Bitcoin Forum

Bit of a newbie question - but I hope there's some experts here who can answer!

Someone contacted me with a problem:
They sent a small amount of Bitcoin to an online casino using a standard address. e.g. 1AWFZsieMdJH8HJeT956HdhsPjhsf3S
Having won and cashed out, the casino says they sent the winnings back to the player USING THAT SAME ADDRESS.

Is that even possible?

Thanks in advance,
Mark.

Yeah they've just sent the funds back to the address the person paid to. You can reuse an address as many times as you want..

If it's owned by an exchange, you'll have to get in touch with their support.

Depending on what wallet you use sample if the BTC was sent from Coinbase to Casino the address is not yours instead it's from Coinbase address. The balance from your Coinbase wallet is not directly from the address you use for your deposit address it was directly from the Coinbase main wallet(Take note this is just an example Coinbase wouldn't allow you to receive BTC from the casino it may lead to a ban).

What casino did he use exactly? Can you tell us the exact website? I never heard of a casino that automatically returns BTC to Where your Bitcoin came from. If your friend won you can manually withdraw the won amount to any address that you own(even the same address where your BTC came from and if it was generated from your wallet.).

Can you tell us what wallet exactly do you use?

OK, so my head is spinning a bit now!

First - thanks for the answer!
The casino did not automatically send the funds back - they asked the player for a new address, but being completely new to cryptos they didn't fully understand or know how to do that. So the casino manually sent the funds.
As it happens, the wallet IS Coinbase.

But what I don't understand is how they can use the same address?
I thought (wrongly it seems!) that an address was literally that - an address where the funds were going TO - just like an address on an envelope or a bank account IBAN number.
So if the casino sent it to that address, in my mind they would be sending the Btc to themselves!
i.e. I knew you could use the same address multiple times to send funds to the same place, but I didn't know they could be sent back on the same #.

Furthermore, I also thought crypto transactions were anonymous - so how would Coinbase know that the funds were coming from a casino?

Cheers,
Mark.

Since I am also a rookie, I may not be the most qualified to give answers, but I will try to give my best and the old timers will correct me if I make a mistake somewhere. ;)


I bet they did not use the same address (which you presented) but the address from which the transaction was initiated.
Each transaction needs to have at least one sender address and at least one recipient address. The recipient (in your case the casino) knows from which address the funds have been sent. As a result, they may initiate a new transaction to that address. Much like when replying to someone's email.


Basically yes. It is possible to send and receive coins to the same address in one transaction (I have never tried that) but, as I stated before, I doubt that is the case here. They most likely sent the funds to an address that may still be unknown to you (the address from which the funds were originally sent to the casino).


How do you know Coinbase knows that? Or did I miss something? There is a possibility that Coinbase has a database with the addresses of well-known casinos or the casino has a recognizable (vanity) address. But I don't know if that matters at all now in this case.

Cheers ;)

No they aren't. An address that belongs to you can be used to receive and send funds repeatedly.
It isn't. It is fairly easy for anyone to be able to trace transactions. The coins are usually sent to a known address that is controlled by the casino. Afterwhich, it is likely sent directly to your address. Coinbase can reasonably link the connections and deduce that you're sending the funds from a casino.

Technically, an address is just a human-readable representation of a script (eg. scriptPubKey),
which can be 'spent from' by fulfilling the requirements of or solving that script.
Each transaction's output(s) creates a new UTXO (unspent transaction output) that's locked by that script and that's what's being spent, not some kind of balance for that address.

TL;DR: Let's say an address is a "padlock" (not the box that's being locked), its private key is the key for that padlock,
and the UTXO(s) that can be spent by your 'key' as the box which being locked by that padlock.
A padlock can be locked and unlocked as many times as you want. (not the best analogy since each UTXO requires different signatures)

I can't find any article that states "Bitcoin is Anonymous",
it's rather "Pseudoanonymous" which could mean it's anonymous in a way that you have the option to not link your identity to your addresses.

You should ensure you have set a return address for refunds, (or in this case payouts) PRIOR to making any withdraw claims - hope your "friend" is able to get their crypto out quickly.

Thanks for all the replies guys!

I don't know that Coinbase know it's from a casino.
But Bitmazx said Coinbase do not accept casino transactions (which I also did not know!), so what I am asking is how COULD they know where the funds are coming from.

