The balance: what the screen shows

A balance is stored at full precision and shown at two places, and those are two different numbers. This page follows eight accounts where they disagree, including one that displays a round figure it cannot pay.

Open the partner account What rounding cannot do

Sample spec

accounts: 8
show more: 4
show less: 3
largest gap: 0.0050

the unitThe smallest amount the currency can express. In a two-decimal currency it is 0.01; the increment a stake must take is coarser and published per market.

the directionWhich way each rounding goes: down on a stake and a return, up on a duty and down on a prize. It is a rule, published, and it decides who keeps the fraction.

the volumeOne unit per event is nothing once and a figure at scale: on the samples, two thousand events of the same size retain 60.00 from the digits alone.

Direct answer

A balance is held to the full precision of the currency and displayed rounded to two places. On eight invented accounts, four displayed a number larger than the account held and three displayed a smaller one. When the display shows more, a withdrawal of exactly that displayed figure can be refused, because the test is applied to the held value and not to the shown one.

Eight accounts, one disagreement

The scale of the disagreement is always smaller than one display unit, which is precisely why it is easy to miss. The direction, however, is not always the same, and that is what makes the screen unreliable rather than merely approximate.

Sample D - eight accounts at full precision against two displayed places
Held	Shown	Gap	Which way
99.9960	100.00	+0.0040	shows more
250.0040	250.00	-0.0040	shows less
50.0050	50.01	+0.0050	shows more
0.0040	0.00	-0.0040	shows less
1.0049	1.00	-0.0049	shows less
12.3450	12.35	+0.0050	shows more
999.9990	1,000.00	+0.0010	shows more
7.0000	7.00	0.0000	agrees
8 accounts	-	4 more / 3 less	1 agrees

sample D - the withdrawal of a displayed balance account 1: held 99.9960 → shown 100.00 a withdrawal of 100.00 is tested against the held value 99.9960 < 100.00 → refused account 7: held 999.9990 → shown 1,000.00 999.9990 < 1,000.00 → refused in both cases the number on the screen is a figure the account cannot pay.

Why the gap exists at all

The gap is not a bug in one direction; it is what happens when a value with more precision than a display is squeezed into that display. Money that arrives with more decimals than the currency can hold - from a bonus credit, a conversion, a settlement or a commission - leaves a fraction in the account. The display rounds it to two places, and the rounding can go either way. The account, meanwhile, has to test a withdrawal against the truth rather than against the picture, which is why a shown balance can be unpayable. This is the same fraction that appears as a tail in a stake and a return; the difference here is that it is sitting still in the account rather than moving through a bet, so it accumulates instead of passing.

Before withdrawing, ask for the exact held balance where the interface offers it, rather than typing the round figure the screen shows.
Where a withheld fraction is shown nowhere, a small residue may sit in an account indefinitely.
Treat a displayed balance as a rounded figure, not as a promise: the account can hold a value that rounds either side of it.
After a conversion, a bonus or a settlement, expect a fraction to be recorded that the two-place balance does not show.
Read the operator's rules for how a residual balance is treated at closure; that is where a fraction that has sat in an account for years is finally decided.

The balance: what the screen shows

Eight accounts, one disagreement

Why the gap exists at all

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