Converting bitcoin to online casino chips

Converting bitcoin to casino chipsWhen depositing bitcoins at a cryptocurrency-only online casino or poker room it can be confusing. You are given a certain amount of chips for each bitcoin that you deposit. But how many are you given? And how much is each chip worth once you have deposited money into your chosen casino’s account?

The answer to question one is straightforward but the other has a longer explanation and has a lot of factors that impact it. It’s also important to remember that bitcoin gambling has changed significantly since its infancy with many fiat casinos now accepting bitcoin as a deposit method. Hopefully this article helps you understand how your bitcoins are transferred into casino chips or credit.

Buying casino chips with bitcoin

When you deposit bitcoin to your bitcoin-only online casino it is automatically converted to casino chips. Generally the exchange rate is 1000 chips for each bitcoin you deposit.

Obviously if you only deposit .5 of a bitcoin you will only get 500 casino chips to gamble with. Bitcoin casinos will accept as little as 0.001 of a bitcoin as a deposit.

Generally at the better online bitcoin casinos it is possible to visit the “My Account” section to see what the value of your casino chips are in bitcoins.

Can I lose out if I gamble when the price of Bitcoin is low?

No, even if you record a big win when gambling with bitcoin when it is at the lower end of its average 5 per cent fluctuation, you will still be paid out the same amount of casino chips.

When you cash out, you will be paid in bitcoin back to your bitcoin wallet. The only way that you can lose out in the entire process is if you sell your bitcoins for fiat currency when it is weak against your respective country’s dollar.

Bankrolling in Bitcoin

It’s hard. Unlike fiat casinos where your balance is generally displayed in the currency of the country that you deposited in (USD for Americans, Euro for the Netherlands, etcetera), you can get caught out by the fluctuations in the price of bitcoin.

There are fluctuations in every currency, but the price of bitcoin can swing quite dramatically. For instance the price of bitcoin fell from more than $US300 down to as low as $US250 before bouncing back at the start of 2015. This was just a precursor to what was to come with the dramatic price swings, including the price reaching more than $US20,0000.

This means that some days you might be gambling significantly more than other days.

If the price of bitcoin is $US5000 and you get 1000 casino chips for every bitcoin the value of each chip is $5, but if there has been a fluctuation in the bitcoin price (remembering it has been as high as USD $22,000) you may be betting significantly more.

So it is smart to check the price of bitcoin before each gambling session.

Bitcoin price fluctuations

The price of bitcoin varies greatly from day to day. This decentralised cryptocurrency works on the basis of supply and demand. The more demand there is the more that you will have to pay for it.

Bitcoin reached a price high in 2018 when it was well over the USD$20k mark, although it is currently hovering in the $5000 zone.

The price fluctuations are a factor of several things including the youth of bitcoin, isolated incidents such as the Mt Gox Exchange hack and the Silk Road being broken up, regulation in countries where bitcoin does most of its business and of course the fluctuations that are also inevitable with fiat currencies.

Are Bitcoin deposits to online casinos instant?

When you deposit money to an online casino from your funded bitcoin wallet it generally hits your casino account in a matter of minutes. Without going into too much detail, which you can find here, the transaction from your bitcoin wallet to your online casino needs to verified on the blockchain. Once this process is done your account is credited.

Where are my funds stored by Bitcoin casinos?

Generally Bitcoin casinos will store the bitcoin codes, which hold your funds, in cold storage, meaning they are kept offline away from the prying eyes of hackers and other factors with malicious intent.

Usually the casino will keep enough bitcoin in an online wallet to process withdrawals instantly, but if you strike it rich with a big win playing at a casino you may have to wait slightly longer for your “cash out” to be processed, but it’s almost unheard of for a withdrawal not to be processed within 24 hours when you’re playing at a respected casino.

While we can vouch for the casinos that we endorse on this website it would be foolish to trust every casino, or website, which accepts bitcoins without first doing your homework.

What about converting to credit at fiat casinos

This is the area that has been simplified the most with many online casinos now accepting bitcoin and automatically converting it to a currency of choice. Basically it means if you deposit $500 worth of bitcoin you will have $500 credit in the casino in regular currency.

It’s going the other way that can be harder, with many fiat casinos only accepting deposits, not withdrawals, in bitcoin. Which means you will have to withdraw using a different method to bitcoin.