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On Reddit someone claimed yesterday to be blocked from Coinbase because he used the Bitcoin poker site Seals and/or Betcoin: http://www.reddit.com/r/poker/comments/2dxuqw/be_careful_seals_users_coinbase_has_blocked_me/


Seals uses unique deposit addresses and AFAIK pretty random withdrawal addresses, so I am not sure how they could recognize that.

Betcoin seems to use 1 main hot wallet according to the comments: https://blockchain.info/address/1NyjjRGuBZ1FUSwrgizjZeHTM83RNh5uWr so that is more obvious.

So it seems Coinbase is at least tracking known hot wallets from gambling sites. Generally gambling sites will use unique random withdrawal addresses or other users' deposit addresses, but some obviously not. If you use Coinbase and you gamble, ideally have a normal desktop or blockchain.info wallet in between and don't deposit/withdrawal immediately from/to Coinbase.


edit1: Confirmation from another site than Seals or Betcoin:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2e2yxr/beware_coinbase_is_banning_accounts_that_play_on/



If anyone has more information it would be great to hear it.


TL;DR: coinbase is blocking accounts that get withdrawals from gambling sites.

Seems very unlikely that coinbase could be directly tracking deposit addresses, almost all of them are generated randomly. Even sites that generate them deterministically don't give out the public key that would allow someone to enumerate all the deposit addresses.

If they are doing something like this, my guess is that they track the published cold-storage addresses. If they see money getting sent to an address, that is getting swept into a gambling sites cold storage, then they could tell. Using an intermediate address (as you suggested) in this case might not even help.


If anyone is interested, https://www.moneypot.com uses bip32 to generate offline deposit addresses. We don't publish anything that would allow anyone to know anyone elses deposit address, so there's no way coinbase could se you're depositing money to moneypot. And since you're depositing directly into cold storage, we don't sweep it into a published account -- so no leakage on that front either.  On the withdrawal side, we send from totally unrelated coins -- so that's untraceable too -- so if you're worried about coinbase, moneypot.com is a pretty safe bet =D

This would explain why whenever I send an amount to a gambling site lately it never gets confirmed, and put back into my account.

At this point I think they only track known hot withdrawal wallets of gambling sites and block accounts that get a payment directly from them. The person who got blocked after depositing to Seals also had a withdrawal from betcoin before that. The timing is a bit strange though, since he only got blocked after the deposit. But still I assume it's because of the betcoin w/d since betcoin uses 1 hot withdrawal address for all withdrawals (which is pretty easy to detect for Coinbase.) Obviously most sites do not have 1 withdrawal address for all withdrawals.

Still having a "real wallet" is probably a good idea anyway.



To be honest I don't see the relation with your site moneypot.com, seems like a ponzi type of gambling site? Not sure how that can help in any way :X

Moneypot is not a ponzi site?

I need to know if this is true or not., can anyone confirm?

I sent money from coinbase to a couple of gambling sites and did not have a problem. The number of confirms though seemed to take a very, very long time. Unless this just started yesterday, I don't think it's a real issue.

Confirmation from another site than Seals or Betcoin:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2e2yxr/beware_coinbase_is_banning_accounts_that_play_on/

do you meant he lost all money bcz coinbase block him id?

"Coinbase demanding to know where btc are being sent."


http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2aagzi/coinbase_demanding_to_know_where_btc_are_being/

So if my Coinbase account is still active right now(I received coins I "bought" and processed a "sell" to my bank today), I SHOULD be okay?... Still taking the above advice...

[/quote]

I've always done this ever since back when coinbase was new they were quite slow at processing withdrawals. Round trip 1 more transaction fee and maybe 1/2 hour waiting time is the price of an intermediary wallet.

If they know the deposit address, and are actively trying to block them -- going through an intermediary wallet isn't going to be particularly effective.  You're far better off using a gambling site that has private deposit addresses (which, really, is most of them).

e.g. If you can give me any information on being a moneypot.com deposit address or not, I'll give you a 1 BTC. But you can't, and nor can coinbase.