What I didn't mention, is the reason I started this thread in the first place, is that the casino say they sent the funds, but the player has not received them.
But I did not know if it was possible for them to send back on the same #.

I don't know the player - they contacted me via another forum to ask for help. But I do believe what she is telling me.  It's not a lot of money.
But I do know the casino, as I have been working with them (as in promoting them on my websites) since 2008.  So I do believe what they are saying too.

So the big question is, if the casino sent the funds but the player didn't receive them, where have they gone???

Would the player have to do something in Coinbase to "claim" the coins?
Or should they just automatically appear in her Coinbase account?

Cheers again!
Mark.

Coinbase spend a lot of time and effort to deanonymize bitcoin addresses. It can be as simple as making a deposit to the casino and watching what other addresses the coins are mixed with.

Is the player using a Coinbase exchange account on the web or the exchange app, or have they downloaded and are using the standalone Coinbase Wallet app?

We don't need to believe - we can check. Ask them for the hash of their deposit transaction, or the address they sent coins from. The address you gave in your first post is empty.

If you can answer my above questions, we can help to figure this out.

On the blockchain, the transactions are completely transparent. You'll know if a transaction spends an input from certain addresses. By recognising the origin or the path that the funds take, you can deduce with a reasonable accuracy that it is from a certain service. It's especially so since most gambling site uses a single address (or a bunch of known addresses) to store their funds as well.

Can the casino provide a transaction ID (hash)? Can you see the transaction hash on a blockexplorer (blockchair.com)? Is the funds in the transaction going to the right place? If the answer to any of that is no, then they haven't send the funds.
Deposits are automatically credited on Coinbase.

A lot of misunderstandings come from the fact that there are no addresses on a technical level.
Addresses are a construct made for humans.

You could (only in this case, please don't generalize it) imagine an address as your bank account.

You can receive BTC by sending them to your address (just as depositing them to your bank account).
But you can also send BTC from your address (just as sending/withdrawing from your bank account).

A transaction has a sender and receiver. Sending the coins "back to the same address" means that the sender of the first transaction is now the receiver.

Most of the exchanges have a different deposit address than the ones they use to pay, and that's why they don't share the private keys with their customers. So I wouldn't recommend sending money to an addy where you get the payment from an exchange.

The right way to receive and send money from the same address is with a propper wallet (One who let you import and export the private key)

@KasinoKing, o_e_l_e_o and ranochigo have given you good instructions. Proceed as suggested.

Find out the TXID (hash) from the casino's payout transaction. Then we'll be able to check where the funds ended up.

Thanks once again to all who replied!

1. I have no idea what type of wallet she is using. But as she's 70, I would guess web-based.

2. Yeah - I made up most of that number as I wasn't sure it was a good idea to post the real one!
But I guess it can't do any harm, so here is the actuall number:
1AWFZhxpQGMmSv9KQjRHi1j4bdhPkhh5Qs

I know this can be viewed on the blockchain - but it's like a foreign language to me, so maybe you guys can see what happened...?

Cheers,
Mark.

This is the address she sent coins to that is owned by the gambling site?

There are two payments to that address - one on September 16 for 0.00242101 BTC, and a secnd one on October 28 for 0.02724758 BTC. Which one of these two payments is the one which is being disputed?

Please don't call it "a number". It's such a misnomer that it almost hurts us when we read it.  ;D

To avoid any confusion in communication, this string of alphanumeric characters is best referred to as a Bitcoin address (BTC address) or your public key. Remember the difference between a private key and a public key. You should NEVER share a private key with anyone or publish it anywhere.

If you are correcting other people while sounding like a douche, at least don't make mistakes.

For example, i could quote your post and say:
Please don't call an address a public key. It is such a misnomer that it almost hurts my brain when reading that you don't know the difference while correcting others.

Am i going to do it? No.

Instead, i'm going to say:
Dear BurningChrome, please keep in mind that an address is not the public key. With P2PKH for example, the address is the hash of the public key. Thanks.

Sorry, it wasn't my intention to sound like a douche. I'm still new here, so that was my attempt at humor (hint: little smiley).


Well, live and learn. Thank you for that!
I was just trying to help a member who is new to the crypto world.

I think he's talking about the address from Web wallet based on the first post.

---

@KasinoKing
Why not check the Casino where she gamble I'm sure they have something like withdrawal history that you can check then get the transaction link and paste it here.

