Bitcoin Revolution -- LAS VEGAS HOTEL CASINO'S are now ACCEPTING BITCOIN as a Form Of Payment

Two casinos in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada will become the first establishments of their kind to accept bitcoin as currency.
Effective Wednesday, customers of both The D and the Golden Gate casinos on Sin City's famed Freemont Street will be able to spend bitcoins to buy goods and services.

Neither facility will accept bets being made with the emerging digital 'cryptocurrency' in lieu of fiat money, but will allow visitors to conduct transactions using bitcoin at certain casino-run businesses on site. The front desks at both the Golden Gate and The D hotels will accept bitcoin, as will select gift shops and eateries inside the buildings, totaling five in all.

Vegas proprietor Derek Stevens, a co-owner of both casinos, said he considered bringing bitcoin into the gaming business after the issue was brought up by a number of customers recently.

Stevens added that the establishments will rely on the popular BitPay service to process transactions using tablets and other mobile devices installed at each cashier station. Six percent of all bitcoin transactions in the world were being processed through BitPay as of November, and the system is currently being used by internet businesses in more than 200 countries.

Bitcoin itself has been around for almost five years, but has recently surged in popularity. Both the online retailer Overstock.com and Sacramento, California's professional basketball team, the Kings, said they would start accepting bitcoin earlier this month. The online-only cash alternative can also be used to pay for college tuition or, in at least one case, the salary for a town's chief of police.

"We recently picked up some business in the US and the fact that we will accept bitcoins might put us in the frame for more business opportunities," Harold Solomons of the Dublin-based online agency Matrix Internet told reporters at Silicone Republic on Tuesday. "We're putting the time in now in order to develop it. One of our clients in Ireland owns a casino and we're talking about the potential of the casino accepting bitcoin payments, for example." Meanwhile, though, customers at Steven's casinos will be limited to using bitcoins for booking hotel rooms and ordering dinner - not making bets.

Bitcoin Falls Flat Among Davos Crowd
The cybercurrency, which is supposed to make money transfers across the globe easier, is barely on the radar of those gathered at the World Economic Forum this week.

The Saudi Arabian finance minister had a puzzled look on his face sitting in one of the lounges of the Congress Centre at the World Economic Forum. Ibrahim Abdulaziz al-Assaf was trying to remember where he's heard the word "Bitcoin" before.

Bitcoin has garnered very little attention of the world's political and financial elite gathered here for the World Economic Forum (WEF) — a seemingly golden opportunity for Bitcoin cheerleaders the Winklevoss twins and the handful of hedge funds that have invested in the currency to spread the word on its global reach and ability to transcend monetary borders.

The little attention given to Bitcoin hasn't been at all favorable, either. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said he was incredulous about the cybercurrency on Thursday, the same day JP Morgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon called it a "terrible store of value."

And on a panel Friday, Nobel laureate economist Robert Shiller called Bitcoin "an amazing example of a bubble."

Noticeably absent from the WEF were Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who have addressed the financial elite before on their strong belief in Bitcoin's legitimacy as a truly global currency.

Google looks into accepting Bitcoin, but realistically its options are very limited