Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/630594
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 24 JANUARY 2016 XX Gaming in Malta Upcoming gaming events ICE Totally Gaming World Game Protection Conference Global iGaming Summit & Expo (GiGSE) THE ICE Expo is being held between 2 and 4 February at the London ExCeL, an exhibitions and international convention centre in the east of the city. ICE has become the unique gathering place for all the major gaming players including operators, regulators and more. It is the annual launch pad for gaming innovation, with hun- dreds of new product launches over the dura- tion of the expo. 550 companies from 133 countries took part in last year's event. This attracted over 25,000 visitors, an 8% increase on the previous year's attendance. This year's event is expected to be even bigger and Malta should figure prominent- ly as a gaming destination. THIS conference is being held from 22 to 24 Feb- ruary at the M Resort Spa Casino Las Vegas. This annual three-day international confer- ence and expo focuses entirely on casino game protection, including the latest casino scams, expertise from industry leaders, game protection and surveillance best practices, and the latest surveillance technology. THE Summit and Expo are being held from 27 to 29 April at the Hyatt Regency in San Fran- cisco. Focussed mostly on the North American market, GiGse attracts over 700 delegates to examine the legislative progress, commercial strategies and partnership opportunities for key stakeholders of the iGaming industry. Virtual money, real applications MANY players in the gaming industry are already making use of Bitcoin, an emerging new electronic currency that is still in the experimental stages and in active development. It is not an official currency, though many jurisdictions still require payment of income, sales, payroll, and capital gains taxes on its value. Being electronic, Bitcoin makes it possible to transfer value anywhere easily and allows the user full control of their funds. With this sort of flexibility come significant security concerns. If used correctly however, Bitcoin does offer high levels of security. It is paramount that the users take responsibility to adopt good practices in order to protect their money. There are some features of Bitcoin that potential users should consider before jumping onto this currency band- wagon, however attractive its features may be. The Bitcoin price is still very volatile at this stage. Its value can increase or decrease in a heartbeat until this currency matures and set- tles on a more stable comparative value. At this point it should still be considered a high risk asset and one should certainly not put all their savings into Bitcoins just yet. There are now an increasing number of service providers who would convert Bitcoins to physical currency. One must also be aware that Bitcoins are not as anonymous like physical cash can be. All Bitcoin transactions are stored publicly and permanently on the network. The balance and transactions of any Bitcoin address can be therefore retrieved. However, the identity of the user behind an address remains unknown until information is revealed during a purchase. Transactions made with Bitcoin cannot be reversed; they can only be refunded by the person receiving the funds. That means one needs to ensure those people and companies one is doing business with are trustworthy and have an estab- lished reputation. Businesses need to keep control of the pay- ment requests they are displaying to their customers. Bitcoin is not tolerant to typos and won't let one send money to an invalid address, entered by mistake. Getting started How does one get Bitcoins? One can get Bitcoins by accept- ing them as a payment for goods and services or by buying them. One can buy them from individuals willing to sell them or through a withdrawal from one's bank account. One should be aware that Bitcoin is a high-value currency. The exchange rate of one Bitcoin is currently anything between €360 and €375. There are a growing number of businesses that already accept Bitcoins. In fact there are over 4,500 businesses that accept Bitcoins so far and these numbers are growing daily. There are also a number of applications that allow users to keep track of their Bitcoins and keep up-to-date records of balances and transactions and other tasks banks traditionally carried out. Bitcoin may be the first but is now not alone in this virtual currency space. There are other emerging electronic curren- cies including Litecoin (currently valued at about €3), Peer- coin (valued at about €0.40), and Dogecoin (at about €0.15).