So that we can check if the transaction from the gambling casino has this address "13iwmRvSV2ZwnEu78BGiHChkVq986TU9WQ".
If the transaction made from the Casino doesn't have this address well, it might be sent to a random address.

Why not try to ask her the exact website of the wallet so that we can check if it was a legit wallet or not.

Casino or exchange have hot and cold wallets. Most of time, when you make deposits to their platforms, your amount of deposit will be moved to their cold wallets (sometimes are not). Your receiving address is used for your deposits or for your won amount (if you win). Platforms can credit you a balance for your deposit or your win by their internal feature.

Some platforms only have each user has only one receiving address so yeah it is clear that you will have a same address to receive your money from won bets.

Some platforms allow you to create new receiving address but your old receiving address will still be reused to receive bitcoin. Old and new addresses are coexisting in a single wallet that platform created and allocated it to your account.

It's hard to come to a conclusion here when we're dealing with bits of information only and if I understood correctly, CasinoKing is just an intermediary, i.e. a third party, not an actual casino player.
CasinoKing, if you have any communication with the player, ask her to give you the correct TXID (transaction ID) of the casino payout. This can be found in the withdrawal log in the casino user interface or can be requested from the casino customer support.

Second, ask the customer what exactly was the wallet used to deposit funds into the casino? If it was Coinbase or some other web wallet, please have the exact web address forwarded here. Just to confirm that this is a legitimate service, since there are several fake websites as well.

If all this checks out, the next step will be for the user to open a support request to Coinbase customer support with all relevant information as they are the only ones able to forward funds to the user's account if they received a transaction to one of the addresses that is part of their wallet.

If all this checks out, the next step will be for the user to open a support request to Coinbase Customer Support with all the relevant information as they are the only ones able to forward the funds to the user's account if they have received a transaction to one of the addresses that is part of their wallet.

The address 1AWFZhxpQGMmSv9KQjRHi1j4bdhPkhh5Qs is highly unlikely to be owned by the user in question. It is used as an input to two transactions which each have hundreds of small inputs being consolidated in to one. It must either be the user's deposit address on an exchange, or their deposit address on the gambling site. Since OP said the user in question is using Coinbase, I followed the consolidation transactions along the chain a little, but could not find any obvious link to known Coinbase addresses (although I'll admit this was a cursory search), which led me to believe that the address OP gave was the deposit address from the casino. However, even if that is a Coinbase deposit address, it doesn't tell us anything useful since the transaction from Coinbase to the gambling site would have come from their hot wallet and not from the user's deposit address.

Ideally, we need the transaction ID of the deposit to the gambling site.

Shouldn't we also need a transaction ID from the casino to the customer, so we can figure out where the money ended up?

The second one.
The first was her deposit TO the casino.
The second was the casino's pay-out to the player - which she says never appeared in her wallet.

You misunderstand. The two payments I am talking about above both go in the same direction - TO that address. One cannot be her deposit and the other the withdrawal, as that doesn't make sense. If that address is owned by the casino, then both those transactions are deposits TO the casino.

You are not giving us enough clear information to help you out here, I'm afraid. We need you to answer very clearly the following questions:

Is the address 1AWFZhxpQGMmSv9KQjRHi1j4bdhPkhh5Qs the address she sent coins TO when depositing to the casino?
Can you provide the transaction ID of this deposit transaction?
How much did she deposit, and on what date?
How much was the pay-out she never received, and on what date?

No, it wasn't.

As i tried to explain earlier.. look at the address as a bank account.
You either pay to that bank account or receive money from that bank account.

You can't sent money twice to the same bank account and say once i sent the money and once i received it.. This simply doesn't make sense.


If your "friend" or whoever you are helping, did not receive a transaction ID, he/she should contact the casino or whoever should have sent any funds back.
At the very least, we need to know the address your friend send the deposit to and preferably from which address.

Well that's EXACTLY what I thought and the whole reason I started this thread in the first place!

But in some of the earlier replies, people said it WAS possible to send and receive using the same address.

So let me be clear:
The player deposited approx $26 on Sept-15th sending to address 1AWFZhxpQGMmSv9KQjRHi1j4bdhPkhh5Qs
She played and won some money.
The casino says they sent approx $360 to the player on Oct-29th using the exact same address: 1AWFZhxpQGMmSv9KQjRHi1j4bdhPkhh5Qs

So now you're telling me that is NOT possible?

