GLOSSARY · 34 TERMS · PLAIN WORDS

The crypto casino glossary

Every term on this page moves real money when misunderstood, which is the admission criterion. Definitions are plain, two to three sentences, and each links to the guide that goes deeper. Jump by section, or link to any term directly with its anchor.

Bonuses and their fine print Games and fairness Licensing and trust Crypto rails and cashouts

Bonuses and their fine print

Wagering requirement (playthrough, rollover): The betting volume you must generate before bonus-derived funds become withdrawable, written as a multiplier: a $500 bonus at 40x demands $20,000 of bets. The single number that decides a bonus's real value; the arithmetic lives in the wagering math guide.
Zero wagering (0x, wager-free): A bonus whose prizes are withdrawable as won, with no playthrough. Real value equals face value, which no multiplier offer can claim; the one true 0x welcome in the audited set is covered in the zero-wagering guide.
Max bet rule: A cap, typically $5, on any single bet while a bonus is active. Exceeding it, even once, typically voids the bonus and its winnings at withdrawal review. The most-triggered clause in the segment.
Max cashout cap: A ceiling on how much bonus-derived winnings can convert to withdrawable money; common on free spins and no-deposit offers, and present on at least one major welcome in our set. It deletes the jackpot scenario players chase.
Game weighting (bonus contribution): The percentage each game type counts toward wagering: slots usually 100%, table games 10-20%, live dealer often 0-10%. Clearing a bonus at blackjack mostly does not clear it.
Validity window: The deadline for completing wagering, segment-standard 7 days, 14 at the friendliest brand we track. Unfinished wagering expires with the bonus and its winnings.
Free spins (FS): Operator-funded spins at a fixed stake on designated slots. The spins are not money; their winnings are, and usually arrive as bonus funds with their own wagering, valued honestly in the free spins guide.
Cashback: A scheduled refund of a percentage of net losses, honest versions pay wager-free. Functionally a standing discount on the house edge; programs compared in the cashback guide.
Rakeback: A rebate on total wagers rather than losses, paying even in winning periods; the architecture behind VIP reward systems at major crypto brands. Worth its published schedule and nothing more.
Reload bonus: A recurring match offer for existing players, smaller than welcomes but what you are actually offered from month two onward. Same wagering arithmetic applies.
Deposit turnover rule: A requirement to bet the deposit itself (1x-3x) before withdrawal, separate from bonus wagering, living in cashier terms. Crypto deposits often carry the lighter multiple.
No-deposit bonus: A small bonus granted without depositing, carrying the heaviest terms in the category: high wagering, low cashout caps, and often a deposit required to withdraw anything.

Games and fairness

RTP (return to player): The long-run percentage of wagers a game pays back, 96% RTP means a 4% house edge over millions of spins, never a promise about your session. Full math in the RTP and variance guide.
House edge: The operator's built-in margin: 100% minus RTP. Permanent, baked into every game's math, and unchanged by any bonus, rail or strategy.
Variance (volatility): How far short-run results swing around RTP: high-variance slots pay rarely and big, low-variance ones often and small. Variance is what a session feels like; RTP is what a year costs.
Provably fair: A commit-reveal scheme letting you cryptographically verify each round of crypto-native games was not altered: hashed server seed before play, your client seed in the computation, revealed seed afterward. The walkthrough is in the provably fair guide.
Server seed / client seed / nonce: The three inputs of provably fair results: the casino's secret seed (committed by hash), your seed, and a per-bet counter. Same inputs, same outcome, forever, which is what makes verification possible.
RNG certification: Lab auditing (iTech Labs, eCOGRA) of a game's random number generator and RTP configuration, the integrity model for studio slots, which cannot be provably fair. Trust in a lab's sample versus proof per round.
Originals (crypto-native games): In-house titles, dice, crash, plinko, mines, limbo, built on provably fair mechanics rather than licensed studio engines. The deepest tested native catalog in our set is mBit's sixteen titles.
Bonus buy: Paying a multiple of stake to trigger a slot's feature round directly. Frequently prohibited during active bonuses, where using it can void winnings under the max-bet clause.

Licensing and trust

OGL license (Curaçao): A direct license from the Curaçao authority under the post-2024 LOK framework, numbered like OGL/2024/1307/0748 and verifiable in the public register, unlike the old master/sub-license badges. Map and verification steps in the licensing guide.
Anjouan license (ALSI): A Curaçao-tier license from the Comoros jurisdiction, administered by ALSI, numbered ALSI-YYYYMMXXX-FI. Its public register is unreliable, so verification runs through the operator's seal and entity matching.
Tobique license: A license from the Tobique First Nation's gaming regulator in New Brunswick, Canada, seen in multi-license stacks alongside Anjouan. Curaçao-tier protection with no searchable public registry.
License stack: Multiple licenses held by one operator to cover different markets. What matters is that the license covering your country is real, active, and names the same entity as the terms.
KYC (know your customer): Identity verification: documents, sometimes source-of-funds. At crypto casinos it is threshold-based at some brands, triggered by payout size or fiat use rather than signup, with real thresholds documented in the no-KYC guide.
No-KYC casino: A brand that does not verify accounts by default, checking only on triggers (large cashouts, AML flags). Operational privacy, not anonymity: the blockchain stays public either way.
AML (anti-money-laundering): The compliance layer behind verification triggers and source-of-funds requests. The reason "no KYC ever" is marketing: every licensed operator keeps AML obligations.
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Crypto rails and cashouts

Confirmation: A block including your transaction; casinos credit deposits after 1-3. Roughly 10 minutes per block on Bitcoin, ~2.5 on Litecoin, ~1 on Dogecoin, seconds-level on Tron.
TRC-20 / ERC-20: Network standards for tokens like USDT: TRC-20 (Tron) moves for cents in seconds, ERC-20 (Ethereum) pays congestion-priced gas. Withdrawal network must match the receiving address's network, always; details in the USDT guide.
Stablecoin: A token pegged to fiat (USDT, USDC). The bureau's default recommendation for players who think in dollars: bankroll, limits and wagering keep their meaning while settlement stays crypto-fast.
Payout speed (measured): The interval from withdrawal request to the operator broadcasting on-chain, measured on real cashouts rather than quoted from cashier pages. The live dataset is the Payout Speed Index: ~10 minutes at the fastest audited brand.
Self-custody wallet: A wallet whose keys you hold, where winnings belong at rest. A casino balance is an operator IOU until a withdrawal confirms; keep the float small, as the security chapter argues.
Self-exclusion: Tools that lock you out of play for a chosen period, per-brand at offshore operators, centralized in regulated regimes like Ontario's. Listed with helplines on the responsible gambling page: free, confidential, 24/7.

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