Gamblers, be careful with Coinbase!

[Itun]

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.

[1714826620]

1714826620

[edmonddantes]

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

[manicminer]

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.

[lorylore]

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.

[rizkyhiw]

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/

    Upon review of your Coinbase account, we have determined that we can no longer provide you access to Coinbase Services. Please understand that Coinbase is a regulated Money Service Business under the FinCEN division of the U.S. Treasury Department and as such, we are required to review accounts in order to ensure compliance with regulations.

    Gambling is illegal under US law even if you live outside of the US we cannot provide services to your account for the purpose of any type of gambling activity.

    Please note that we have not blocked access to the bitcoin balance currently in your Coinbase account; while we can no longer process transactions of this bitcoin via our banking relationship, you may send this bitcoin to a local wallet or another bitcoin address.

    In the event that your controls change and you are able to prevent such activity from occurring on your platform please let us know and we’d be happy to review your compliance program and evaluate your account to see if we can support it in the future.

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/

In the last day we have had players who found their Coinbase account closed because they withdrew coins from SatoshiBet.com to their Coinbase account.

We heard similar stories from other gambling sites (Seals with Clubs, Betcoin, ...)

Switch to Blockchain.info folks.

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


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

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.

[marioantonini]

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

[talkbitcoin]

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.

[lrdeoliveira]

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

[JasonXG]

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

[Wendigo]

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.

[g4vinshreds]

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.

[PaperTree]

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

[airezx20]

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...

[Gogo ppp]

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.

[Gogo ppp]

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

There are limited options for people living in the USA.

[Junko]

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.

[fullypak]

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

There are limited options for people living in the USA.

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.

[lolgato1]

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.

[Dewi Aries]

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

[ezview]

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