Mark.
PS: Sorry for the long delay between my posts - I only get the chance to visit the forum like once per day-ish as there is just so much going on here at the moment.  I really appreciate everyone trying to help though!  ;)

It is, but the same address can't belong to two people.

Your friend can send bitcoin from her own address 1xyz... (for example) TO the casino's address 1AWFZ...
For the casino's to return the coins to the same address she paid from, they would send coins back to 1xyz...
There is no point them sending coins to their own address 1AWFZ...

Having said that, it does appear this is what had happened. I also stumbled across this thread on another forum where you are discussing this. It would have been much easier if you linked this thread earlier: https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/thebreeze1355-vs-rich-palms-casino.93277/

Between that thread and the blockchain evidence, what I can ascertain is the following:

The user deposited 0.00242101 BTC to the casino's address 1AWFZhxpQGMmSv9KQjRHi1j4bdhPkhh5Qs in this transaction: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transaction/b8695c54fbce14dbd7f2c8026851530e5ee77410e8c05e13f273d4c9975a7956

According to this post (https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/thebreeze1355-vs-rich-palms-casino.93277/post-1170323) the casino emailed her with the above address as an example of a deposit address she needed to provide for them to process the withdrawal.

According to this post (https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/thebreeze1355-vs-rich-palms-casino.93277/post-1170362) she then told them that "that must be the right [address] if that's what they had".

The casino then sent 0.02724758 BTC to their own address in this transaction: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transaction/25a4fe55735affcd9fbad0e10d9ebb500916bce9eb1c49734361c165e924ae57

So it seems that the user accidentally told the casino that their address she deposited to was in fact her own address, and the casino accidentally processed her withdrawal without realizing they were sending coins to their own address. She should contact the casino with her real withdrawal address, and explaining the above. Link them to this post if it helps.

Wow! I would've never thought of this. So the casino transferred the funds back to the deposit address of the user? That's funny!
But does that mean that the funds are available to the user in the user account again? Or not... It probably depends on the casino's internal procedures.

On a side note, o_e_l_e_o, you're the true gem in this forum. Big respect!

If the casino creates a single deposit address for each customer to use multiple times, then the "withdrawal" they processed to their own address should show up in the customer's account.

If the casino creates a fresh single use address for each deposit, then the "withdrawal" may or may not process, depending on their internal processes as you say.

Either way, it seems that the funds are on an address owned by the casino, and indeed, have already been swept and consolidated back in to their main wallet, so the casino should be able to refund to the correct address.

Many thanks. Anything to help the adoption of bitcoin!

So far so good. Everything is fine till here. Even tho winning in a casino is rather unrealistic  :P




They sent using the same address?
Well, sending using the same address is possible. But in this case this address would be the sender, not the receiver.




In this case the casino should have seen this transaction as a deposit and the funds should be available in the players account.
The fact that this is not the case might indicate some really bad software.

But at least the root cause seems to be found, even tho this could have happened a few days ago already if we were given all necessary information.

Yeah, the only transactions sent from that address are two consolidation transactions, each with hundreds of inputs, one for 1.3 BTC and the other for 3.2 BTC, obviously neither of which fit the story we have.

Yeah, it's a bit strange, but given the fact that it seems the casino sent funds to their own address and then swept them back again without even realizing it, then it is at least believable that they don't really understand bitcoin and that their back end is awful.

OP, I would be grateful if you could update us as the situation develops. I'd like to know if my assessment was correct and if the user managed to obtain their funds.

LOL  :D
I win from casinos a lot - not all the time, but a lot.
When I first started playing online in 2001, I made profit from casinos for 9 years in a row, by taking advantage of their generous bonuses... and that is why I started calling myself Kasino King! ;)
After that I just played for fun - though winning is a lot more fun than losing...

You can see all my stats from those days and loads of pictures on my big wins on my websites or YouTube channel. I won't put a link here in case that's not allowed.

And this is why, despite all the great answers from you wonderful people, that I am STILL so terribly confused.

Some are saying you CAN send back to the same address, and some say you CAN'T.
I don't get it.

So your saying that the casino could send it using the same address used to deposit, but in that case, how does the system know WHERE the Bitcoin is going?
Surely to HAVE to have a different "send to" address which is linked to the players wallet ???

Mark.

Will do!

