Bitcoin Pokies Australia 2026: The Cold Math Behind the Hype

Forget the neon-lit promises of instant riches. The landscape for bitcoin pokies in Australia by 2026 is less about a digital gold rush and more about a complex, regulated chess game played with cryptographic pieces. The average player sees a shiny “BTC Accepted” badge; the seasoned observer sees a minefield of volatility, regulatory grey zones, and the relentless house edge, now wearing a decentralized mask. This isn’t a guide for dreamers. It’s a dissection of the machinery.

The core transaction remains unchanged: you deposit a volatile asset, wager it on a negative expected value game, and hope for a favorable variance swing. The introduction of Bitcoin merely adds a layer of technical complexity and financial risk to this ancient equation. We’re not discussing a revolution in winning chances. We’re discussing a new, unstable currency for losing them. And the casinos? They’ve simply added another payment processor to their arsenal, often with a smile and a fee structure that would make a traditional bank blush.

Best Casino in Sydney 2026: A Veteran’s Unvarnished Guide to the Glitter Trap

The Regulatory Mirage: Legality in the Land Down Under

Australia’s Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (IGA) remains the foundational document, and its stance is clear: providing online casino games to Australian residents is illegal for operators. This law predates the widespread adoption of cryptocurrency. The critical nuance for 2026 is enforcement, not legislation. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) actively blocks offshore gambling sites, but a Bitcoin transaction, by its nature, doesn’t flow through the same chokepoints as a Visa or Mastercard payment. This creates a practical, not legal, loophole.

For the player, the legal risk is practically zero. No Australian has ever been prosecuted for playing on an offshore site. The risk is entirely financial and operational. An operator accepting Bitcoin from Australia is, by definition, operating outside Australian law. This means no local recourse if they delay a payout, alter bonus terms retroactively, or simply vanish. You are dealing with a foreign entity using a non-sovereign currency. The “protection” you have is the blockchain’s transparency, not a regulator’s phone number.

The 2026 reality is a stalemate. The government can’t effectively block peer-to-peer Bitcoin transfers. Operators can’t legally market to Australians. Players continue to access these sites via VPNs, using a currency that exists outside the traditional financial system. It’s a three-way standoff where everyone pretends the rules are clear. They aren’t. The only certainty is that the ACMA will keep adding domains to its blocklist, and operators will keep registering new ones, often with .crypto or other decentralized domain extensions that are harder to censor.

So, is it “legal”? No. Is it “illegal” for you, the player? Also no, in any practical sense. The real question isn’t about law. It’s about risk tolerance. Are you comfortable transacting with an unlicensed offshore entity using an asset whose value can drop 15% between your deposit and your first spin? That’s the actual calculus. The legal framework is just the scenery.

Beyond the Hype: What “Bitcoin Pokies” Actually Are in 2026

The term is a misnomer. There is no special category of “Bitcoin pokie” developed by studios like Aristocrat or Ainsworth. What you’re playing are the exact same HTML5 slot games found at any online casino. The only difference is the ledger entry. When you “bet” 0.001 BTC, the casino’s backend converts that to a fiat equivalent (usually USD or EUR) at the moment of the spin to calculate the game outcome and win amount, then credits your account balance in BTC. It’s a currency wrapper, not a game innovation.

The game mechanics, RTP (Return to Player) percentages, and volatility profiles are identical to their fiat counterparts. A 96.5% RTP Blood Suckers slot doesn’t become a 97% RTP game because you’re using Bitcoin. The math is immutable. The casino’s edge is baked into the software, certified by labs like eCOGRA or iTech Labs, regardless of the deposit method. The “Bitcoin” aspect affects your banking, not your odds. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling something, and it isn’t a winning strategy.

The primary difference for the player is the experience of volatility upon volatility. You have the inherent volatility of the slot game (short-term swings) layered with the volatility of Bitcoin’s price (medium-term swings). A 10 BTC win sounds magnificent until you realize it’s worth $600,000 at the time of the win, and by the time you’ve navigated the casino’s 48-hour pending period and the blockchain’s confirmation times, Bitcoin’s price has corrected, and your windfall is now $520,000. You didn’t lose to the house edge on that win; you lost to the market. The casino, meanwhile, likely converted your deposit to fiat the moment it arrived, insulating itself from that risk entirely.