Just becareful with where you withdraw your winnings to. If the gambling site pays out from well-known addresses, just never withdraw into a coinbase wallet. Otherwise, don't worry about it.

What if I receive a coin from someone that uses a gambling site and I then transfer it to coinbase?to me, it seems that they are reviewing the history of that coin and if it has been at a known gambling site, they jump to action. Id like to know how they are figuring it out. I mean, if all coins are considered tainted once they hit a gambling site, then that could cause a lot of issues..

Wow. This is good to know and a little disturbing. Should always use an intermediate address though.

Will be more careful with coinbase from now on for sure.

it's good to know
i'll use an other wallet
thanks

Coinbase started asking for social security numbers when they transfer money from Coinbase to a bank account. I don't know if they do it with everyone but I know of some.

This really sucks imo.
I understand is a problem of regulation not due to Coinbase willing (maybe) but if I'm not free on how to use my bitcoin I'm surely going to avoid them from now on.

Thanks for your useful thread NICO

Thanks for the heads up.

For me, I don't use exchange as my wallet, and I only move bitcoin there when I want to sell it. :)

I agree, stay far away from Coinbase. I don't use any exchanges myself - localbitcoins FTW!

Who would be using Coinbase anyways? haha.

Bummer I use coinbase and gambling sites since I'm a professional poker player. I wonder if a simple blockchain sharedcoin thingy would stop coinbase or how far they sleuth. Maybe they will just go deeper and deeper with time?

This whole thing sounds like an arms race really to me that the trackers are ultimately going to be losing.

I think they currently only use basic tactics, like tracking only big known withdrawal addresses. I am pretty sure that "anonymous" sending option of blockchain.info is more than enough to hide the gambling withdrawal. However there used to be like a 1% fee on that.. is it free now? Also I am always wondering: if everyone start using that, in the end the inputs could be of another gambler? :P Anyway, just using a random address in between (and create a new address for each withdrawal/deposit) is probably already enough to cover it, but obviously we don't really know for sure yet (so don't blame me if that isn't enough :P)

Considering another "exchange", which might be cheaper anyway, could be an option too ;)




Ps, an account was also blocked after a pocketrocketscasino.eu (PRC) withdrawal (or deposit) but the guy put "PRC" as reason for sending/receiving bitcoin. So slightly unrelated to this topic, but yeh: don't mention you use gambling websites to them :>

Nah that is because coinbase sucks.

I'm no longer using their services after my account not being able to purchase for no reason and them ignoring my e-mails.

Honestly, it is cheaper to do BTC p2p and network hardcore.

"Coinbase having serious technical issues."

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=651712.msg7303977#msg7303977



I started the above thread - If you are using Coinbase, or considering it, you need to read the links in post #5 in the thread (not by me):


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Re: Coinbase having serious technical issues.
June 18, 2014, 09:35:15 AM
   
Reply with quote  #5


"I'm surprised no one is talking about this to the community. All the figureheads are just regurgitating nonsense about how great Coinbase is for Bitcoin community. At the same time, users are posting horror stories about practical Coinbase experience on a regular basis...

[a bunch of links posted here - IMPORTANT - Read these!]

...The list goes on and on, but everybody seems to blissfully ignore all the warning signs... what are people waiting for, another Gox-style blowout?!"


I have a big problem doing business with a company which is representing themselves as a major btc exchange, yet can't afford to have a few minimum wage chat support people available 24/7 - they made a big deal of it when they finally hired some, but good luck finding one on duty. And when you do start a chat, they often just disappear.

Would you deal with your bank if the only way to reach them was via email which may or may not be answered?

A very sketchy company.

Wow, good thing I moved my wallet before I started going on gambling sites. :/ I've been running Bitcoin-Qt recently with no issues.

Loads of sites and players are switching over to CLAM.

