How to avoid getting scammed when you gamble with bitcoin

Bitcoin withdrawals are free and almost instant so don't leave any more money in your account than you can afford to lose. I rarely have more than a hundred bucks in any of my sports betting accounts.

 

If you are a nervous nelly then you could just stick to major online gambling sites like Americas Cardroom and Bovada who also accept bitcoin. They offer casino games, poker and sports betting so you really never need to use the newer and much smaller sites that only accept bitcoin.

 

I usually make a couple of small deposit and withdrawals of $5 first just to make sure everything is above board. In the early days you had to take a little bit of a gable when choosing a bitcoin gambling sites. These days there are plenty of established poker sites, sportsbooks and casinos to choose from so it's far less risky.

 

Fake wallets are also being advertised by Google Adwords. Never deposit your bitcoin at a web wallet you found on Adwords as it might be a scam. Only use wallets listed on bitcoin.org

 

Recently online poker sites like Lock Poker and Full Flush have abruptly shut-down and stolen all their players money. On some forums I've read about players who have over $20,000 in their player accounts that they've now lost. It seems totally insane to thrust any online gambling operation with that kind of money, regardless of whether they are regulated and licensed. If you can't withdraw your entire balance within a month then start playing at a different poker site until you can. Never leave your bankroll accumulate into 10's of thousands.

 

Avoid sites like NetBet that only allow you to deposit bitcoin and not withdraw it also. If a sportsbook or casino offer you 20 deposit options but only 3 payout options then they are hoping you will leave the money in your account and just gamble it all away. I recently had this bad experience with NetBet http://forum.bitcoingambling.io/threads/beware-of-netbet-for-bitcoin-gambling.138/

 

if you use anything other than bitcoin for gambling then you might end up scamming yourself. while the price of btc has been surging for the past few weeks, the value of altcoins has been dropping. if you have deposited using dogecoin or litecoin, when the time comes to cash-out your coins will be worth less. so don't scam yourself by using alt-coins, only gamble with bitcoin.

 

Some traditional bookmakers have hidden bitcoin frees. For example, when you make a bitcoin withdrawal at Betonline, they will charge you a fee of 2%. Other sportsbooks like Bovada and 5Dimes have zero fees for deposits and payouts so read the small print.

 

Sometimes it's so easy to set-up a new account at bitcoin gambling sites that people get sloppy when creating their passwords. It's important to use a unique password for each site to prevent hackers using your login details on other sites and emptying your account.

 

I've been reading lots of storied about people getting Bitcoin Cash (Bcash) and Bitcoin addresses mixed up. If you are depositing BCH at your crypto sportsbook, be sure you don't accidentally deposit BTC/XBT instead. That could be a very costly mistake to make.

 

avoid any websites that claim that they will split your coins for you. for example, in the recent bitcoin gold hardfork, a number of website were setup that asked users to input their private keys in order to receive their free bcg but these were scams and anyone that would have used them would have lost all of their bitcoin.

 

I like the new generation of Lightning Network gambling sites like LightningSpin.com because you don't need to create an account or deposit large amounts of money at a casino to play. Because the Lightning Network is so fast and cheap, you can simply pay for each individual spin. If you win, you can instantly cash out so you don't need to leave any money sitting in your betting account.