close to home.

“The impact was mostly that my wife and son got very bored, so I made an effort to study a bit less and spend more time with them, and that we probably got more viewers for the challenge because everyone else was bored, too!”

Galfond’s respect for his opponent during that first challenge was clear. Having managed to get the win in the end, Galfond hopes VeniVidi’s play is remembered as much as his own.

“My respect for Veni and his game grew over the course of the challenge.” Says Galfond of his opponent. “I actually think he made more improvements towards the end than I did. I do hope that he’s remembered for his game, and I hope I can make sure of that by winning my next several challenges, leaving him the player who came closest to defeating me!”

Galfond admits that when it comes to the downswing he experienced, he was hopeful it would end for the majority of that period. When that hope was countered by another loss, those hopes changed.

“There was one winning session that made me feel great, which was followed by a crushing defeat in the amount of 270k or so – my biggest loss yet. During the break, I decided that I just wanted to win over the final hands. I would have been happy – at least some level of happy – with any result better than losing 900k for the full challenge.”

Galfond hopes that both the challenge against VeniVidi and the second completed challenge against ActionFreak will encourage the wider poker community to play and enjoy watching Pot Limit Omaha. He found being both behind and ahead had their own challenges throughout.

“Honestly, I feel there’s a lot of pressure either way. It’s easier to play scared and without confidence when behind, and it’s easier to get complacent when ahead. They each present challenges.”

The final day of the challenge against VeniVidi will go down in poker history as one of the most exhilarating games to watch for fans. It was equally thrilling to be at the centre of the excitement.

“The final day of that challenge was surreal,” says Galfond. “It was the most intense poker session I’ve ever played by a mile, and that includes being heads up for WSOP bracelets, sessions where I’ve won or lost seven figures and whatever else I’ve done and forgotten. That said, I think I succeeded in focusing on the poker and not letting much else go through my mind. It’s hard to put into words what the people supporting me meant to me.”

Phil Galfond’s incredibly supportive wife Farah has already gone down in Twitter history for her own backing of her husband and the family’s celebration at the conclusion of that dizzying day. Galfond clearly has a huge amount of love for everyone who helped him get over the line.

“There are so many different types of supporters, from the fans watching to my close friends who offered advice when things were going poorly, to my wife, who did everything she could to help me focus on my match, and who felt the ups and downs as much as or more than I did. I think and hope that they all know how much they mean to me.”

Galfond’s resilience during that near million-dollar downswing was legendary, owing a lot to his ability to think rationally and be, in his words, ‘appropriately optimistic or pessimistic based on what I believed to be true’

While he believed he could beat VeniVidi, there was no blind optimism, Instead, Galfond ploughed through the downswing, applied the work and continued to do his absolute best. Against ActionFreak, he was then seen as the fans’ favourite, although that wasn’t the case throughout the poker industry.

“Pokershares and a lot of the high stakes poker community didn’t feel that way! I don’t think it matters much to me who is the perceived favorite. I suppose that being the underdog motivates me to work harder, but as far as the actual play, I don’t know – I just play poker.”

There’s no doubt that Galfond is the favourite to beat Bill Perkins in their challenge, with the current market odds showing him as a 1.03 favourite, with Perkins at 12.00.

“The challenge against Bill is unique in that he’s a recreational player and plays more No Limit Hold’em than Pot Limit Omaha, so I’m expected to be a large favorite.” Says Galfond. “I guess in that sense it’s my least favorite challenge to play because I want to keep proving to the poker world that I can compete where they think I can’t. Bill is in that position for our challenge, so while it’s not fun to believe you’re outmatched, it’s enjoyable to be in the position to upset the favorite, especially with some long odds like he has!”

All of the challenges to come excite Galfond, but it’s all about taking each one on its own merits. The player and the man are just as excited about it all as the millions of fans who will be following the action on Run It Once.

“Honestly, I’m looking forward to all of my challenges equally. I hope I can arrange more challenges, too, but I’m trying not to get ahead of myself – I still have several to finish.”

Just like in his epic encounter with VeniVidi and toe-to-toe duel with ActionFreak, Phil Galfond will refocus his attention on each individual challenger. Over the course of the next weeks and months, with challenges against Chance Kornuth, Brandon Adams and Bill Perkins to complete, there’s sure to be no shortage of action for poker fans to enjoy.

Just like Galfond’s recent victories, for poker fans on lockdown, the timing couldn’t be better.

The post Phil Galfond talks VeniVidi, coming back from A Million Dollar Downswing and more appeared first on CalvinAyre.com.

Yesterday saw the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit hold a virtual hearing with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the myriad of entities suing the government over its mismanagement of a 60-year-old law. The Federal Wire Act has been a complete disaster, as the DOJ has repeatedly shown that it doesn’t exactly understand how to enforce it. After it decided that the law should apply to all forms of online gambling, not just sports gambling, as had been the case since the law was introduced, several states got behind an effort led by New Hampshire to find resolution in court. As the lawsuit progresses, the appeals court is now taking up the case, as expected earlier this month, and yesterday marked the next step in the battle.

Because of the ongoing coronavirus situation in the U.S., the case had to be held via a conference call that included representatives from the DOJ, plaintiffs, lawyers and three judges – Juan Toruella, Sandra Lynch and William Kayatta, Jr. Both sides were given 16 minutes apiece to state their arguments, with the DOJ taking the lead, and the entire episode can be found on YouTube. As the case got started promptly at 10 AM Eastern Time, the department’s lawyers reiterated the position that no enforcement action will currently be introduced because of the ongoing dispute.

The DOJ continues to dance around the subject of the true meaning of the Wire Act and how it should be enforced. It became obvious during yesterday’s hearing that the department has practiced its song-and-dance routine plenty before heading into court and the judges presiding over the case were able to recognize it, as well. At one point, Lynch posed the question, “Is it really the position of the government now that you are taking no position whatsoever as to the meaning of the Wire Act as challenged in this lawsuit?” The DOJ lawyers could only tap dance once again, explaining that the law doesn’t apply only to sports gambling, but that the department can’t apply it to other forms of gambling.

It has long been the opinion of many that the DOJ’s change of position on the definition of the Wire Act was influenced by outside sources; most notably, Las Vegas Sands owner Sheldon Adelson has seen his name come up on numerous occasions as the man who somehow convinced the DOJ to sing a different tune. The assertion that the DOJ was the recipient of favors in exchange for the latest interpretation made a reappearance at yesterday’s hearing, with plaintiffs’ lawyers explaining, “It’s not deliberative advice internal to the department. It’s an edict solicited by interested private persons that was published to the public at-large precisely to end businesses’ reliance on the 2011 OLC opinion and to generate compliance in that public at-large with the new opinion[…] The OLC opinion purports to give an authoritative interpretation of a statutory provision that has a direct effect on the day-to-day business of the plaintiffs. I’m not aware of any other OLC opinion that does that.”

The session concluded at 10:47, about 45 minutes after it began, and the judges are now taking in all that was shared yesterday, as well as all supporting documentation that has appeared over the past 60 years. It’s still too early to call it, but anything other than a directive aimed at the DOJ to back down is going to lead the case to make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. At this point, states need to make autonomous decisions, regardless of what the DOJ expects, that will help them gain stronger economic independence.

The post US appeals court hears case regarding the US Wire Act appeared first on CalvinAyre.com.