Nitrogen Sports Betting

The Bitcoin-based online gaming space continues to grow by leaps and bounds. As the public becomes more educated on cryptocurrencies, they will be used more frequently; think about how long it took for you to use your credit card online and now how you can’t live without that option.

While some brands are mixing Bitcoin into the equation by allowing players to make their deposits in the currency, then converting it to traditional currency for game play, many sites are now embracing the concept of using Bitcoin for all transactions. Nitrogen Sports is one of these places, and they are the focus of this review.

About Nitrogen Sports

NitrogenSports is a large industry of live gambling, sports, and esports bettings. What distinguishes this service from the other on the market is that it has implemented bitcoins instead of real cash for withdrawals. Markets & Odds, In-Play Betting. Nitrogen Sports offer its punters wagering only in Bitcoin. They first started working in 2012 in Costa Rica and own a gambling license from the government of Costa Rica. They cover most of the mainstream sports, but their bread and butter come from folks wagering on NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB.

Nitrogen Sports have been around only for a short period of time; the site was established in 2012, at the early adoption stage of Bitcoin’s development. The company is based in San Jose, Costa Rica and at the time of this review is not licensed anywhere except that country. This is an early red flag for me; Costa Rica doesn’t have a gaming-specific licensing system despite the number of operators that call it home. As a result, there isn’t much in the way of player protection should something happen at these operators. However, I personally know many legitimate companies who operate from San Jose, so I am going to park that as we continue this review.

Who Can Play at Nitrogen Sports

Nitrogen Sports Betting The primary draw to the site is the Nitrogen sportsbook. The sportsbook covers most major sports from around the world. You can make sports bets on major American sports such as the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, and more.

Given the fact that the company operates in Costa Rica, and that they aren’t licensed by any other gaming authority, it is safe to say that anyone can play at Nitrogen Sports. The only restriction is that you need to have a Bitcoin wallet to house the currency you need to play the games.

Software Suppliers

Usually, at this point of a review, I get to talk about the great supplier that a casino has chosen to partner with and what that means for you as the player. In the case of Nitrogen Sports, it would appear that all of their games were built in-house, so we are at the mercy of learning about the games only by trial and error. Have no fear, I am going to play each of their games, so I have a clear sense of the quality of the software; there are no reports of any lag or lack of quality to the games, so that is a good sign.

The Good Stuff

Offers multiple channels

We like any site that offers players a chance to play various types of betting with one unified wallet. Although their choices for casino games are currently limited, you do have the opportunity to play casino, poker, and sports with your Nitrogen account. For someone dipping their toe into Bitcoin betting for the first time, this is an added bonus.

Excellent Instructional Blog

As with anything new that is presented to you, there will be some degree of trepidation associated with that introduction. This applies in particular when it comes to your money (see my comment about credit card use online above). Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency can make people uncomfortable; this is relatively new, and there aren’t that many people who truly understand the concept. Nitrogen Sports does an excellent job of not only providing a clear description of Bitcoin, but they also walk you through how to set up a wallet and buy your currency, then how to get it to the casino. Once you get the hang of it, Bitcoin is actually pretty simple to navigate; Nitrogen will help you along each step of the journey.

The Bad Stuff

Software Certification

The proprietary software used by the site for its games does not appear to have been independently certified by any of the main gaming auditing firms; this is another small red flag for me when reviewing the site as a whole. Now, I know the certification process is costly, and perhaps the site needs that capital to run the business right now, but without having some third party look at the games to certify their random behavior leaves me with just a little bit of a bad feeling.

No Signup Bonus

I will review the current promotions at the site a little further down the review, but I have to point out that at the moment, there does not appear to be an initial Deposit Bonus. This is a cornerstone of online casino marketing, so I am surprised not to see at least some sort of small bonus, especially given that players need to jump through a couple extra hoops just to get currency to the site.

Game Selection

I am going to start with the Casino section of the Nitrogen Sports website, as that is usually the focal point of my reviews. As I mentioned, the company is building their own casino games, and for now, the options are limited compared to other online casinos, even ones that are Bitcoin-only.

Table Games

Nitrogen Sports does offer a few different table games for your enjoyment. They have a Blackjack game, which they offer in Singel Deck, Double Deck and standard 8 Deck varieties. You can also find Baccarat and 3 Card Poker available to play in their lobby. The games have the standard rules to them, but you should note that you can only wager in BTC, which means you will have to do some rough calculations to know what you are playing for in terrestrial currency.

The minimum bets for the Table Games are 0.001 BTC, and the maximum depends on the game variant.

Dice

This is a favorite game in the Bitcoin community. The game isn’t built around the standard six-sided dice that are used for craps and other betting games; this game is based on a digital roll of the “dice” which can end up with a result anywhere between 0 and 99.99. The object of the game is to place a wager on whether or not the result of the spin will be higher or lower than a set value. What is interesting about this game is that you set the odds; let me have the site explain it to you.

