Hi guys, it's Bryan Micon here.
I have been working with Sealswithclubs.org in a marketing capacity and can explain bitcoin further if anyone would like to read:
Here is a quick guide on how you buy bitcoins without talking to me or SealsWithClubs:
1) open a Dwolla account. It's the new paypal that only charges exactly $.25 for every transaction, never higher.
http://www.dwolla.com - also google news Dwolla to read about how it is an internet darling type startup and very legit. You fund your Dwolla acct. from your checking account, similar to an echeck to Paypal.
2) open an MTGox account -
http://www.mtgox.com - this is where 80% of Bitcoins are traded for USD. you do need to log into the site for the latest price. The spread is very low, usually .01 BTC so just use whatever the last accepted bid was as the current price. You can 'bird the last 24 hrs as a guest, or go to
http://www.bitcoincharts.com for the latest prices and to see a lifetime graph of BTC.
here is the last 24 hrs for MTGox:
Last Price: 4.55
High:4.88
Low: 4.39
Volume: 124,441
~ $600k USD worth of BTC are traded each 24 hrs as of recent. The data above means that 124,441 bitcoins were traded in the last 24 hrs on Gox. a trade means both a buy and a sell, obv, but just keep that in mind when looking at volume. Remember these are rolling 24-hr numbers.
Once you buy BTC on MTGox, you type in your bitcoin address to withdraw the coins. Don't have one yet?
www.bitcoin.org to download the client. Once you install the Bitcoin client, your coins are held in a wallet.dat file. if you lose that file for any reason, those BTC evaporate and are never available again. that file can also get hacked. it is reasonable to keep that file on a thumb drive with 2 backups and only insert to xfer BTC.
Ok so you got BTC to the client. Now you drop ship them easily and instantly to SealsWithClubs. Then you obv pwn the noobs, and it's time to cash out.
When you win off SealsWithClubs, you go the other way - Cash out form SealsWithClubs to your Bitcoin client on your computer, a process which Seals does a "sanity check" on your cashout, i.e. a human takes a quick look, sees that you won and didn't cheat, and ships it in a few hours.
Now you send BTC --> MtGox, sell at the current price --> withdraw USD from MTGox --> Dwolla, then Dwolla --> checking acct.
It should be noted that you can Dwolla USD --> MtGox and just keep the balance as USD until you are ready to play Seals, withdraw only the coins you need, and when you are done playing ship them back, sell them for USD, and hold zero BTC each night when you sleep. this can minimize but never eliminate your exposure to the wild swings in BTC price - currently, with BTC, you are gambling while you are gambling.
It's a very interesting concept that appears to be growing not shrinking, and will likely piss off the USA government soon enough, but for now it's a viable world-wide online poker solution.
TY for reading Cardschat users, I'll answer a few questions if anyone would like.