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Blockchain makes life easy for gambling operators and regulators14 June 2021The fourth episode of Hashing it Out with Becky Liggero, a CoinGeek series focused on online gambling and blockchain technology, features iGaming professional and consultant Nick Hill. With two decades of experience in the gambling industry, Hill recounts what made him believe that blockchain can revolutionize the iGaming space. “I started to do a little bit more of digging into crypto. What is crypto? What’s it based upon, and it’s based upon blockchain. And that’s when I started to realize that there was more to the technology than just being a processing element of a crypto, you know, a BTC, an Ethereum—there’s more to it. And that’s when I started to understand that you could start to do more with the blockchain as a utility application and start to use that within the business to streamline your processes and supply chain management and other various aspects within businesses, which really started to excite me,” Hill related. Blockchain is the technology used by digital currencies to record all transactions. It is a distributed ledger that stores data in an immutable and chronological manner. Because of its distributed nature, meaning master copies of data are stored among all miners or nodes on the network updated in real time, it is virtually impossible to manipulate as all miners need to agree before any kind of change can be enacted. Data loss is also prohibited because even if one miner’s data gets compromised, all the others on the network still have a copy. This kind of digital ledger makes it easy for both operators and regulators to check for responsible gaming and regulatory compliance. “Compliance, legislation, payment processing, responsible gambling—these are all big issues for regulated entities--gambling operators, gaming operators at this moment in time because the compliance departments, the UKGC and all the regulated territories throughout Europe are putting more and more pressure upon the operator to become more compliant, to become more responsible with regard to how they’re advertising, how they’re incentivizing their players to continue wagering. There has to be more accountability and more transparency from the operator to the regulator,” Hill said. In order for blockchain to provide transparency of data, it must also be public. Not all blockchains are public, and operators need to choose one that is. For instance, the BSV blockchain is public, scalable and operates on a stable protocol. This means that developers can build any kind of application on it without having to worry about changes in protocol that can incur additional cost and disruption in operation. Because the BSV blockchain is public, operators and players can access blockchain data and verify all previous transactions, making it easy to check for problem gambling and regulatory compliance. Operators can also provide regulators access to the blockchain. “Blockchain enables the operator to not only protect themselves and protect themselves from fines that they’ve been getting, but also to protect the player. So. if you’re using this progressive technology to enhance and protect a player’s experience, you know it’s got to be a good thing. And at the same time, protecting the operator, because they have the ability to store everything on chain, so that it’s on a timestamped and immutable ledger that the operator can always be referred back to. Companies may pick up these fines for not adhering to the rules and regulations in responsible gaming. However, they did do that, but how do you prove that?” Proving it is easy with blockchain data. However innovative this technology is for the gambling industry, most operators are still in the dark. This is why education is key to blockchain adoption. “We’ve got CoinGeek Conference coming up in Zurich; and again, we’ve got to use that forum to educate—educate the industry and educate our chosen vertical, which is the iGaming industry.” CoinGeek Conference is going to be held live on June 8-10, 2020 and everyone is encouraged to register for free and virtually attend the blockchain conference. Article courtesy of CoinGeek
Blockchain makes life easy for gambling operators and regulators
is republished from Online.CasinoCity.com.
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