Virtue Gaming kick-starts play-to-earn crypto concept to offer online poker to US gamers

Virtue Gaming, a decentralized online poker platform built on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, opened the first-to-earn digital poker casino in the US on Friday. Only six states in the US (Michigan, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Nevada) currently enjoy legalized and regulated online poker.

Based on fears that offshore poker platforms would siphon revenue from brick-and-mortar gambling establishments, the US has been sluggish to act on the issue. Furthermore, even in the states listed above, poker establishments must secure licenses from their individual governments to carry out their business.

Based on that, it means that residents of the United States can’t access some of the most popular online poker establishments, such as 888 Poker or PokerStars that are readily accessible by players from other places across the globe.

As a solution, Virtue Gaming came up with a proposal of a play-to-earn concept where they offer users 500 Virtual Player Points, VPP, worth approximately $147.37 USD.

Players will be awarded the points without any charges upon signup. Also, they can only cash out their VPP for Tether, but only after meeting the minimum playing requirements in both cash games and tournaments. Players from the United States would then be able to compete with players from across the globe who stake in the game by transferring VPP, Ether (ETH), or other cryptocurrencies into Virtue Gaming’s locked sidechain smart contracts. For the entire decks, the platform uses peer-to-peer encrypted shuffling to avoid instances of cheating.

Based on the legislation, “points or credits that the sponsor of the game or contest provides to participants free of charge and can be used or redeemed only for participation in games or contests offered by the sponsor” fall out of the legal definition of a bet, perhaps allowing the play-to-earn model some regulatory freedom.

At the time of writing, 25,000 players from outside the United States are on the platform.