USDT, or Tether, is the highest-turnover stablecoin and the de facto standard coin at crypto casinos. Its value is tied to the US dollar: 1 USDT should stay at about one dollar.
Why it dominates at casinos
Three reasons. The value does not swing — the balance and the win stay in the same order of magnitude, unlike bitcoin (see exchange-rate risk). The transfer is cheap — usually under a euro on TRC-20. Speed — one to three minutes.
The network matters more than the coin
The same USDT moves on several chains and they are not interchangeable:
- TRC-20 (Tron) — the address starts with
T, the fee is cents, the most common at casinos. - ERC-20 (Ethereum) — address
0x, the fee fluctuates with gas. - BEP-20 (BNB Chain) — address also
0x, cheap.
USDT sent to the wrong network is lost practically every time. Choose the network in the cashier before copying the address.
What to keep in mind
Tether is a token issued by a company, not a decentralised coin: in theory addresses can be frozen. For everyday casino use that is not an obstacle, but it is worth bearing in mind for long-term holding.
The houses where you can play with USDT are collected in the USDT casino list; a comparison of the networks is in the post TRC-20 vs ERC-20.
Who issues USDT and what backs it
USDT is a coin issued by the company Tether, which says it is backed by reserves. Tether publishes the composition of the reserves on its transparency page; there is a background overview on Wikipedia. These reports are information supplied by the issuer itself. In casinos USDT is simply used as a means of payment, but a company still stands behind it, and that is why some players spread a deposit across several stablecoins.
Example: deposit and withdrawal on the same network
Say you deposit 100 USDT on the TRC-20 network and the casino requires the same network for withdrawals. You play and request 150 USDT out. If the network fee is, say, 1 USDT, 149 USDT arrives in your wallet. If you chose a different network for the withdrawal that the casino does not support, the withdrawal would not be possible at all, or a conversion fee would be added. So before depositing, check what the cashier offers for withdrawals.
USDT and taxes
USDT is not the euro, so every exchange of it for euros is a disposal of a crypto asset in Estonia, which is worth documenting separately. The tax rules are set out in detail on the page crypto taxation; there is also an explanation in the post are crypto winnings taxed in Estonia. If in doubt, ask a tax adviser.