Sports

Do Legal Online Sportsbooks Accept Chinese Yuan?

by
Anderson Armistead
March 16, 2022

There are some interesting things in the offing re this whole crypto sports betting thing, but we’ll save all the latest news on that front for a more comprehensive update.

In the meantime, there’s not much to report on in the online betting banking realm: Your options remain the same as they’ve been since BetOnline and SportsBetting AG added the last batch of new cryptocurrencies to their funding menus.

So with that in mind, we figured we’d address a question that’s been flooding our inbox over the last few days:

Can you use Chinese Yuan to bet sports online?

It’s a prescient question.

After all, the Russia-Ukraine kerfuffle is showing no signs of abating, and seemingly every private financial service and most other big global brands are giving Russia the heave-ho:

Russia is lucking out left and right with these boycotts https://t.co/aN9sZYxvGD

— Cassandra MacDonald (@CassandraRules) March 15, 2022

But instead of crippling Russia, these moves could simply be hastening the shift in how global fiat currency is ranked and used. Particularly, they could be speeding up the slowing down of the US dollar.

Indeed, such a shift is possibly already in the early stages.

Per the Chinese Global Times (emphasis added):

“As sanctions imposed by the US and some of its allies against Russia continue to rattle the global market, especially global energy trade, more and more countries are seeking alternatives to US dollar-dominated settlement systems to avoid risks and losses, with some exploring the possible use of the Chinese yuan.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia is in “active talks” with China to price some of its oil sales to China in yuan, citing unidentified sources.

The report came as Indian media outlets also reported that the Indian government was considering buying Russian oil at discounted prices with a rupee-ruble trade mechanism that could use the yuan as a reference currency.

To some, if the Saudi consideration is turned into a reality, it could mean a setback to the petrodollar system, a facet of the US’ financial hegemony, and contribute to the decline of the dollar’s reserve status, which the US has taken advantage of by printing as many dollars as needed to fund its spending for decades.”

Now, to answer the above query:

No, you can’t bet online in Yuan, and you’ll probably never be able to.

However, that’s not the question you should be asking. Seriously, stop asking us.

(Actually, nobody asked us. This is what we in the biz like to call a “narrative device.” [Really? “The biz”? -Ed. [It pays the bills. -Anders]])

Faced with the above news – you know, if the previous news about The Honkening™ and those frozen bank accounts didn’t already goose your keister off the fiat hotplate (and didn’t scare you all the way off the best alternatives) – ֭you should be asking one very specific question:

Which crypto should I get, and how much of it should I buy?

If we were playing favorites, we’d tell you to get Cardano. It’s a third-gen Proof-of-Stake (PoS) coin, it’s easy to delegate, and the price is right.

But, of course, there are other viable coins out there for both betting and hodling. So try this, and then we’ll revisit your take every month or two throughout the rest of the year. Consider the following a futures bet at between +300 and +500.

Here’s what you do:

Take as much cash as you can and put an equal amount on each of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by current market cap that aren’t stablecoins and don’t have a Shiba Inu in their logos.

Bet with them as you wish, but we’ll keep tabs on your profits as if you hedl tight.

For our example, we’re going to spend a grand. So, $100 per coin, not including exchange fees, blockchain fees, etc. We’re also not including staking gains for the various PoS coins in the list. You should stake these if you’re not betting with them, of course.

All told, at today’s prices, you ought to be able to acquire the following for your thousand bucks. (Yes, you can do this with less startup cash, even $20 per coin $50 per coin. The percentage of your return will be the same regardless.):