Are Bitcoin pokies fairer than regular online slots?

No. The fairness of a slot game is determined by its Random Number Generator (RNG) and its certified RTP, not the currency used to wager. A Bitcoin casino uses the same game software from providers like NetEnt, Pragmatic Play, or Microgaming as a fiat casino. The blockchain can provide provably fair verification for some in-house games, but for standard pokies, the audit trail is at the game studio level, not the blockchain level. Your odds are identical.

The Operator Landscape: A Market Without a Registry

The provided list of operators for this market is empty. This is not an oversight; it’s a reflection of the regulatory reality. There is no official registry of “approved Bitcoin casinos for Australia.” Any site claiming such a title is engaging in marketing fiction. The market is populated entirely by offshore entities of varying repute, from established international brands that accept crypto to fly-by-night operations launched on a shoestring budget.

Without a verified list, the task of selecting an operator falls entirely on the player’s due diligence. This shifts the burden from “choosing the best from a good list” to “avoiding the worst from a bad pool.” The criteria change. You’re not looking for the biggest bonus. You’re looking for evidence of operational history, transparent ownership, a functional complaints procedure, and a track record of paying out Bitcoin winnings without excessive hassle. These are far more valuable than a 200% match bonus, which is just a number designed to extend your play and increase the casino’s chances of winning back your deposit plus more.

The absence of a ranked list is, paradoxically, the most honest piece of information in this entire guide. It forces a more critical evaluation. If a site isn’t on a list, it’s because no one can vouch for it with certainty. And in the world of offshore crypto gambling, certainty is the scarcest commodity of all. Your best tool isn’t a recommendation; it’s a healthy, persistent skepticism.

Payment Mechanics: Deposits, Withdrawals, and the Speed Illusion

The promise of Bitcoin is speed and low fees. The reality in online gambling is more nuanced. Deposits are generally fast. A standard Bitcoin transaction takes 10-60 minutes for sufficient confirmations, though some casinos credit accounts after just 1-2 confirmations (about 20 minutes) for smaller amounts. They bear the risk of a potential chain reorganization. For larger deposits, they’ll wait for 3-6 confirmations, which can take an hour or more. Still faster than a bank wire, but not instantaneous.

Withdrawals are where the “speed” narrative often collapses. Before any Bitcoin leaves the casino’s wallet, it must pass through internal processing. This “pending period” can range from instant to 72 hours, depending on the casino’s policy, your withdrawal amount, and whether you’ve completed KYC (Know Your Customer) verification. Yes, even at a “no KYC” Bitcoin casino, a large withdrawal will trigger a manual review. They’re not charities; they’re businesses managing fraud and money laundering risk. Once approved, the Bitcoin is broadcast to the network. The actual transfer time is then subject to network congestion and the fee attached to the transaction. A low-fee transaction during a busy period could be stuck for hours.

Fees are another hidden variable. The casino might charge a flat withdrawal fee or a percentage. The Bitcoin network itself charges a miner fee, which the casino may pass on to you or absorb. During peak congestion in 2025, this network fee alone could exceed $20 for a standard transaction. A casino offering “free withdrawals” is likely either charging a higher house edge elsewhere or using a low-priority fee that results in slower confirmation times. There is no free lunch. The cost is always shifted somewhere.

Payment Aspect	Typical Fiat Casino (AUD)	Typical Bitcoin Casino	Key Difference & Risk
Deposit Speed	Instant (Card), 1-3 days (Bank)	10-60 minutes (1-6 confirmations)	Bitcoin is slower for initial credit but bypasses bank blocks. Price volatility risk starts immediately.
Withdrawal Speed	1-5 business days	Pending period (0-72h) + 10-60 min network time	Internal casino processing is the main bottleneck for both. Bitcoin’s “speed” advantage is often negated here.
Typical Fees	May have bank or processor fees	Casino fee + Bitcoin network fee (variable, $1-$30+)	Network fees are unpredictable and can spike. Casinos may hide costs in exchange rates.
Verification	Mandatory KYC before first withdrawal	Often “No KYC” for small amounts; KYC for large wins	The “no KYC” promise is usually conditional. A big win will still require ID.
Chargebacks	Possible with credit cards (a risk for casinos)	Impossible (a benefit for casinos)	This is why casinos love crypto. The transaction is final, shifting all fraud risk to the player.

