If the sites used bitcoin people would not have had their bankrolls there. You can keep bitcoins on your own computer. You can deposit them in seconds (some places add a delay) so you could deposit every time you needed to rebuy if you wanted. That means you only get burned for a few buyins if you were actually playing when they get shutdown. Also with 50 times less in their 'bank' (which would have been a server in their control instead of a bank gov could lean on) it would be a poor target. Bitcoins are way different than Pesos. It's really so different it sounds like BS.

The main danger is that if you choose to hold your own coins and your computer is compromised you can lose your money. Being safe isn't that hard, but a lot of people will need their hand held.

I didn't realize this thread was active, I'll answer some of the posts and if anyone needs help with anything bitcoin related I'm available, just PM me or post here.

My advice would be to only buy a few bitcoins for your first time. And send them directly from Mt. Gox to the site you plan on using them at and keeping them stored there until you understand bitcoins enough to store them locally on your computer.

I use mine at btcsportsmatch.com to bet on sports and sealswithclubs.org to play poker and both allow you to keep your bitcoins on there if you wish.

If anyone would like help getting set up on this sites I would be more than happy to assist anyone who has already opened and funded their dwolla account because both of those sites are awesome but could use a ton more action

virwox.com can buy and sell btc for a fee.

I wanted to follow-up and note that this problem seems to have been resolved. I am now showing an in-game balance of $156 which they are equating to 1.56 bitcoins. So essentially they've set the game value of 1 bitcoin to $100 in chips.

They could probably go a step further and remove the dollar sign to make it clear that this total represents game chips rather than a USD amount, but I'm at least a little impressed that they moved so quickly to resolve the problem.

I'm an average joe computer wise. I managed to buy bit coins on Mt Gox and transfer them onto my PC without too much trouble. There are chat rooms for BTC that have a ton of info via google. I think people are paranoid about losing their bit coins just because it's a new concept and they are digital currency. Just make a back up of the wallet dat file in a couple of different places/machine (I have a USB memory stick in safety deposit box) in case your hard drive crashes. Then your PC security for hackers is the same as it is for your email online bank a/c etc.

Dropbox and Skydrive are both free and have enough redundancy to trust them with your wallet files.

I'd put a wallet worth much in at least two independent places. I like spider oak for backups.

Something you might not know is that by default a backup will only be good for about 100 spends because this is the default number of addresses made for you in the background to which you send change back to yourself after a transaction. This means an active wallet needs frequent backups. An unused savings wallet however will be good forever.

Lol, paypal donations...won't last long.

I like it

"No, the deposits are DONATIONS, our sponsors just happen to ship the same amount in chips to the poker account. Totally seperate transactions."

I must admit, I haven't heard that one before.

Over/under on Paypal button is 3.5-5.5 days.

Albert Knox - If someone hacks your PC and gets your wallet dat file and the addresses and takes them is your backup proof you own the btc?

It seems to me that it's built right into the concept that if you lose your wallet there's no Bank of Bitcoin where you can go and cry about it.

There's already been a case where someone had almost half-a-mil stolen.

A quote from that article:

I don't know if I agree with the author that it's "a major flaw" -- it's more or less just a side effect. It does sort of argue against having huge amounts of money sitting around in a single wallet, though.

No, it's only proof that you used to own them. Even if there was someone who could 'reset' them to you, which there isn't, you might have sent them wherever they went yourself. The backup is in case your hard drive crashes or your house burns down. Keeping a clean computer and encrypting any large wallet is the way to avoid theft.

So i was finally able to get some bitcoins onto switchpoker.com and now i can play poker on the iphone and ipad for real money. how cool is that.

It took me forever to set up the whole process and i have no idea how much money i lost in the process or if at all.

here is what i had to do:

1. Created a dwolla.com account.
2. connected that account to my bank account, that took like 3 days
3.transfer money from my bank account to dwolla, that took like 3 days again also
4. Once the money was on dwolla sent it to mt gox (set up account first of course), 1 day not instant but pretty quick
5. Buy bit coins on mt gox,
6. sent bit coins to switchpoker.com, few hours
7. On switchpoker i can transfer bitcoins to EUR and vice versa.

