Sources close to Gambling911.com have confirmed that one of the bigger names in US-facing online gambling is in the process of developing a Bitcoin platform.

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“Once this site begins offering Bitcoin, all others will soon follow,” our source tells Gambling911.com. The site itself does not want to be named at this time and a time frame for the actual implementation period has yet to be provided.

Bitcoin is the anonymous online currency that has been gaining traction in recent months with a handful of more mainstream outlets, including WordPress, Walmart and Seven Eleven, embracing the new payment platform. Providing BTC gambling option is a popular trend during last year as players prefer staying anonymous while betting at casinos or sportsbooks. Another example bitcoin site is https://insidebitcoins.com/bitcoin-casinos

Lesser known online gambling sites like SatoshiDice out of Dublin, Ireland reported impressive daily profits of £1,527 on average last week for the final 6 months of 2012.

"These tiny startups are hitting some major online casino pain points, they're crushing it on those fronts and as an entrepreneur, I think that's rad -- they are leveraging a disruptive technology to try and kick a large-scale industry in the balls," Peter Vessenes, CEO of CoinLab, told Wired UK.

Online gambling attorney Jeff Ifrah wrote on his blog recently:

There are several advantages to Bitcoins. They are largely unregulated. Also, payments can be made anonymously, leaving a minimal or no paper trail. Unlike credit cards, merchants do not face the hassle and uncertainty of “charge backs.” However, because of its past “underground” use, the Bitcoin lacks a reputation and general acceptance by mainstream merchants. For instance, the website “Silk Road” allowed users to buy and sell heroin and other illegal drugs provided they paid for their purchases using Bitcoins. Online gambling services have utilized Bitcoins with relative success.

A new online poker venture said to be backed with substantial capital is set to debut some time in the coming two months, offering the Bitcoin option to US-based players.

Infiniti Poker Founder and CEO Michael Hajduk has partnered with a leading online Bitcoin wallet to create an interface that is “really friendly” with “quick payout times".

Meanwhile, Forbes.com published a piece Monday suggesting that a US government ban on Bitcoin would fail miserably.

Jon Matonis, who covers digital currencies for Forbes.com, writes:

I maintain that a government ban on bitcoin would be about as effective as alcohol prohibition was in the 1920s. Government prohibition doesn’t even do a good job of keeping drugs out of prisons. The demand for an item, in this case digital cash with user-defined levels of privacy, does not simply evaporate in the face of a jurisdictional ban. One could even make the case that it becomes stronger because an official recognition that Bitcoin is not only a “renegade” currency but a “so-effective-it-had-to-be-banned” currency would imbue the cryptographic money with larger than life qualities.

Ironically, the ban would create something like the Streisand effect for Bitcoin generating an awareness for entire new demographic groups and new classes of society. Unlike alcohol, bitcoin itself might not be considered a consumption good but it certainly makes it easier to acquire and sell certain consumption goods.

The under-banked people of System D would awaken to using bitcoin for eliminating onerous fees or the risk of handling cash.

Matonis adds that “Bitcoin challenges the State as monetary sovereign and that has grave implications for their monetary authority and quasi-peaceful taxing authority. A savvy and smart regulator would seek to avoid the confrontation that “Old Bitcoin Radical” Foresees”.

- Alejandro Botticelli, Gambling911.com