Looking around at all the cryptocurrencies embraced by online gambling sites reveals a short list of favorites that enjoy wide acceptance. They include Bitcoin, Bitcoin cash, Litecoin, and Ethereum. However, we have noticed a recent trend with Monero is well. It seems as though Monero is a rising star among online gamblers who prefer to make the deposits and withdrawals via crypto.

So what is Monero? Where did it come from? How is it different from alternatives like Bitcoin and Ethereum? These are all questions that will be addressed in this post. Note that if you are a fan of both online gambling and cryptocurrency, Monero is yet another option at some casino properties.

Some of those casinos also offer the Mega Moolah video slot, which means you can have the best of both worlds. You can play one of the most popular progressive slots online and use what is widely considered the most secure cryptocurrency in the world to do so. How does that sound?

Monero 101: The basics

Monero is an open-source cryptocurrency first released in April 2014. Like so many of its predecessors, it was intended to be a monetary system more than anything else. What makes Monero different is its approach to anonymity. Where most other cryptocurrencies - including Bitcoin - are pseudonymous rather than anonymous, Monero is about as close to truly anonymous as one can get.

The platform traces its history back to the efforts of a single developer who forked Bytecoin to create a new crypto initially named BitMonero. Why this fork occurred is unclear. What we do know is that the resulting code was not well received by the crypto community. BitMonero's development quickly stalled, which ended up being a good thing.

After some delay and very little effort by the original developer to do anything with BitMonero, it was taken over by the community behind it and renamed Monero. That is when development really took off. The group now controlling Monero focused most of their attention on security, anonymity, and privacy.

Fast-forward to 2016 when Monero experienced incredibly rapid growth. In fact, it was the fastest-growing cryptocurrency that year. It received a huge influx of investment thanks to its built-in security features that guaranteed users and their money could not be traced. Monero quickly became the cryptocurrency of choice for the Dark Web and among people of questionable character who wanted to use crypto for illegal purposes.

That continues to be the one downside of Monero today. Despite being an extremely popular cryptocurrency, there is little doubt it is being used by people who do not want to be found out for their criminal activity. For everyone else though, Monero is highly secure and private almost to the point of being stealthy.

How Monero security works

The basic premise of Monero security is that transactions should be completely untraceable. Moreover, no one should be able to see distributed ledger data to even know how much coin was traded. This is where Monero becomes so divergent from most other cryptocurrency platforms.

Bitcoin transactions are kept secure through a number of means. First, users are encouraged to generate new private addresses for every transaction, thus never exposing all of their holdings to potential fraud. Second, all of the information contained within Bitcoin's blockchain is encrypted. Third, transactions can only be verified after all the nodes on the Bitcoin network complete a proof-of-work task.

All of this is well and good, but the Bitcoin ledger has one flaw: anyone can get a copy of it and easily figure out that transactions have been conducted. They can see when a transaction happened, what its value was, and how many parties were involved. The identity of those parties is protected only through the use of encrypted hashes and private/public keys.

Monero takes an entirely different approach. Rather than exposing all of that information within the blockchain, Monero keeps it all hidden through ring signatures, stealth addresses, and confidential transactions. All three of these things work together to make Monero transactions virtually untraceable.

Mixing Monero with Bitcoin

As an example of how different Monero is, consider the fact that there are some Bitcoin users who run their coins through Monero in order to shield them from being traced. Remember, anyone can get a copy of the Bitcoin blockchain and follow transactions throughout the chain. That makes Bitcoin easier to trace even if individual users enjoy pseudonymity.

In order to break the chain and guarantee anonymity, a Bitcoin user might convert his or her coins to Monero (XMR) through an exchange, then convert the XMR back to bitcoins through another exchange. Because Monero transactions are completely untraceable, converting bitcoins back-and-forth severs the link in Bitcoin's blockchain and makes those newly acquired coins untraceable as well.

Why people gamble with Monero

At this point you might be wondering why people might choose to gamble with Monero instead of using Bitcoin or Litecoin. For some casual users, Monero just happens to be the crypto they landed on when they first got involved. For others though, it is a matter of principle. They choose to use Monero for their online gambling exploits because they believe in the principle of true anonymity. They do not want their online business traced in any way.

We have to assume that there is a third group of online gamblers who use Monero for legal purposes. We take no position as to whether this is right or wrong, but the reality is that gambling with Monero is a way to get around legal restrictions. As an example, let's say you live in a country that has banned online gambling completely.

You might get around the ban by logging on to an online casino through a virtual private network (VPN) and then making a deposit with Bitcoin. It would work. But your Bitcoin transaction could still be traced. And in some countries, governments have the authority to subpoena cryptocurrency records for the purposes of trying to decipher them to learn the identities of those people engaged in said transactions.

Bitcoin would not serve you well if you lived in one of those countries. Monero would. Monero is the obvious alternative to Bitcoin because transactions cannot be traced. You enjoy true anonymity and the ability to play your favorite games online without having to worry about being discovered.

How to gamble online with Monero

Let us finish this post by talking about how to actually gamble online with Monero. You have the same three options as you do with Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, etc. The first is to look for an online casino that accepts Monero deposits directly. There aren't a ton of them, but their numbers are growing steadily. More and more casinos getting into the cryptocurrency space recognize that Monero is in high demand.

Assuming you find such a casino, you sign up and make your Monero deposit. This is assuming you already possess Monero coins. If not, you will have to create a digital wallet and then purchase XRP from an exchange. We will not get into that here as we will assume you already know how to do it.

In the absence of a casino that accepts Monero directly, you can always convert XRP to BTC (bitcoins). You can then deposit the BTC at any Bitcoin casino and off you go. This plan is workable even if you use Monero because of its non-traceability. Just convert XRP to BTC for each deposit rather than using bitcoins acquired from some other source.

Your third option is to use an electronic payment system that also deals in cryptocurrency. We have talked about Skrill in other posts because they currently support seven cryptocurrencies. Unfortunately, Monero is not one of them. There may be other payment systems out there that do support Monero.

In summary

Monero appears to be a rising star in the cryptocurrency space. It is an up-and-coming platform that provides true anonymity along with untraceable transactions. These two features are what set it apart from almost all other cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin.

Just bear in mind that Monero has a reputation for being the cryptocurrency of choice among individuals attempting to shield illegal activities from the authorities. We do not tell you this to dissuade you from using Monero. Rather, we just want you to be informed. If what others do with their crypto is something you are not concerned about, Monero represents another option for you to gamble online, buy goods and services, and even invest outside of conventional banking systems.

As for the future of Monero, all signs point to something good. At the time this post was written, Monero was valued at US$49.68 per coin. It had a market capitalization of more than $835 million and a circulating supply of more than 16 million coins.

People are putting their money into Monero because they believe in its principles of anonymity and non-traceability. With any luck, businesses will start jumping onto the Monero bandwagon in greater numbers. Hopefully they will begin to see the benefits of a truly anonymous crypto for both their own protection and that of their customers.