Why crypto gambling has failed to take off…yet

The original Bitcoin 0.1.0 repository even included a framework to create a digital poker game, yet this never came to fruition. There’s a theory that this gambling app was meant to provide utility to the bitcoin currency and bootstrap its value when it had no initial use.

A clear use case

Providing sudo-anonymous and borderless peer to peer exchange of value coupled with a decentralized virtual machine, Ethereum seemed perfectly poised to usher in a new era of online gambling - one where open source game logic ensured players of the fairness of games.

In 2017, 167 casino & gambling ICOs raised a collective $640 million, using smart contracts as a pitch for transparency of game logic, self custody, low fees, and frictionless gameplay. And yet, today gambling Dapp usage is miniscule, even overshadowed in volume by collective trading cards and video game digital items. So - what happened?