In the US, commercial casino gambling, in the form we know it as today, became a thing in the 1930s, when Nevada legalized this pastime for its residents. At that period, blackjack and other table games started to get a foothold as the world’s premium gaming picks. However, it is accurate to say that the 1960s were a time when this industry underwent a revolution. Nevada was once again at the forefront of these seismic changes by introducing electromechanical slots and jackpot prizes.
In the mid-1990s, a few years after the World Wide Web went live online casino platforms appeared on the scene thanks to a law passed in the Caribbean country of Antigua and Barbuda that allowed companies operating in this nation to offer internet gaming services online. From its birth, the online gambling industry has grown yearly, with projections putting the number of active casino sites at over three thousand. The early 2010s saw the emergence of crypto casinos, as this sector continued to evolve and is now on track to hit annual revenues of $158 billion in the next six years.
One of the reasons why this sphere has gotten so much traction so quickly is that it leaves a dramatically less sizeable carbon footprint than its land-based counterpart. Hence, below an examination follows of the environmental benefits of online gaming.
Table of Contents
Carbon Footprints Explained
Everyone living in the Western World has likely heard of the term carbon footprint. It refers to the greenhouse gas emissions created by living beings, machinery, individuals, and organizations, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent. It includes methane and carbon dioxide, and the concept got invented by Swiss-born regional planner Mathis Wackernagel and Canadian ecologist William Rees at the start of the 1990s.
The methods through which the mentioned gasses can get expelled vary dramatically and includes burning fossil fuels, the production and consumption of food, land clearances, and various other ways. In general, no one can accurately calculate the carbon footprint of each process because of the inadequate data and knowledge of the processes that contribute to their releases.
According to some estimates, the US annual carbon footprint (the highest on Earth) is somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty tons. To avoid raising the planet’s temperature by two degrees Celsius, the US must figure out a way to drop this number to two tons in the next thirty years.
As a rule of thumb, in developed countries, people’s carbon footprint gets primarily created by household energy use and transportation. The secondary cause is emissions emitted by food production.
How the Brick-and-Mortar Casino Sector Creates Emissions
It is a widely established fact that 27% of the greenhouse gas emission in the US get contributed to transportation, making travel the most massive US greenhouse gas emission (GHG) contributor. So, when the fact that forty-two million people visit Las Vegas every year gets bandied about, it becomes clear how physical gaming establishments affect GHG emissions. On top of this, it takes an exorbitant amount of energy to power the brightly-lit venues in Sin City and other US hot-spot gambling destinations. Not to mention the food necessary to feed those in them.
Estimates say that the land-based gambling sector produces somewhere around 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide every three hundred and sixty-five days, equivalent to 3.5 million cars. So, it is clear that people playing at brick-and-mortar locales has an environmental impact. That is something that many in this industry are fully aware of, which is why operators like Melco Resorts and Entertainment, a substantially-sized gambling company, have chosen to go carbon-neutral by 2030. Others are following suit by navigating to the digital sphere and exploring the possibility of running fiat and BTC casino sites.
Why Online Crypto Casinos Are Better for the Environment
The first step for any operator willing to run a Bitcoin casino is purchasing a pre-made gaming software solution from a company like SoftSwiss, or developing one on their own. Then, this entity must partner with multiple games and payment providers and load their platform that carries the mentioned services onto a server that can support massive incoming traffic. Now, these servers use up loads of electricity, creating a carbon footprint that is not negligible at all. Nevertheless, the damage this does to Mother Nature is not comparable to the influence that the brick-and-mortar sphere has on it.
Furthermore, no one has to travel to play at an online casino, and that positive is a drastic game-changer going by the statistics discussed above. Also, it is worth mentioning that crypto casino hubs like cryptocasinos.net are better for the environment because they deliver an instantaneous payment process. It transpires through a digital ledger (blockchain) living on the Web, on a network of hundreds of connected computers that no one can tamper with or corrupt. Fiat transactions happen through banks and other financial services with employees who drive to work and do their jobs on computers in offices that consume loads of energy. So, the entire payment process alone can sizably increase GHG emissions, directly and indirectly. Conversely, people playing at crypto casinos do not create as much harm due to the limited resources involved in offering games of chance over the internet, particularly at crypto casinos.
To Sum Up
The online gambling industry should grow at an annual rate of 11.4%. That is a stat listed in a recent report from Fortune Business Insights, a Pune-based market research firm. In the US, six states have legalized internet casino gaming, and many more a considering this option. The same trend can get spotted in Europe, where in 2021, Germany and the Netherlands created online gambling regulators boasting dedicated country-specific self-exclusion schemes. The Bitcoin casino section of the industry is growing daily due to the perks these platforms offer. The top ones are better promotions, faster payment processing, and unique games. Their less harmful nature is another factor that increases their appeal. With laws getting laxer virtually everywhere, expect to see crypto casinos take an even larger chunk of the gambling industry’s revenues from its land-based side.
