Bitcoin Winnings Safety Tips for Online Gamblers

Choosing among the best Bitcoin casino doesn’t take long — but winning and keeping those winnings safe is a different matter. 

The New York Times reported a truly shocking statistic: 

Of the existing 18.5 million Bitcoin, around 20 percent — currently worth around $140 billion — appear to be in lost or otherwise stranded wallets, according to the cryptocurrency data firm Chainalysis. Wallet Recovery Services, a business that helps find lost digital keys, said it had received 70 requests a day from people who wanted help recovering their riches, three times the number of a month ago.

Unfortunately, lost Bitcoin keys are not like your standard set of keys. If you lose your keys, you can get a locksmith to break into your safe. But if you lose your Bitcoin private keys, nothing in the world can save you.

Yet, people make basic human errors with their Bitcoin funds every day. In this article, we’ll examine how you can keep your Bitcoin winnings — whether from an bitcoin casino or from mining or another source — safe and keep you in profit.

Multi-Sig Wallet

A multi-signature wallet does what the name suggests: it requires several signatures to unlock and spend the funds. You can create a multi-sig wallet quite easily these days. Then, you can choose if you want to entrust another person with one of the keys, or you can simply create multiple keys and store them in various safe places for yourself.

The bottom line is that this type of wallet will significantly reduce your risk of forgetting, misplacing, or losing one single private key. If you have a wallet that requires 2 out of 3 private keys to unlock, then you can lose one of those keys. If you have a wallet that requires 3 out of 5 keys, then you can lose two.

You can split these keys up. Put one in a safety deposit box. Put another in a fireproof safe. Store another in a different secure location or keep it handy. You may think this is a hassle, but it can be quite priceless the peace of mind it brings.

Whitelisting

Some people chose to store their winnings on an exchange. The exchange might require KYC or one that lets you remain anonymous. Either way, there are multiple ways of securing your casino winnings (in crypto) on an exchange.

Use 2FA

2FA stands for Two Factor Authentication. Best Bitcoin casinos provide 2FA to ensure security to its users. It’s usually an app on your phone or an SMS you get. Both will act as a secondary method to verify that you are trying to log in and spend money on your account.

But if you’re trying to make sure you don’t have too much of a hassle in trading your winnings for fiat or other cryptocurrencies, then you can choose to use something called Whitelisting.

Your exchange should offer whitelisting — which is the method of saying, “Hey, don’t allow any transfers unless it is to this specific address.”

First, of course, you’ll want to have an address in mind of a secure cold wallet, another one of your exchanges, or a hardware wallet. Put that address on your whitelist, and now, even if your account is compromised, the hacker will only be able to send your winnings to one of the addresses only you control.

Double Check Everything

In the crypto space, you alone are responsible to control, spend, and move your casino winnings. There’s no bank to save you if you send it to the wrong address.

Double check the address you are sending to. It’s best to use a QR code scanner to copy/paste. But even then, you should be sure to check again that the address is spelled correctly with the right upper and lowercase letters in the right places.

Keep Your Private Keys PRIVATE

This may seem like a stupid point to make, but — don’t reveal your private keys to ANYONE.

This is included on the list because there are so-called “social engineers” and hackers that don’t need to get into your home, computer, or account to steal your items. They simply convince you to do it.

How?

They might pose as customer service. They might say they are doing a giveaway on Twitter. They might impersonate a crypto celebrity or seem like a reasonable person at a Bitcoin meetup who is “simply trying to help” or show you how to make transfers easier or faster.

No customer service agent, computer/phone repairer, or anyone should be asking for your private keys. They are yours and yours alone. If you don’t know how to sweep your wallet, recover your funds, or make a transfer — then please Google it, research, and spend time learning what you need to learn. Don’t entrust your private keys and the funds locked on them to anyone else.

If you’re just starting, then make small transactions until you get the hang of it. These are all some of the basic safety requirements for people gambling online and people simply transacting.

Write them down!

Repeat them! 

Practice in small amounts!

It’s your money. Please keep it safe!