Currently this is not resolved, but I am still talking to the player and the casino.
And currently I am still confused about how Bitcoin transactions work.
Also I am currently asking myself why I have spent so much time on this when I don't even know the player and they didn't even go though my website to sign-up at the casino...!

But 'tis the season of good will I suppose! ;)

Thanks again for your help,
Mark.

Think of an analogy about real world, physical addresses.

The customer lives at 123 Customer Lane. They send a some cash in the post from their house at 123 Customer Lane to the casino's local branch at 555 Branch Street. The casino can see from the letter the customer included that the money has been sent from 123 Customer Lane. The customer makes a few bets, and they win big. They ask for a withdrawal. However, withdrawals aren't processed by the local branches - they are processed by headquarters, at 1600 Headquarter Avenue. So the casino sends the cash from 1600 Headquarter Avenue, but instead of sending it to the customer's house at 123 Customer Lane like they should have done, they (I think) accidentally send it back to the local branch at 555 Branch Street.

I believe that using the same wallet is possible, but in your case it looks somewhat suspicious. Usually, if you take part in one or another crypto platform and want to receive a payment, then you yourself need to specify the wallet to which you want to receive your BTC. However, there are cases when the payment can be received only to the wallet from which you made the payment. If you received a payment in BTC, then this is exactly the case, if not, then you were simply deceived. But no matter how it was, the same wallet can be used to receive BTC.

Happy to report that FINALLY the player advised me they got their cash-out this-morning  ;D

After 3 weeks, dozens of messages and numerous hours on Skype with 2 different casino reps, I finally got them to admit that they had made a mistake by trying to send the funds back to the player on her deposit reference.
They sent the Btc on a new reference that the player gave them.

I'd like to thank everyone who replied in this thread, for your help & support  ;)

Cheers,
Mark.

Glad to hear it finally got sorted out.

It has been a really embarrassing mistake from the casino tho. I hope they learned from that.
Something like this shouldn't happen at all.

Anyways, your friend finally got his BTC. And they are worth more than 3 weeks ago  :D

All the story behind the transaction looks suspicious to me, I cant rule out possibility of trying to scam you, they could be trying to lure you into it. I guess they are trying to introduce you to the gamble site but were surprised you got so much information to address the process of transaction. After 3 weeks the transaction rectify by who? we dont usually delayed such transaction again so be careful out there. I wish you provide the name of the casino

With all due respect, I don't think you have read all the posts in this thread (I don't blame you!), so I will fill you in with the key points:

I promote online casinos - it's been my full-time job since 2008, though I started part time in 2006 and have also been a player since 2001.
It wasn't me who had the problem - I was just trying to help a player who contacted me via another forum.
The casino name is mentioned in an earlier post - Rich Palms casino.
Although Rich Palms was new in March this year, I have worked with the operator of this casino since 2008 and they are not a dodgy or "scam" operator - they are among the best.
Now I don't know how this bizarre situation arose, or rather, why it took them so long to sort out, but in my opinion it was started by an error by someone in their finance department, who, for whatever reason, didn't seem to want to admit their mistake.

So anyway, the player is very happy now - though I don't think she will be going back to that casino again!

Happy Christmas!
Mark.

No, he probably didn't. This is called the "signature spamming".
Basically, some members simply post nonsense on topics they haven't even read to fill their weekly quota for a signature campaign.

Anyway, I'm glad the situation was resolved with a satisfactory outcome. I hope this will be an opportunity for you to stay part of this community and continue to explore cryptocurrencies. ;)

Thanks!
Will try to visit the forum from time to time - but it is time that I never seem to have enough of!
We're in lock-down and even though I work from home anyway, with the wife & kids home 24/7 I hardly have time for any work, let alone anything else!
Hence the long time it took me to reply to your message.

I've been "exploring cryptos" for 4 years - is there an "intro" section somewhere where we can share our crypto journeys...?

Cheers,
Mark.

Perhaps you could put your "intro" post over in the "Beginners & Help" section (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=39.0)... In any case, reading all the "pinned" posts in that board is a good idea... particularly the one titled "Newbies - read before posting (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1689727.0)"

LOTS of good tips there.

Just hop to the "Beginners & Help" section as suggested by HCP and post whatever you want (unless it's off-topic - not crypto or bitcointalk related).
Also, since you're in the gambling business, we also have a very active "Gambling" section here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=56.0) so you might find something of interest there as well.