Bitcoin Poker - The Top 10 Sites Accepting Bitcoin Deposits in 2019!

At mainstream poker rooms, the coins you deposit are converted into U.S. dollars before being credited to your account. This is because the games are denominated in dollars rather than bitcoins. The exceptions are Nitrogen and SwCPoker, which keep your funds as bitcoins and spread games that are listed in fractions of a bitcoin.

Once you make a deposit and your money is converted into dollars, it will remain the same amount of dollars regardless of any fluctuations in the price of Bitcoin. The exceptions are again SwCPoker and Nitrogen Sports because they hold your balance in BTC form.

When your withdrawal request is processed, the USD amount of the payout is exchanged, at a pretty fair conversion rate, for bitcoins, and these BTC are sent to the wallet address you specified. Note that the exchange rate that's used is calculated at the time the site actually sends your coins, not when you make the request. This spares you from some of the volatility involved in transacting with crypto-currency because of the short interval between when the poker room submits the transaction and when it is confirmed. However, at Nitrogen Sports Poker and SwC, there is no conversion to and from fiat currency because these sites do all their business in bitcoins, including the actual gameplay and all cashier functions.

Yes, at most major internet poker destinations, crypto-currency users are still subject to the same Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks that apply to those players employing legacy forms of payment. You'll probably have to send in a photo ID and proof of residence before an offshore poker site will send you your winnings. There are exceptions, most notably SwCPoker, which takes pride in its “no dox” policy.

We strongly urge you to refrain from sending your bitcoins directly from an exchange to a gaming operator. This is especially true for residents of the United States. These organizations have to comply with regulations in the jurisdictions they trade in, and quite a few of them prohibit online gambling. Although there's a chance you'll get away with it, helped by the relative anonymity of BTC, there are sophisticated tools available for exchanges to delve through the blockchain history and determine that the funds you sent are for gambling purposes. To be safe, always move your money to an intermediate wallet first before depositing it at a gaming site. We highly recommend the blockchain.com wallet because it is free, and it allows you to exercise control over your own private keys.

It's inadvisable to direct your winnings from your online poker site of choice to your exchange account particularly if you're a resident of the United States. It's very likely that the exchange contains language in its terms and conditions prohibiting its services from being used in connection with gambling products. While most Bitcoin transactions are sufficiently hard to trace that there's no “smoking gun” to tip off whoever is watching, clever investigation of the addresses that a coin has passed through before ending up at the exchange can sometimes reveal the type of merchants that have accepted it. It's best to stay on the safe side by using a third-party wallet, like the one provided by blockchain.com, as an intermediary between all money movements from a gaming company and an exchange.

Those who send their money to a gaming site directly from an exchange or to an exchange directly from a gaming site are playing with fire if their home jurisdiction frowns upon internet wagering. We've heard countless reports of customers who've had their exchange accounts frozen or closed because of this. In the majority of cases, the affected users get their money sent to them upon account closure, but this process may take some time and is not guaranteed. For the best results, always move your poker money to or from a wallet in the middle before commingling it with funds in your exchange balance.

Yes, there are many different digital coins that are accepted by sites that offer internet card games. Some of these forms of crypto money are quite popular (although not as widespread as Bitcoin) while others are only supported by a handful of online gaming sites. If you'd like to know more about two of the most commonly accepted coins for online poker, check out our Ethereum gambling guide and our page covering the best Bitcoin Cash gaming sites.