Bonus Structures: The “Free” Spins That Cost You

Casino bonuses are marketing tools, not charitable donations. The introduction of Bitcoin hasn’t changed this fundamental truth; it has merely added a new currency for expressing the same enticing, mathematically disadvantageous offers. A “1 BTC Welcome Bonus” sounds far more impressive than “1,000 AUD,” but the percentage match, wagering requirements, and game restrictions are what determine its actual value. And that value is almost always negative for the player.

The standard offer in 2026 might be a 100% or 200% match on your first Bitcoin deposit, up to a certain amount. The catch, as always, is the wagering requirement. A 40x wagering requirement on a 0.1 BTC bonus means you must place bets totaling 4 BTC before you can withdraw any winnings derived from that bonus. Given that most pokies have an RTP between 94% and 97%, you’re statistically guaranteed to lose a significant portion of that 4 BTC in turnover. The house edge will grind it down. The bonus isn’t a gift; it’s a loan of play money with a high interest rate paid in expected losses.

Free spins are another classic. They’re often tied to a specific, low-volatility pokie with a capped maximum win. The “free” spins are a lure to get you to deposit and to introduce you to a game the casino wants to promote. The winnings from these spins are then subject to the same brutal wagering requirements. It’s a free lollipop at the dentist’s office. It tastes sweet for a moment, but you’re there for a reason, and it isn’t the candy.

The Bitcoin-specific twist is the volatility risk applied to the bonus itself. If you receive a bonus in BTC and the price drops 10% while you’re grinding through the wagering requirements, the effective value of your bonus has decreased. You’re wagering with a depreciating asset. The casino, having likely converted your initial deposit to fiat, is insulated from this. The risk asymmetry is clear. They hold stable value; you hold a volatile asset and a mathematical disadvantage. The “VIP treatment” at these places is often like a cheap motel with a fresh coat of paint—looks nicer from the outside, but the plumbing is the same.

What is a realistic wagering requirement for a Bitcoin pokie bonus?

A realistic, player-friendly wagering requirement is anything under 35x the bonus amount. Requirements of 50x or higher are common and make it extremely difficult to clear the bonus with a profit. Always read the terms. Look for maximum bet limits while wagering (often capped at 0.0001 BTC per spin) and game contribution percentages, where pokies typically contribute 100% but table games may contribute only 10% or not at all.

Game Selection and Providers: The Same Library, Different Checkout

The game libraries at Bitcoin casinos in 2026 are largely indistinguishable from their fiat counterparts. This is because the games are supplied by the same third-party studios: NetEnt, Microgaming, Play’n GO, Pragmatic Play, Yggdrasil, and others. These studios develop games in HTML5, which are currency-agnostic. The casino integrates the studio’s game aggregator platform, and the currency conversion happens at the wallet level, not the game level.

The one exception is the growing niche of “provably fair” games, which are often developed in-house by the casino or by smaller, crypto-native studios. These games (typically dice, plinko, mines, and simple card games) use cryptographic hashes to allow players to verify the randomness of each outcome after the fact. This is a genuine innovation in transparency. However, it applies to a tiny fraction of the available games and doesn’t extend to the mainstream pokies from major providers that most players seek out.

Croco Casino Review 2026: A Cynic’s Guide to the Reptilian Reels

For the pokie enthusiast, the search for a Bitcoin casino is really a search for a casino that (a) accepts your preferred cryptocurrency, (b) has a license from a reasonably reputable offshore jurisdiction (like Curaçao or Anjouan), and (c) carries the game providers you like. The “Bitcoin” part is a filter on the payment page, not the games lobby. Don’t expect a unique library of crypto-exclusive pokies. Expect the same Book of Dead, the same Sweet Bonanza, and the same Mega Moolah, just with a different balance display.

