The deposit, step by step
A deposit travels a fixed path — signed, broadcast, included, confirmed, screened, credited — and each step is owned by a different party. This page walks the path and names where a deposit can pause, and which party can move it on.
Block 01Sign and broadcast
Every deposit begins with your wallet signing a transaction with your private key — the authorisation that spends the funds — and broadcasting it to the network's nodes. At this instant you commit to an amount, a destination address and, where the destination requires it, a memo or tag. Nothing after this point can change those, and it is the only step you fully control. This is why the address, the network and the memo are the three things worth checking before, and never after.
Block 02The mempool
Once broadcast, the transaction waits in the mempool — the pool of transactions that are valid but not yet in a block. Inclusion is not instant; miners and validators pick which transactions to include, guided largely by the fee offered. A transaction with a low fee can wait a long time on a busy network, and in the worst case be dropped, which means it never arrives at all. While it sits in the mempool it has no confirmations, and no operator will credit it.
From the mempool there is no arrival
A transaction in the mempool is real but unconfirmed — it can still be replaced or dropped. The clock on a deposit starts only when a block includes it.
Block 03Inclusion in a block
When a miner or validator places your transaction in a block, it gains its first confirmation. The transfer now exists in the chain's history, and its content is fixed. From here it accumulates one confirmation per subsequent block. Inclusion is the moment the deposit becomes visible to the operator's monitoring, but not yet the moment it is credited — most operators deliberately wait for more depth before releasing funds.
Block 04Confirmations
Each new block on top adds a confirmation, and each confirmation makes the deposit harder to undo. The operator watches this depth and credits only when it reaches the threshold it has chosen for that asset, network and size. This is where most of the apparent delay between "the transaction is confirmed" and "the balance updated" actually lives — the deposit is on the ledger, and the operator is simply waiting for enough depth to be comfortable.
Why the threshold varies
The confirmations page explains how a threshold is chosen and why the same coin differs between sites.
Block 05Screening and the credit
The final steps are the operator's: it may screen the sending address, and where a flag appears it may hold the deposit for review before crediting. Where nothing flags, the balance is credited and the deposit is complete. This is the step where a deposit that passed every network test can still pause — the ledger has done its part, and the operator has not yet done its own.
Once it is on-chain, the casino just adds it.
Screening and review sit between the ledger and the credit, and they can hold a clean deposit.
Block 06Where a deposit fails
A deposit can stall at any step, and the fix differs at each. In the mempool, a fee can be raised or the transaction replaced. Below the threshold, only time helps. At screening, only the operator helps. And if the network itself was wrong — the asset sent on a chain the destination does not support — then the deposit has not stalled, it has failed, and no step of this path will recover it.
| Stage | Symptom | Who resolves it |
|---|---|---|
| Mempool | No block | You, by raising the fee or replacing the transaction |
| Below threshold | In a block, not credited | Time |
| Screening | Deep but uncredited | The operator |
| Wrong network | Never arrives | Usually nobody |
Affiliate disclosure and risk warning
Every affiliate link on this page and in the header is a sponsored link to a partner operator, and we may be paid if you open an account through it, at no extra cost to you. That link pays us; it does not make a transfer safer, it does not improve any decision, and it is never a recommendation to play or to move money. Nothing on this page is legal, financial or investment advice, and nothing here is a view on any coin, token or network. 18+ only. Gambling is a real risk of real loss, and a crypto transfer is a real transfer: it settles on a public ledger where there is no chargeback, no reversal and usually no way to recover funds sent to a wrong address or the wrong network. A deposit you make is not a bet, but it becomes money at risk the moment it is credited, and the price of the asset you hold can fall — sometimes to nothing — while it sits there. The mechanics explained here — how many confirmations a deposit needs, what a chain reorganisation can undo, why an address is screened, which fee belongs to the network and which to the operator, why a memo field matters and why finality is a probability rather than a guarantee — belong to the networks and the operators, not to any suggestion that you should use them. The rules that govern these products — whether crypto is accepted at all, which assets and networks are supported, whether the operator is licensed, what is owed on winnings, how deposits are screened and whether any of it is lawful for you — differ between countries, states and provinces, they change, and they depend on facts about you that a website cannot know. Nothing on this page is advice, a prediction or a valuation of any asset. Never stake money you cannot afford to lose, never borrow to play, and never chase losses with a larger stake. Gambling can cause serious financial harm, including debt and damage to relationships and mental health. Free and confidential support is available in most countries through national gambling-harm helplines, for players and for the people around them.