Nitrogen Sports Betting Online

You set the “Chance of Winning” as a percentage, between 0.01 and 98.0, which, in turn, establishes the number in which you must end up either above or below your choice.

By adjusting the various fields you can alter the odds, and subsequent winnings, to be lower but with less risk, or higher, but with greater risk/reward.

Fields that can be adjusted include:

• Bet Amount (how much you want to risk).
• Win Chance (a number representing the % chance to win between 0.01 and 98).
• Payout (the payout odds that will be applied to the bet).
• Whether you want to choose lower or higher.

By altering one field, the others adjust automatically, giving you the odds and amounts needed to accomplish your desired outcome, should you guess correctly.

It may sound a little confusing at first, but trust me, when you get used to playing this game it is a lot of fun!

Slots

There are currently no slots games available to play at Nitrogen Sports.

Sports

As far as sportsbooks go, the total number of bet types at Nitrogen Sports isn’t as varied as you will find at some of the larger books in the market. However, I will give the site credit; they take action on a lot of different sports, including eSports, which is a favorite of those who use regularly use Bitcoin as a currency. Here are all the sports they have listed in their lobby:

• Aussie Rules
• Badminton
• Bandy
• Baseball
• Basketball
• Boxing
• Football
• Hockey
• Mixed Martial Arts
• Soccer
• Tennis
• eSports
• Handball
• Golf
• Auto Racing
• Cricket
• Curling
• Cycling
• Darts
• Futsal
• Rugby League
• Snooker
• Table Tennis
• Volleyball
• Winter Sports
• Lottery

The interface is clean and easy to use; there is a history page where you can keep track of all your current and past wagers. I like this feature as I can often times find myself wondering at the end of a week of betting why I don’t have more money in my account…only to see that I am perhaps not as sharp a player as I might think.

Poker

Nitrogen Sports also has a poker room that is available for real money play. The poker area offers cash games, freerolls, and tournaments, although as it is not part of a network, there isn’t much action in there. In fact, when I logged on to play, there were only a few people playing at their cash game tables.

The poker area of the site is where the information on the Nitro Rewards program is housed. More details on that are below.

Promotions

As I discussed earlier, there is no Welcome Deposit Bonus to speak of at Nitrogen Sports. Instead, the company offers players a series of weekly and monthly special promotions to entice you to play. The promotions aren’t the easiest to locate on their site; it seems that checking on their blog is the best way to stay informed.

The company is offering an NFL Survivor Pool this season. I love these kinds of pools; they don’t take a lot of effort to be involved, and you can win a ton of money if you can outlast the field. Here are the details of the promotion, which has categories ranging from free entry to 10BTC entry fees:

The last bettor(s) remaining win the prize for their pool!

The rules are simple:

• 1) Join the pool by clicking ‘Join Pool,’ and then ‘Confirm Join’
• 2) Each week, make your pick for a team who will win. If you’re picking a team that plays on Thursday or Saturday, you’ll have to submit the pick before the games begin. The final deadline to pick each week is Sunday at 17:00 UTC (1 pm EST). First week picks close Sunday, September 11 @ 17:00 UTC.
• 3) Each week following, continue to pick another winning team from the teams left available – you’ll only be able to choose each team once
• 4) Be the last bettor standing, and win the pool!

Banking

The options are short and sweet: if you want to play at Nitrogen Sports, you need to use Bitcoin. If you have a Bitcoin wallet, then you can get started right away; if not, the site will walk you through the setup process.

Nitro Poker

Comp/VIP Program

Nitrogen Sports offers its players a comp program that allows you to earn points while playing games, which can be redeemed for a series of prizes in the Nitro Store. The rewards program has several different tiers, each of which allows you to earn at a faster rate. I love the fact that the rewards totals and progress is laid out so clearly on their page; you can easily see where you stand and how far away you are from reaching the next status level.

As for redeeming your points, there is a broad range of free bets and Bitcoin currency options for you in the Nitro store. I personally like the free bet option as that gives me an additional chance to take more money from the company…although given my record, I should probably just take the cash option.

Customer Service

Nitrogen Sports takes a modern approach to their Customer Service, leaning heavily on their social media pages as the first line of customer service. The company also has a request form on their website, and an email address if you want a more traditional means of contacting them. At this time, they do not offer Live Chat or telephone service options.

Would I Play at Nitrogen Sports?