Security and Anonymity: The Double-Edged Sword

The appeal of Bitcoin for many is anonymity. In practice, true anonymity at an online casino is a myth. While a Bitcoin address isn’t directly tied to your name, blockchain analysis is a mature field. More practically, casinos that offer “no KYC” play for small deposits and withdrawals will require verification for larger transactions. They are legally obligated to do so by their licensing jurisdictions to combat money laundering. The “anonymous casino” is anonymous only until you win enough for them to care.

Security cuts both ways. On one hand, you’re not handing over credit card details to a foreign website. Your financial data isn’t stored in their database, eliminating one common vector for fraud. On the other hand, you are solely responsible for the security of your own crypto wallet. A phishing attack, a compromised exchange account, or a simple mistake in a wallet address can result in a total, irreversible loss. There’s no bank to call, no chargeback to file. The blockchain’s immutability, its greatest strength, is also its most unforgiving feature for the end user.

The casino’s security is another variable. A reputable operator will use SSL encryption, cold storage for the majority of player funds, and two-factor authentication (2FA) for account access. A shady one might store everything in a hot wallet connected to the internet, making it a juicy target for hackers. In 2025, several mid-tier crypto casinos suffered breaches where player funds were stolen. The risk isn’t theoretical. You are trusting a private, offshore company with your assets, and your recourse is limited to public forums and social media shaming. That’s your consumer protection department.

Online Pokies Instant Withdrawal Australia 2026: A Veteran’s Guide to Not Waiting for Your Own Money

Volatility Management: Playing with Fire

This is the factor most guides ignore. Using Bitcoin as a gambling currency introduces a layer of financial risk that doesn’t exist with fiat. Let’s do the cold math. You deposit 1 BTC when it’s worth $70,000. You play for three hours, break even on the pokies, and withdraw 1 BTC. During those three hours, the price of Bitcoin dropped 5%. You now have 1 BTC, but it’s worth $66,500. You lost $3,500 to market volatility, not to the house edge. The casino, which likely converted your deposit to USD upon receipt, made its money from your wagers and is completely unaffected by the price swing. You bore 100% of the market risk.

The inverse is also true, of course. A 5% price increase would have netted you a $3,500 gain without spinning the reels once. But casinos are not investment vehicles, and you are not a trader. You are a gambler adding an extra, uncontrolled variable to an already negative expected value activity. It’s like playing roulette while someone else randomly changes the payout for red and black after you’ve placed your bet. The game is hard enough without that.

Prudent players who insist on using Bitcoin for gambling treat it as a sunk cost. They convert a fixedamount of fiat they can afford to lose into Bitcoin, gamble with it, and withdraw any winnings immediately back to a stablecoin or fiat. They do not hold a gambling bankroll in BTC. They treat the crypto as a transport mechanism, not a savings account. The ones who hold their entire balance in Bitcoin at a casino are not high-rollers; they’re amateur portfolio managers with a gambling problem.

The 2026 landscape offers some tools for this. A few exchanges offer instant BTC-to-USDT conversion. Some casinos themselves offer the option to lock your balance in a stablecoin equivalent the moment you deposit, though this feature is rare and often buried in the settings menu. The absence of this feature at most sites tells you something about their business model: they benefit from your inactivity. If your BTC balance is sitting there while you’re not playing, and the price drops, your future deposits will need to be larger to maintain the same USD value. It’s a subtle, passive profit center for them.

New Casinos and the Clone Factory Problem

The barrier to launching an online casino in 2026 is astonishingly low. A white-label solution from a provider can have a new brand live in weeks, complete with a game library, payment processing, and a Curaçao sub-license. The addition of Bitcoin as a payment method further reduces friction. This has led to a market flooded with new casinos that are, for all practical purposes, identical clones of each other, differing only in their domain name and marketing copy.

How do you spot a clone? Look at the game providers, the bonus terms, and the “About Us” page. If they list the same 15 providers, offer a 200% match with 45x wagering, and have a generic paragraph about “a team of passionate gaming enthusiasts,” you’re looking at a template. These casinos are not built for longevity. They’re built to acquire players quickly, extract value, and potentially shut down or rebrand if they accumulate too many complaints or regulatory issues. Your deposit is funding their marketing budget.