Shut your mouth. Please pump that shitcoin in other places. I know you are waiting to price skyrocket to dump your bag, you will wait a lot.

Blow me shill, you get them for free if you had BTC.

This is a thread concerning gambling and is in line with the subject.

Also, a wonderful way not to worry about big scary Coinbase switching your shit off without notice.

Hey BayArea I'm really surprised you also wasted some of your time answering a random newbie who has no clue on what he is talking about  and he is also rude in his/her way of argumenting hie/her nonsense

It's true, Coinbase does track where you send your coins and it's because of the regulations lead by the government, they have to answer who purchased coins and where they went. But couldn't it be cheated with a mixing service or something like that?

Gotta pass my time some how! :D

I think the most important thing is players safety.  I'm fine with getting told to "Shut my mouth" even if it only helps one person.

It seems anon coins will be the future, coinbase blocks btc from casinos to prevent money laundry.

Anon coins like DRK, XMR, SDC will have a bright future. BTW, I hope bitcoin will implement anon feature so that we can protect our privacy.

Shouldn't be using an exchange as a wallet anyway, just enforces good practice.

Sucks to hear though...

DirectBet accepts bets in Darkcoins. Completely anonymous.

http://www.directbet.eu

Some people just leave there coins on there , and use it as a wallet in a way.
Recently, some people bitcoins at 309$, and when the cost went up to 335, some of their trades got cancelled, since their accounts weren't verified.
I don't see why would any exchange site do this. They should just say that the first time someone logs in.

This has a lot to do with government regulations or the fear of.

Bit confused by their interpretation of the law, as many poker sites allow Paypal in the UK and that is a similar money transmitting service.

I had my account locked about 3 months back as well. Just had 0.005 in it, never bothered to contact them for it.

good one but must wait 3 month back, if you contact them it can back soon maybe, dont have to wait 3 month :)

Just to clarify: this no longer applies. MoneyPot deposits now go directly into the hot wallet, which is swept into cold wallet addreseses. While there's no way to find out the cold wallet address, it would be easy to enumerate some other peoples deposit and withdrawal addresses. If you need privacy, for what ever reason I would highly recommend mixing your coins beforehand.


That's a rather odd statement to make, considering coinbase was being used to process the withdrawals. In any case, withdrawals are now processed from the hot wallet, similar to most other gambling sites.

only u.s players or all withdrawers?

Ohh. That's really a strange news. Thank God I only use my coinbase account to save small amount of btc in vault.

There will be a time that a certain trusted site will not work correctly.

I hope coinbase could bounce back.

thanks for info its so helpfull :)

Is it good enough by withdrawing from coinbase to btc-e then into gambling sites?

Ya. 

Just make sure they aren't giving you back the same coins as you put in.

Yup it should work, but then why don't you use btc-e directly or even better use a personal wallet like Bitcoin Core, Multibit or Electrum?

Wouldn't mixers be good for this purpose?

On second thought, goodbye, Coinbase!

Pity that we do not see any official statement from Coinbase. This will impact them  ???

ive had my account closed also, played on primedice :/

didnt have any coins so at least i dont have to deal with that at least..

Thanks for info
Luckily i don't use coinbase anymore, their service is totally bad

And why there are some people use Coinbase ?

This was my first thought btw.
Really can't get why should I use a service where I'm not free on my choices

If gambling is illegal in US, then why the fuck was the user gambling? Coinbase was fully justified in doing this.

My first thought: Why do you guys even use coinbase when you already have other wallets?

They don't have choice. At least they haven't locked the account.
So, looks like coinbase isn't suited for most bitcoiners especially gamblers.

Imagine that there are 1,000 customers like you and that makes 5 BTC easy profit for Coinbase. C'mon guys, if you didn't do illegal things there is always a reason to investigate your locked account. ;)

Yes, they arnt the best to use.
The best is downloading tour own wallet and using it. Noone can do anything with you then(except for kids, who delete whatever they see on pc).

