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5 Things Poker Players Should Know Before Depositing on Crypto Poker Sites

Cryptocurrency online poker sites have been slowly gaining in popularity over the last couple of years. For some players, crypto poker sites offer a way to play online poker without having to worry about bank regulations. For other players, crypto gives them a way to gain bitcoin or other currencies for reduced risk.

Many of you may have heard about crypto poker sites but are not sure about how they work or how to get started. That’s why we’ve put together five things new crypto poker players should know before making their first deposit at a crypto poker site.

You Must Acquire Crypto Ahead of Time

Sites that offer cryptocurrency as a payment option requires that you deposit bitcoin or another form of crypto from the beginning. There’s no option to deposit fiat currency and then convert it to bitcoin. What this means is that you have to physically purchase cryptocurrency either from an exchange or from another person and then transfer that currency to your online poker wallet at the crypto poker site.

All Transactions Will Cost You

If you have never used cryptocurrency before, something that may surprise you is that it will cost you almost every time you make a transaction. Bitcoin transactions incur fees for any type of activity. There’s a fee when you buy it. When you transfer the bitcoin to a wallet, there is a fee. When you cash out your bitcoin, there is a fee.

At times, these fees can be steep. There are times where players have ended up paying more in fees than the amount of their initial deposit.

If your site uses alternative cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin, consider using them. They offer much lower fees. For example, you could transfer $100 worth of Litecoin for less than $1.

Note that some sites may offer free withdrawals, but make sure you read the fine print. That may just mean they don’t charge a fee to initiate the deposit but you’re still responsible for any network fees.

Your Deposit May Lose Value

Note that when you deposit and play with cryptocurrency, you risk the value of your deposit going down. For example, let’s assume you deposit a full bitcoin into your online poker account. Let’s assume that the value of the bitcoin at the time of deposit is $8,500.

You play at the site about a month and break even. However, during that time the crypto markets had a bit of a downturn and one bitcoin is only worth $6,600. You’ve effectively lost $1,900 in value despite breaking even at the tables.

When you deposit with fiat currency your currency value remains the same. If you deposit $5,000 and break even over a month of play, you can still cash out $5,000.

You Cannot Cash Out for Fiat

One misconception we hear from those unfamiliar with crypto poker is that you can deposit in crypto and cash out in fiat. Sorry folks, that’s not how it works. If you make a deposit in bitcoin, you will have to cash out in bitcoin. Sometimes you may have the option of cashing out in an alternative cryptocurrency, but what happens there is that the site converts your bitcoin into that altcoin and pays you out accordingly.

If you want fiat currency, then you must cash out your bitcoin or altcoin and then sell it on either an exchange or private party for fiat currency.

All Bets Are Done in Crypto Amounts

One of the biggest adjustments for crypto players is thinking about bets in terms of cryptocurrency amounts. Most often this means thinking in Satoshi. Satoshis are the smallest bits of crypto, often compared to the penny in fiat.

When you play at a site, bets are often done in satoshi amounts. To understand the value of satoshis, you will need a crypto conversion calculator. Once you get the hang of understanding the relative value of satoshis to fiat, you can then decipher the stakes on a poker site. It’s not hard, it just takes a bit of getting used to.

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