Across every site we have tested, crypto withdrawals cleared between five and fifteen times faster than card withdrawals at the same operator. That gap is structural, not a matter of effort.
What happens on a card withdrawal
The casino approves the payout, sends it to a payment processor, the processor batches it, the acquiring bank settles, and your issuing bank posts it. Each hop has business hours and cut-off times. A Friday evening request often does not move until Monday.
What happens on a crypto withdrawal
The casino signs a transaction and broadcasts it. Confirmation depends on the network, not on office hours — Litecoin averages around 2.5 minutes per block, so a withdrawal approved at 3am arrives at 3am.
The remaining delay is entirely the operator's own approval queue, which is exactly what our tests measure.
Which coin is fastest
- Litecoin and USDT (TRC-20) — fastest and cheapest, our standard test route.
- Solana and Tron — comparable speed, supported by fewer operators.
- Bitcoin — universal but slower and more expensive when the network is congested.
The two chains, side by side
Payout speed is not about how hard an operator tries. It is about how many parties have to act, and how many of them keep office hours.
A card withdrawal
- The casino approves the payout — minutes to days, depending on whether a human reviews it.
- It is sent to a payment service provider, which batches transactions rather than sending them individually.
- The batch settles through the acquiring bank, on banking hours.
- Your issuing bank receives it and posts it to your account, on its own schedule.
- It appears. A Friday-evening request commonly does not move until Tuesday.
A crypto withdrawal
- The casino approves the payout.
- It signs a transaction and broadcasts it to the network.
- The network confirms — Litecoin averages about 2.5 minutes per block, Bitcoin about 10.
- It is in your wallet. There is no step four, and no weekend.
The consequence is that a crypto payout time measures the operator's own approval queue and almost nothing else. That makes it a far better signal of how an operator behaves than a card time, which mostly measures your bank.
Which coin, and why it matters
| Coin | Block time | Typical fee | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Litecoin | ~2.5 min | Pennies | The default choice — fast and cheap |
| USDT (TRC-20) | ~3 sec | Under $1 | Stable value, no price movement while in transit |
| Tron | ~3 sec | Near zero | Fastest and cheapest where supported |
| Solana | under 1 sec | Fractions of a cent | Very fast, less widely supported |
| Ethereum | ~12 sec | Variable, sometimes high | Widely supported, gas fees can bite |
| Bitcoin | ~10 min | Variable | Universal, but slowest and dearest of the group |
If the amount matters to you and you do not want price exposure between withdrawal and cash-out, USDT is the sensible default: it is a stablecoin, so £500 withdrawn is £500 an hour later regardless of what the market does.
Confirmations — why "sent" is not "arrived"
A casino marking a withdrawal as sent means it has broadcast the transaction. Most exchanges and wallets then wait for a number of network confirmations before crediting you — typically two to six, occasionally more for large amounts.
On Litecoin that adds five to fifteen minutes. On Bitcoin it can add an hour when the network is busy. This is normal, it is outside the casino's control, and it is the source of most "my withdrawal is stuck" complaints that turn out not to be stuck at all.
What actually causes a slow payout
- Verification not completed. Comfortably the most common cause, and entirely within your control.
- Active bonus wagering. A fast cashier still cannot release funds a bonus condition is holding.
- Manual review thresholds. Many operators auto-approve below a figure and review above it. Splitting a large withdrawal into smaller ones sometimes helps and sometimes triggers structuring flags — check the terms.
- Weekend approval queues. Crypto networks do not close; finance teams do.
- Network congestion. Affects Bitcoin and Ethereum far more than Litecoin, Tron or Solana.
The habit that fixes most of it. Verify at registration, clear any bonus before requesting, and withdraw on Litecoin or USDT. Those three things account for the difference between the fast times we record and the slow ones players complain about.
Card withdrawals still have a place
If you do not hold crypto and do not want to, a card withdrawal is not a failure — it is simply slower. The money leaves the casino just as fast; the delay belongs to the banking system.
One thing to check: some UK banks decline gambling merchant category codes on both deposits and refunds. If a deposit was declined, the refund route may be blocked too. Skrill and Neteller sit between the two speeds and usually clear the same day.
How we measure it
Every payout figure on this site is timed from the moment the request is submitted to the moment funds are usable, on a named coin, on a named date. We do not average across methods and we do not publish a figure we have not recorded. The full method →
A practical first withdrawal
If you have never taken money off an offshore site, this sequence removes almost every way it can go wrong.
- Verify at registration, before depositing. This alone prevents the majority of delays.
- Deposit in the coin you intend to withdraw in. Depositing by card and withdrawing to crypto frequently triggers additional checks, because the rails do not match.
- Clear or forfeit any bonus before requesting. A pending wagering requirement will hold the balance regardless of how fast the cashier is.
- Withdraw a small amount first — £50 is enough. You are testing the process, not moving money.
- Record the request time. Then record the arrival time. Now you know what that operator actually does, rather than what it claims.
- Check the address twice. Crypto transactions are irreversible, and a mistyped address is unrecoverable by anyone including the casino.
Fees and who pays them
| Method | Casino fee | Network fee | Who absorbs it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Litecoin | Usually none | Pennies | Often the casino |
| USDT (TRC-20) | Usually none | Under $1 | Often the casino |
| Bitcoin | Usually none | £1–£15 depending on congestion | Usually deducted from you |
| Ethereum | Usually none | Variable, can be significant | Usually deducted from you |
| Card | Sometimes 2–3% | None | You |
| Skrill / Neteller | Sometimes | Small | You |
Most crypto-first operators absorb network fees on the cheap chains as a competitive feature, and pass on Bitcoin and Ethereum fees because they are unpredictable. If a site charges a percentage on withdrawals, that is worth knowing before you deposit rather than after.
The security side
Crypto payouts remove banking delays and also remove banking protections. There is no chargeback, no fraud team and no route to reverse a mistake.
- Use a wallet you control rather than an exchange deposit address where the exchange may not credit gambling-sourced funds.
- Send a test amount to a new address the first time.
- Never paste an address from a chat message or email — always copy it from the wallet itself.
- Enable two-factor authentication on the casino account. A fast withdrawal system is fast for whoever controls the account.
If you joined GamStop because gambling was becoming a problem, this page is not for you. GamStop exists because it works. Free, confidential help is available from GamCare on 0808 8020 133, and from BeGambleAware.