How is coinbase dealing with this?

It is disturbing Coinbase is at least trying to monitor the bitcoin traffic but

how are they doing this?

Unless the transactions are blatantly obvious (i.e. notes saying it's for gambling), this is going to be hard.

Coinbase is too legal to use!
Just read there term & conditions,you will be amazed

Let's put it all together about Coinbase (at least, from my, EU-resident perspective)

- Is Coinbase registered in any EU country as a money service? They deal with European fiat money, too

- I personally am not a gambler, but I have no influence whatever (considered dirty) bitcoins my friend would deposit into my account when trading. If I understand correctly from all the available information, Coinbase can have problems with incoming bitcoins

- If I understand correctly from all the available information, Coinbase can have problems with outgoing bitcoins as well; even if I'm not transferring to a gambling site, if I were just to transfer to another exchange's wallet Coinbase would label me as a money transmitter or something, and flag my account.

Still, for some reasons I'd use hosted wallets for convenience such as trading small amount with friends in person, buying coffee. Anything but Coinbase, kind of? Coinbase would be perfect just for the above purposes; free transfers, bitcoin starts to appearing on the account in 5 minutes or half a confirmation.

So, can you confirm that Coinbase can have problems with both incoming and outgoing bitcoins, or only in one direction? If only in one direction, then I may still fit it somewhere in my wallet (only wallet, no connection to fiat) portfolio, if it has problem with both incoming and outgoing, then I may conclude if you live in the free world (from a banking perspective that means outside the US), you have no reason whatsoever to use Coinbase.

woa, now coinbase is so uptight with the account. I even put a note on a transaction of transfer btc from coinbase to fairlay. I wont be surprise that i got banned too although now i am not yet.

yeah we all know about this,thanks for remind me,i think some people here already aware with this,coinbase want be clear from illegal or other activity related gambling,and they so rude with this.

i don't understand why have this limitation , personally i don't use coinbase but i have read of this problem in another thread.
can't work like skrill ? When i open account skrill i have 2 option
1. i use my money for gambling
2. i don't use my money for gambling

you should never use coinbase or any other service like that as your bitcoin wallet.
creating a bitcoin wallet and securing it on your own is so easy so you don't need any third party like them to handle things for you, and force you to jump through hoops for them.

Well just readed this, i think a made hundreds of transaction from my coinbase wallet to some gambling sites, for the moment coinbase tell me nothing about it, maybe it's because th transaction were very small, btw thanks for the tips. I'll use another wallet for this kind of things

I'm always hearing bad things about coinbase, i'll never use them.
Why do people continue to use them ?

This is old news but once again be careful with Coinbase when using their wallet to fund your gambling sites accounts because if Coinbase get a sniff of your affiliation with any gambling site your Bitcoin wallet account will be immediately banned. I have seen a lot of people predominantly Americans complaining about that.

You should also note that the deposit address on coinbase accounts now changes every little bit,  so it will not work for sites like fishbitfish.

This is true . Coinbase doesnt entertain wallets for gamblers . I just dont like coinbase ... Too many rules and stuff . I use blockchain its far better from coinbase and i suggest you guys to use the same

Thank for your info i am coinbase user too and i think its better to move in another wallet that accepting gambling site.. i heard many time that coinbase is not good to use in gambling site they are locking some to withdraw or deposit in your coinbase wallet...

This info is accurate. Avoid Coinbase except for buy/sell, and even there if you have an alternative, don't use Coinbase for anything.

After you withdraw/deposit X amount of funds, they'll insist you provide full details of where you sent it and where you received from.

If you won't respond they will let you withdraw (at least so far, although that could change at anytime) but they disable the account for buy/sell.

A horrible company and a must to avoid as much as possible.

There are limited options for people living in the USA.

Maybe so, but any other option is better than using a service which may lock, restrict or force you to explain the details of your transactions. For anyone that deposits/withdraws to/from bitcoin gambling sites, Coinbase should definitely be avoided like the plague.

