What are Player Deposits?
Player deposits are the funds a user adds to an iGaming account so they can bet, play or wager on sports. The deposit is the first real transaction in the player lifecycle. If it fails or stalls, the player often leaves.
How a deposit works
The cashier offers one or more methods. The player picks one, enters an amount and pays. The operator credits the balance in its ledger once the payment is confirmed. Behind this, the operator runs fraud screening, compliance checks and ledger updates.
Common methods and their limits:
- Cards: familiar, but often declined for gambling and open to chargebacks for weeks.
- Bank transfers: reliable for large amounts but slow to credit.
- eWallets: faster, with intermediary fees.
- Crypto: Bitcoin, Lightning and stablecoin transfers that settle peer to peer.
Speed matters because a deposit is a high-intent moment. In-play betting is the clearest case: a player who cannot fund an account during a live event is lost.
How Amboss handles player deposits
With Amboss Payments, the cashier calls createReceive and shows the invoice as a QR code or link. The player pays it from an app they already use, such as Cash App, Coinbase, Kraken, Binance or Strike, or from any Lightning wallet. A payment.completed webhook reaches your backend a few seconds later, and you credit the balance.
- Final payments: a completed deposit cannot be charged back. There is no card network to open a dispute through.
- Currency: funds settle in Bitcoin or stablecoins such as USDT, as set by your receiving wallet. You can keep your books in dollars while players pay from the app they prefer.
- Custody: deposits settle to your wallet. Amboss does not hold them.
- Testing: the sandbox simulates successful, failed and expired deposits.
Operators still apply KYC, transaction monitoring and responsible gambling limits to each player. See the iGaming use case for the full flow, and player withdrawals for the other direction.
Refunds
A completed Lightning deposit is final, so a refund is a new payment that you send. You decide when to refund under your own policy.