Cashless Gambling Online Isn’t A Roadmap For Society

As the contactless payment systems of the internet pervade ever more into the physical world we take a look at whether what has been done at Bet365 etc with cashless gambling online can be replicated society-wide. Can a society like the UK manage to go without physical money entirely or is this just another sci-fi fantasy? We take a look.

Can The UK Go Cashless?

• First ATM 50 years old
• Inventor: John Shepherd-Barron
• Inaugurated: Reg Varney
• 94% of UK adults use ATMs
• Video Tellers the future

Great fanfare was made in the UK as the worlds first ATM installation, at a Barclays bank in Enfield, UK, turned 50 this week. It was first used by Reg Varney star of On The Buses a television series hugely popular at the time despite being about as funny as contracting a terminal illness, and the media were quick to dig out the snaps from the moment using it to segue into questioning if ever society could go cashless gambling people might pay attention if someone mentioned removing cash from the UK.

Naturally there were the usual examples thrown out on both sides. The Swedes are growing ever less dependent on cash per se, the Germans are doing precisely the opposite, and much as the sci-fi world of contactless payment and online banking might be entirely humdrum at this point, not everyone is going to be eschewing hard currency just yet. Anyone who likes to bet on sports in the UK will know that whilst it is possible to do a spot of cashless gambling at Bet365 that's not the be all and end all of life.

Could The UK Be A Cashless Society?

The removal of cash is every government's wet dream. A totally electronic system would allow complete oversight of what people were spending, where, and on what, cutting down on tax evasion, criminal activity and beggars in the streets (hard to toss coins in a hat on a pavement electronically, isn't it?) Whilst that third reason might cut no mustard with the powers that be, the first two do. Politicians aren't about to go cashless gambling they can find hookers and dealers that take credit cards. Just ask Keith Vaz.


Nor are they about to throw away the ability to pack a bag full of readies and hop over to their local tax haven to ensure Her Majesty's Inland Revenue Service doesn't get their hands on a fair percentage. Cash might be gaudy but the rich are just as attached to it as the poor and for similar reasons. Within UK gambling laws cashless gambling is simple, but beyond the confines of legality? Will you ask your friends on poker night to login it or ante-up? And what of those friendly wagers you make ad hoc?

Cashless Gambling A Snap Online At Bet365

The uptick in use of cashless payments that has been born out of technology's irrepressible march into a future where we are all part cyborg might well give statistical credence to the concept of a society without cash, the practicalities alone are enough to make even the most hardened financier crawl away and cry. Going cashless gambling the technology won't get hijacked, hacked or destroyed is not as attractive as it was in the boom years of the 1980s. However history may not give us an option.

In numerous sci-fi predictions of the future we all live in a slightly sinister totalitarian hippy society with no cash involved, however these invariably are based on the aftermath of something horrible like plague, ecological disaster or nuclear holocaust. Anyone in the UK gambling news of the new world order rising without the use of ashes is kidding themselves, and unless something catastrophic happens cash is here to stay, leaving you free to do some cashless gambling at Bet365 and order a pizza with that 20 in your wallet.