Inside the Dark and Predatory World of Crypto Casinos

David and many people like him—young and chronically online—have been enticed by crypto casinos, an expanding realm of online gambling where longstanding guardrails are often ignored.

The sites have spread across social media, taking advantage of the borderless nature of the internet. They offer hundreds of games, including blackjack, sports betting, and flashy online slot machines. They operate with fewer restrictions for gamblers by obtaining licenses in small island nations.

And, although they are not legal in many countries, including the United States, the casinos have become gambling havens where teenagers and problem gamblers play and even earn income by promoting the sites, a New York Times investigation has found.

Operators that are prepared to use an exploitative marketing strategy have created this thriving sector. The Times discovered that their tactics entice young people, one of the groups most susceptible to addiction, promote careless betting, and turn social media influencers into recruiters for casinos.

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One 20-year-old claimed that after baseball practice in high school, he and his pals started betting on the websites. Another gambler claimed to have stolen thousands of dollars from his parents and used them for cryptocurrency casinos. David, who requested to be known by his middle name in order to maintain his privacy, claimed that when he turned eighteen this year, he emptied out over $12,000 in childhood savings and used a website to convert them into bitcoin. He wagered everything, doubled it, and then lost everything. Later, without his parents’ knowledge, he took out and gambled away $4,000 in personal loans in an attempt to repay them.

David, who graduated from high school in May, stated, “I lost sight of what money actually is.”

Over the past few years, as more states have allowed it, online gambling—especially sports betting—has expanded throughout the nation. By operating as offshore businesses and enabling players to use cryptocurrencies rather than conventional financial systems, cryptocurrency casinos operate outside of these frameworks.

Lawmakers and regulators are finding it difficult to keep up with the rapid growth of cryptocurrency casinos and the vulnerabilities they are finding and exploiting.

Many sites do not have strong identity verification and are able to advertise on social media with little oversight. Tech-savvy young people in the United States can gamble on them using false identities and readily available software to mask their locations, often unbeknownst to their parents.

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