President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, has announced the future opening of a casino that will run on crypto as a part of his cryptocurrency initiative of 2020. Seeing how fast the online casino games are growing and attracting users and fans, seems that this is the only logical step to achieve the goal Maduro set for his country.
Petro – Oil-Backed Cryptocurrency
Turns out that the Hotel Humboldt, which is located at the Ávila National Park in the capital city of Caracas will soon host a casino that will be operating with Petro, the country’s national, oil-backed crypto.
That is a huge announcement itself, but it becomes even more significant considering the fact that Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, then-president Hugo Chavez, was completely against and, therefore, banned all casinos and betting stations in Venezuela.
Chavez was assured that places like casinos are the harbors of drugs, prostitution, and crime. The ban imposed on the casinos was a huge step and put about 100,000 Venezuelans out of business.
Cointelegraph News
Maduro’s Challenge
Maduro is not trying to change the situation for the best and implement crypto more into daily life. Of course, many are still skeptical and are convinced that it is very hard to do in a country like Venezuela. But let’s not forget the significant progress that the Maduro administration has been able to make with Petro and its adoption in the country.
Before Maduro’s crypto campaign was put in place, Petro was almost dead, was not accepted in any of legit crypto exchanges, it acted like a terrible example of what a state-backed digital asset could be.
Maduro did a pretty good job and gave the crypto a second life almost – now several entities across the country- including Burger King, Traki and the Banco de Venezuela provide support for the asset. There are also several crypto ATMs as well, and Petro has been included in several government projects as the chief source of funding and revenue.
Maduro commented;
You can come to bet, there will be offers, special prices. You buy your petro file, you can buy it if you bring yuan, if you bring yen, dollars, euros or any other cryptocurrency […] buy your petros and make your licit bets allowed by the state as contemplated by national laws