I applaud any company that embraces new technology; there are too many of us who shy away from anything that causes us unrest. Nitrogen Sports is at the forefront of the cryptocurrency gambling market; this can be a blessing and a curse. While they offer sports, casino and poker games, the quality of the games isn’t as high as some of their traditional competition. They have a limited amount of games, but by using Bitcoin they remove any apprehension a player may have about not getting paid. At this stage, I am not able to recommend you play at Nitrogen Sports, but I encourage you all to learn as much as you can about Bitcoin and other new currencies; they will be the norm in the not too distant future.

This review was made by: LegitGamblingSites.com Rating: 2.7 out of 5

On the 23rd of January Nitrogen launched a new site called Nitro Betting (review). While there are a few bugs, the site is fully functional and ready for sign ups, deposits and bets.

The first things you probably want to know are:

• What’s going to happen to Nitrogen Sports and your account there?
• Should you join Nitro Betting?

I will give the TLDR answers here first and then give full background details below.

What’s going to happen to Nitrogen Sports?

In the short term nothing, the 2 sites will operate side by side. Your Nitrogen Sports account will not be automatically migrated to Nitro Betting. You can keep using it as normal.

In the medium term Nitrogen will prefer the new technically superior, mobile friend and multilingual Nitro Betting. They will put their time, energy, resources and updates into Nitro Betting while allowing the already stale Nitrogen Sports (review) to continue to degrade. It will not get new features and they will be slow to fix bugs.

In the long term this will make Nitrogen Sports irrelevant and people will stop using it. Nitrogen will eventually shut it down asking all its remaining users to migrate to Nitro Betting.

The only alternative to this scenario is if Nitrogen differentiate the 2 sites by targeting each one to a different user base. However Nitrogen say they have no plans to do that and without differentiating the 2 sites it makes no sense to keep them both running separately, splitting the user base and diluting each site’s brand power and search engine optimization.

Should you join Nitro Betting?

Only if you are in the USA. Nitrogen is a middle of the road sportsbook at best and there are at least 3 better options listed in our crypto sportsbook reviews, however none of them accept US players. If you are not geo-blocked you should use Cloudbet (review), Stake (review) and/or Sportsbet (review, German bettors are geo-blocked) instead.

If you are American though, Nitro Betting is one of your best options so it’s worth a try. Now onto the full backstory.

2014-2017 crypto gambling leader

In the early days of crypto sports betting Nitrogen were the industry leader. They were the best or second best crypto sportsbook. They were real bitcoiners with good odds and integrity. The site had fun features like a community chat and free NFL survivor pools.
They even became the best or second best dice and poker site when they introduced those games.

2018-2020 decline

I have a theory that Nitrogen’s owners got so rich in the 2017 bitcoin bull run that they no longer needed the money and therefore stoped caring about Nitrogen as a business and a product.

That is speculation (based on a lot of experience and insider knowledge) but whatever the reason, Nitrogen Sports stopped improving their site or even maintaining it well. Meanwhile the competition kept getting better and better.

Nitrogen Sports’ odds and customer service got worse and their live betting was hopeless. The site became clunky and outdated. They seemed to have real technical limitations and no ability to improve anything on the website.

Once they blocked entire countries without giving any warning or notification to users in those countries. Thousands of people were simply locked out of their account with Nitrogen effectively confiscating their funds! After a while Nitrogen reversed the blocks or worked with users to withdraw their bitcoin.

Throughout this decline Nitrogen maintained their integrity and their roots as real bitcoiners and members of the crypto gambling community. But their product is just not good. The only reasons they are still relevant is because they made such a good name for themselves from 2014-2017 and because there are no better crypto sportsbooks that accept US bettors.

Nitrogen’s technical limitations were on full display when they attempted to upgrade just the sportsbook section of their website, without touching the rest, presumably because they couldn’t.

The upgrade was a disaster with bugs at every click; login problems, bet problems, withdrawal problems, horrible mobile experience, et cetera. In the end they fixed the bugs and were left with a slightly improved sportsbooks on an otherwise un-improved site and less users than before.

I suspect the sportsbook upgrade debacle is why they decided to make a new site from the ground up rather than keep trying to improve the existing site piece by piece.

The new Nitro Betting site

The above is a concerning origin story for Nitro Betting; its the only sportsbook to which I have ever had to ask “Why do you exist?” And it seems the answer is because Nitrogen technically messed up their old site so badly that they can not fix it so have to start again!

Nitrogen claim the new site has:

• Fresher tech.
• Better on mobile.
• Multilingual capable (not yet fully implemented).

We also note some differences compared to the old Nitrogen Sports:

• Amounts in m฿ rather than full bitcoin.
• Live chat support.
• No community chat.
• Better design.
• First deposit bonus.
• No withdrawal fees.
• No dice game.

Nitrogen Sports Betting News

Please see our honest review for full details.

Only time will tell if this is one of the final chapters in Nitrogen’s death throes or a revitalizing new beginning.