Current state of play

Bitcoin has ushered in a new era of systems, schemes and ideas. People have realised that we no longer need to place our trust in intermediaries. We’ve developed amazing tools such as provable fairness, decentralised exchanges, smart contracts, atomic swaps, amongst many other ideas still on the horizon. However, some people seem stuck in the past. Some Bitcoin casinos still choose to use white-label software and other “one size fits all” scripts and programs for their platforms.

For the unfamiliar, Wikipedia defines white-label software as “a product or service produced by one company (the producer) that other companies (the marketers) re-brand to make it appear as if they had made it”. As far as Bitcoin casinos go, this means companies buy developed casinos and rework it to make it “theirs”. Software packages designed like this are often not designed to work with Bitcoin out of the box. As a result, you end up with websites with awkward alternate currencies, using outdated dependencies like Flash, that don’t really present themselves as websites pushing a new technology.

Where should we be heading?

The rise of Bitcoin meant we needed to start over. To stop accepting mediocrity, and to work towards the best technology we could create. Instead of using white-label software, write your own. Bake in Bitcoin support from the ground up, making it an integral part of the user experience. It would be the new technology available to build the best user experience possible. This was the vision, but we aren’t quite there yet.

It often seems like the sites that develop their own software care more about their users as well. Who would you trust with your money? The site that bought their software, or the site that designed everything from the ground up? There are some things you won’t find in white-label software at all. Such as, provable fairness, early deposit credits, cheaper batch withdraws. When a chain fork occurs, who do you trust to give you both coins?

Design-level decisions can’t be made with white-label software. Everything is handed to you as-is, and making changes is usually difficult and dangerous. Changes in code someone else wrote could end up with unintended consequences leading to loss of user funds, security holes or similar things. If you have a new amazing idea for a game, or want to introduce new technology, often times you’ll end up out of luck.

Final thoughts

The types of people likely to buy software instead of build it themselves are usually more interested in making money instead of captivating their users. The websites usually lack a lot of features that people have come to expect from Bitcoin websites. The point of this article is to get the point across that we have the technology to make great websites. It’s time to take advantage of all of this innovation and stop settling for average.