This was quite an enterprise to move 100$ around. took me about a week. I ended up with 70 EUR on the poker site and some 4$ left on mt gox.

but hey at least it works and this seems to be a pretty safe way to actually move money to the poker site.

I wonder if the whole bitcoin transaction changes the legality of online poker at all.

If not the legality, possibly the fee structures in moving large amounts to/from the sites. WU processed a lot of poker deposits and the fees are crushing. Ars Technica has a good article on btc taking some of that biz.

The current options for getting coins the first time are pretty inconvenient. But next time you won't have to wait on dwolla to confirm you, and I think dwolla is even fronting up to $500 to make your transactions near instant, I think it costs $3/mo and no fee per transaction. So you ought be able to do it in 1 afternoon now.

I don't know about switch specifically, but you should be able to withdraw bitcoins immediately which means you can send them direct to another bitcoin casino or sportsbook or poker room.

i will try that once i have to reload. I am very stoked to be able to play on ipad/iphone for real money now with switchpoker.com.

I was shopping today and had to wait for stuff to get wrapped and was able to put in a small session. that was truly amazing!

Granted switch is small at the moment but for a session on the go just right for me.

you paid very little in fees.
dwolla = 0.25$ for sending money to mt gox.
mt gox = 0.6% fee

so for transferring 100$ to a poker site it cost you $0.85

western union would have cost ~$10 i think.
also it costs money for the site to process western union deposits so its a better deal for everyone involved.

There would be a lot more bonuses and promotions if depositing and withdrawing were as cheap as it is with bitcoins.

Depends what rate switch uses to go to EUR and back too though. But still the point stands, it's pretty cheap to use Bitcoin.

So is it possible to remove any chance of a hacker of getting your BTC by cut/pasting the wallet.dat file off your PC altogether and keeping multiple copies on other media like memory sticks etc that you copy back in the future if/when you want to buy sell. Obv talking about people like me who never trade often but even if you do it would be pretty easy solution.

Depends on the hacker obv. If he also happens to be your roommate or perhaps the guy who broke into your house and stole all your stuff, if those wallet.dat files aren't encrypted you've made things pretty easy for him.

Was kind of hoping one of these threads would get bumped so I could ask this:

BTConTilt hasn't been up since sometime in December. Anybody know what's going on with them?

lol how does this thread go 15 pages when it should have been immediately locked after the 1st 'no' response ?

Although many will disagree with me, I think this thread is only 6 pages long. I also think 6 is the perfect number at this time, and all other numbers are inferior.

Anyway, I don't know if bitcoins are the answer to anything or not, but it's sexy to have options.

Why would anyone want to play for Bitcoins instead of actual real money?
Bitcoins right now are crap and not accepted as a real currency. You might as well play with monopoly money.

Instead of Bitcoins I want to play poker for USD or Euros, you know real money you can take to the bank. Say 'no' to this stupid fad bitcoins!!!!!

Most people look at the exchange aspect from the negative perspective. What happens if I load up on bitcoins at $5 USD / bitcoin and then their value drops to $0.01 overnight?

Obviously it's good to be skeptical and I'm definitely not promoting that anyone invest their life savings in bitcoin, but there is at least some chance that when you cash out, your bitcoin will actually be worth more than when you bought them.

Having booked some modest wins and the exchange rate now up nearly 70% over when I started, I could quit a decent winner today. And my only intention was to play around with it. I mean, I really did look at my "investment" as "play money" and I wouldn't be hurt at all if I lost the whole thing.

Ofc, there is some chance that the bottom falls out tomorrow and all those bitcoins are worthless, but if anything I think interest in bitcoins is waxing right now.

Also, I think some of the criticism seems to come from people who don't realize bitcoins are actively being traded for goods and services (some legit, some otherwise), which pretty much insures they will have some value regardless of whether or not people are pumping and dumping the exchanges.

you DO play with real money. bitcoins are just used as a deposit method. you convert them to real currency once you deposit with bitcoins.