My Statement: the transaction history of a gambling account
A statement is a record of what happened, and it is usually right. The balance beside it is usually right too, and the two can still differ - by one line that is not cash, or one line that has not settled. This desk is about reading the record: the line, the categories, the pending line, and the arithmetic of making the two agree.
- samples
- 10 invented
- lines in a month
- 240
- shown balance
- 312.00
- settled balance
- 292.00
One month, seven facts, and one balance. The lines add to a balance of 312.00, and the settled part of that balance - the part that is cash - is 292.00, because the 20.00 bonus credit on the 27th is a line that is not cash until its conditions are met. The running-balance column is the whole argument of this desk: a statement and a balance can both be correct and still differ by one line.
opening 250.00 + deposits 300.00 - stakes 480.00 + returns 372.00 + bonus 20.00 - withdrawals 150.00 = 312.00 shown, of which 292.00 is withdrawable.
240 lines in the sample month: stakes 148, returns 62, deposits 12, withdrawals 9, bonus credits 6, adjustments 3.
Two thirds of a statement is stakes and returns, which is why a balance can look wrong when only one of a matched pair has settled. The two directions are not equal in number - 148 stakes against 62 returns - because a month holds many bets and fewer settled ones, and every return line is paired with the stake line it answers.
A statement line is one transaction - a date, a type, an amount and the balance after it. A month held 240 of them on the samples, and the shown balance of 312.00 carried a settled balance of 292.00 inside it, because one line was a 20.00 bonus credit that is not cash until its conditions are met.
What the samples show
The desk's central figure is one account and one month. The month held 240 statement lines, of which 148 were stakes and 62 returns, the two directions of the same bets. The running balance ended at 312.00, and 292.00 of that is cash; the remaining 20.00 is a bonus credit, which is a line and not money. Across 300 accounts, 187 had a statement that agreed with the balance exactly and 113 did not.
Two findings do most of the work. First, a statement and a balance can be correct at the same time; the disagreement is a line, not an error. Second, the cause is usually the most recent line rather than the oldest - a pending line or a bonus line - so the first place to look is the end of the statement rather than the beginning.
None of the samples describes a real operator, product, statement, account or person. They are ten invented sets of counts, amounts and windows, defined on this page, and every other figure on the site is derived from them.
Ten samples
The 240 lines of one month, by category.
- lines
- 240
- stakes / returns
- 148 / 62
- deposits / withdrawals
- 12 / 9
How often a statement and a balance differ.
- accounts
- 300
- agree exactly
- 187
- one cause or more
- 113
What explains a disagreement.
- disagreements
- 200
- pending line
- 74
- bonus line
- 58
The state of every line read.
- lines
- 500
- settled
- 436
- pending / reversed
- 43 / 21
How long a pending line stays pending.
- pending lines
- 120
- within a day
- 71
- beyond three days
- 16
Whether a reader can take a copy.
- accounts
- 100
- export available
- 79
- PDF available
- 61
One month, added up line by line.
- opening
- 250.00
- shown close
- 312.00
- settled close
- 292.00
What the shown balance is made of.
- shown
- 312.00
- cash
- 292.00
- bonus
- 20.00
Two further samples are defined on the pages that use them: sample I on the statement as evidence, and sample J on the reader's own reconciliation.
The six categories in one table
The clearest place to start is the shape of a month, because it answers the question a reader actually has: what is all this, and which lines are the ones that move the balance?
| Category | Lines | Share | What it does to the balance |
|---|---|---|---|
| stakes | 148 | 61.7% | takes money out |
| returns | 62 | 25.8% | puts money back, answering a stake |
| deposits | 12 | 5.0% | puts money in from outside |
| withdrawals | 9 | 3.8% | takes money out to outside |
| bonus credits | 6 | 2.5% | adds money that is not cash yet |
| adjustments | 3 | 1.3% | corrects a line, either way |
| one month | 240 | 100.0% | two thirds of it is stakes and returns |
The balance and the statement, and the one line between them
The second figure is the one that decides whether any of this matters in money rather than in counts.