Why it is limited option. If you want to use coinbase to withdraw your funds than use some other online wallets to withdraw money from gambling sites and later transfer those coins to your coinbase account to withdraw. But you do this, don't try to withdraw everyday big amount because if you do so than surely they will ask for the source of funds. I use XAPO account and so for so good.

I guess I don't have to be worried about this I never use my coinbase to fund my gambling. I usually just use some funds on my spare wallet or some extra funds I find lying around in a different wallet. But it seems they are snooping around a bit to much now.

i'm not too much on gambling but i split my money in blockchain and coinbase blockchain to send money when i want to look some fun in gambling site and coinbase to send on altcoin exchanger because i heard coinbase didn't support gambling sites

Who would use coinbase to gamble? send the coins to blockchain.info then spend them!

Because coinbase is faster, has a better interface, and pays your transaction fees. 0.0002 is sadly alot for some people. It's like how a dollar is alot to kids.

I do not know that; somebody inform me? How coinbase can find which address is a gambling site adress?

Is it true that Coinbase has now integrated LinkedIn profile verification as part of the KYC for US users? Read something to that effect.

Yeah recently a friend of mine was blocked from coinbase basically because he used the wallet for gambling

since i know coinbase doesn't support gambling site i never use their service again because sometime when i bored and want to get some fun, i do gambling

you should never use these third party online bitcoin wallets at all, there are a lot of easy to use bitcoin wallets that don't require you to accept any kind of stupid TermsOfServices in order to use your own money (bitcoin). just use coinbase to buy then transfer the coins to another wallet of yours like (core, electrum, or even blockchain.info)

Gambling sites usually have a cold wallet and a hot wallet. When a user deposits into their assigned address, the coin is sent to either the cold or the hot wallet. Coinbase can know this by analyzing where the coins are sent to.

This can be migrated if the gambling site skips this step. Moneypot used to have this feature which they do not link the address to the cold wallet or hotwallet.

we all know coinbase is bad for gambler but he have a lot of good thinks so if you want to gamble just use XAPO it will be beter for gambling.
so if you want to gamble and you are using coinbase just transfer your bitcoin to Xapo and have fun gambling.

yes Coinbase prohibits the use of it. I do not understand what Coinbase want. but there are many other sites that support gambling. I hope someday all such sites Coinbase will provide transparent services.

I normally use coinbase as my main wallet and a like gambling so much. I normally carry out about 5 transactions on average everyday and most of them are gambling-related. I think i should start looking for another wallet which offers similar services like coinbase

If you are looking for an online wallet for gambling DirectBet Playing Wallet (https://casino.directbet.eu/PlayingWallet) is perfect for that : https://Casino.DirectBet.eu/PlayingWallet (https://Casino.DirectBet.eu/PlayingWallet)

You can use DirectBet Playing Wallet as a regular multi currency wallet for your everyday use in addition to playing your favorite Casino games.

You can also use it to fund your Sport bets in our award winning Sportsbook. This will ensure that all your bet transfers arrive and confirm instantly so you won't miss any action.

DirectBet Playing Wallet features Free and Instant Withdrawals

Move funds in and out of your playing wallet free of charge. We cover the miner fees !

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Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or if you need anything.

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I think xapo would be the best alternative to coinbase, as far as i know they yet don't have any problem with gambling transactions.

That is an extremely bad idea. Xapo, unlike Coinbase is a shared wallet. They pool the funds into the hot wallet and sends the transaction initiated by the user from a different address. Due to this, for on-chain gambling where they send winnings to the origin address, the account would not be credited for it.

It also doesn't prevent them from changing their TOS and reject gamblers.

I recommend blockchain.info for a wallet.

Stupid coinbase, i don't see any exact rule on coinbase about don't gambling using their wallet. They just banned someone after they find out they are gambler

Yes, the gamblers now have to leave coinbase for their payment to gambling sites and they have to join some other wallet for to pay at there.
There is 100% chances for their account to block, thanks OP for informing all others.

