Reading an on-chain transaction: gas, fees and finality
A block explorer page contains everything you need to know about a transfer, if you know which fields matter. A field-by-field walk-through.
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Plain-language guides to how crypto and online gambling actually work. No jargon left unexplained, nothing to sell you.
Crypto guides
What a crypto wallet actually is, and how to choose one
A wallet does not hold coins. It holds the keys that let you move them. Understanding that difference makes every other choice easier.
6 min read
How stablecoins keep their peg
A dollar stablecoin is only worth a dollar because someone can redeem or arbitrage it back there. The mechanism differs by design, and so do the ways it fails.
7 min read
Layer 2 networks explained
Layer 2s move activity off a base chain while borrowing its security. Here is how rollups and channels work, and which trust assumptions remain.
7 min read
iGaming guides
How sports betting odds are priced, and what the margin is
Odds are probabilities with a fee built in. Converting them back shows how much a bookmaker charges on any market.
7 min read
RTP, volatility and house edge explained
Three numbers describe the mathematics of almost every casino game. What each one measures, how they relate, and what they cannot tell you.
6 min read
How provably fair games work
Provably fair systems let a player verify that a result was fixed before the bet and not altered afterwards. The cryptography is simple; the limits are worth knowing.
6 min read
KYC and licensing: how to tell if a gambling site is regulated
A licence logo in a footer proves nothing on its own. How to verify a licence, what it covers, and why regulated sites ask for identity documents.
6 min read
From the glossary
All terms- Affiliate
- A publisher or marketer that refers customers to a gambling operator in return for payment, usually a share of the net revenue those customers generate, a fixed fee per new depositor, or a mix of the two.
- Airdrop
- A distribution of tokens to wallet addresses at no charge, usually to reward early users of a protocol or to spread ownership of a new token. Recipients are often chosen from a snapshot of past on-chain activity.
- AMM (automated market maker)
- A smart contract that prices trades with a formula based on the balance of assets in a liquidity pool, instead of matching buyers and sellers in an order book. Most decentralised exchanges are built on AMMs.
- Block
- A batch of transactions added to a blockchain together. Each block contains a cryptographic reference to the one before it, which is what makes the history hard to alter.
- Bonus wagering
- The condition attached to a bonus that requires a customer to stake a multiple of the bonus, or of the bonus plus deposit, before related winnings can be withdrawn. A 30 times requirement on a 100 bonus means 3,000 in total stakes.
- Bridge
- A service that moves assets between blockchains, typically by locking tokens on one chain and issuing an equivalent representation on another. Bridges hold large pooled balances and have been frequent targets of exploits.
- Cash out
- A sportsbook feature that lets a customer settle a bet before the event has finished, at a value based on the current odds. The price offered includes an additional margin in the operator's favour.
- Chargeback
- A reversal of a card payment initiated through the card issuer, typically on grounds of fraud or an unauthorised transaction. High chargeback rates can cost an operator its payment processing relationships.
- Cold wallet
- A wallet whose private keys are kept on a device or medium that is not connected to the internet, such as a hardware wallet. It trades convenience for much lower exposure to malware and phishing.
- Consensus
- The process by which the independent nodes of a blockchain agree on a single valid history of transactions. Proof of work and proof of stake are the two most widely used consensus mechanisms.