Good Job.

We can't say that coinbase is stupid just because they banned some account for a reason of gambling. Maybe coinbase don't want to get into trouble too because off tolerating gambling so maybe they just have a very strict rules. Well you can just choose not to use coinbase if you don't like it.

Yeah they are not accepting bitcoins from any gambling site theres a chance that your account will be lock..
But honestly i use coinbase in gambling but i am using bitmixer to receive and send bitcoin to gambling or coinbase.

What if I receive a coin from someone that uses a gambling site and I then transfer it to coinbase?to me, it seems that they are reviewing the history of that coin and if it has been at a known gambling site, they jump to action. I'd like to know how they are figuring it out. I mean, if all coins are considered tainted once they hit a gambling site, then that could cause a lot of issues..and I think this indeed is already listed in rule coinbase, that the funding from the gambling sites are not favored by coinbase.

I don't think they would flag that. I think they only flag you if its sent directly from the gambling site to your coinbase account address.

whether xapo also does not support gambling sites? if so maybe I'll just use blockchain or directbet casino wallet

I have just seen another case where a user was wrecked by coinbase, so be very safe !

There were instances where someone used a wallet in between the transactions but they still found out and closed their accounts, so if you must use coinbase and gamble then have a mixer in between.

It is good to know so that you can be careful, but I really don't think there is a need to switch to another wallet. (Well, there is reason to switch to another wallet so that you control your own private keys, but that is another issue ...)  I really don't think there is a need to stop using Coinbase though to buy bitcoin, just make sure you move your bitcoin around a bit or use a tumbler before you gamble.  It is as easy as that.

I would also stop using coinbase too, not the best wallet and too many troubles.

lol if coinbase lock/close every single account which their addresses related to gamble address i think coinbase will shut all account down.

so , it will not make your account closed if you receive bitcoin from a gambler address , is that what you mean with your case? adaseb were right, your account will closed only if you send and receive coin directly to your account.

are the only people who need to worry those doing large amounts and those of us doing $25-500 amounts not need to worry?

how about transmitting money to circle financing, then to my bank or debit card?

i keep money on bitzino and send bovada withdrawals there, any problems with money received back from bitzino? i know ive sent small amounts of less than $100 to coinbase from there quite a few times several months back without issues. for those who dont know bitzino is a gambling site, which i use solely because u can bet less than 1 cent a hand on Blackjack

Already lot of people are saying it is not good and facing lot of issues from it so in this time why we take chance 50$ is also big amount 500$ is equal to 1 BTC to making this we have to do lot of work so simply why should we take risk am i right. If it is not good then better try to switch another account that is best idea. Thank you for sharing this many people will alert now.

Sucks for the person who lost their account. But, I will make sure to not use coinbase when gambling.

I'm using my own desktop wallet now after reading this thread I use to have both coins.ph and coinbase as my web wallet so after reading this post i'm assuming that both web wallet will have same rules so I decided to download a desktop wallet and store my hard earned bitcoin, thanks for this info OP

Yes, coins.ph specifically mentions gambling in their TOS (https://coins.ph/tos) too. Own (desktop) wallet at least "in between" is much better.

Hi traders

I am new to trading. So is only Coinbase banning users that deposit/withdraw from gambling sites or are other exchanges that block their members for the same reason? Also I want to know if I can transfer crypto from gambling site to any exchange and trade the coins there for other different coin (like withdrawing from poker site in Monero and then changing the Monero coins to Litecoin in the exchange and then transferring to Coinbase? I don't even play poker anymore because now i am a trader. I just want to withdraw the money that I have in the poker account to Coinbase. Is this the best option?

Sorry to reply so late. But I'm interested to know if this is still accurate... Does Coinbase continue to block users sending and receiving coins to and from gambling sites?

And to reply to your question, Yes I suppose that transferring Monero and then change on the exchange would work totally fine.