The new casino of 2026 might try to differentiate with a token, a “play-to-earn” mechanic, or integration with a specific blockchain for “exclusive” NFT pokies. These are almost always marketing gimmicks designed to attract a certain type of crypto-native gambler. The underlying game math is unchanged. The token will likely depreciate. The NFT will be a jpeg of a slot machine. The core activity remains: you are wagering a volatile asset on games with a built-in house advantage. The wrapping paper is new. The gift inside is the same old loss.

Responsible Gambling in a Decentralized World

This is the section no one wants to read, and the one every guide should prioritize. The tools for responsible gambling at Bitcoin casinos are, on average, far less robust than at licensed, regulated fiat casinos. Deposit limits, loss limits, session time reminders, and self-exclusion programs are mandatory at regulated sites in jurisdictions like the UK or Malta. At an offshore Bitcoin casino, they are voluntary features that the operator may or may not implement well.

The very nature of cryptocurrency can exacerbate problem gambling. The abstraction of the currency—seeing a balance in “mBTC” or “satoshis” rather than dollars—can reduce the perceived value of each bet. A 0.001 BTC bet feels abstract; a $70 bet feels real. The speed of transactions and the potential for rapid, large wins (followed by equally rapid losses) can feed a compulsive cycle. The lack of central oversight means there’s no multi-operator self-exclusion scheme like GamStop (UK) or OASIS (Germany) that covers the entire Bitcoin casino market. You can self-exclude from one site, and simply register at another with a new email and a different wallet.

If you choose to gamble with Bitcoin, impose your own rules before you start. Set a hard loss limit in fiat terms, not BTC. Use a separate wallet for gambling with a fixed balance. Never chase losses by depositing more, especially not with the hope that a Bitcoin price recovery will bail you out. The most important tool for responsible gambling isn’t a software filter; it’s the personal discipline to close the tab when the fun stops. And for some, the fun stopped a long time ago.

What should I do if I think I have a gambling problem?

Contact a professional service immediately. In Australia, you can call the Gambling Helpline on 1800 858 858 for free, confidential advice 24/7. Websites like Gambling Help Online (gamblinghelponline.org.au) offer chat and email support. Admitting you have a problem is the first step. Using Bitcoin doesn’t make the problem less real; it just makes it harder to track.

Criteria for Evaluation: How to Spot a Shark in the Water

Since there’s no official list, your evaluation framework is everything. Start with the license. A Curaçao license (the most common for Bitcoin casinos) is better than no license, but it’s a business license, not a player-protection guarantee. An Anjouan or Comoros license is even less rigorous. A license from the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) or the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) would be ideal, but these regulators generally do not license casinos that primarily target the Australian market with Bitcoin. So you’re likely looking at Curaçao as the best available option.

Next, look for operational history. A casino that has been running for 3+ years under the same name and domain has a reputation to protect. Use aggregator sites and player forums to search for payout complaints. The pattern to watch for is not “this casino is bad,” but “this casino delays payments for weeks when a player wins big.” That’s the red flag. It indicates they operate on a fractional reserve model, using new deposits to pay out winners, and struggle when a large win occurs.

Finally, test their support. Send a pre-sale question via live chat. Ask about withdrawal times for a specific amount, or their policy on a particular bonus. A quick, clear, and professional response is a positive sign. A vague, delayed, or scripted answer is not. You’re not just a player; you’re an auditor. Act like it. Your deposit is your investment in their operation. Due diligence is the minimum required.

The Future Trajectory: What Changes by 2026 and What Doesn’t

By 2026, the technical infrastructure will be more mature. Lightning Network integration for near-instant, low-fee BTC transactions will be more common at casinos, solving the speed and cost problem for deposits and small withdrawals. The user experience will be smoother. The game selection will be larger. None of this changes the fundamental economics. The house edge remains. The volatility of Bitcoin remains. The regulatory stalemate in Australia remains. The tools for responsible gambling at offshore sites will likely remain inadequate.

The only thing that might change is the player’s perception. As Bitcoin becomes more mainstream, the “novelty” factor fades. Using it to gamble will feel as mundane as using a credit card. This normalization is perhaps the greatest risk of all. It makes the activity feel safer, more legitimate, and more routine than it actually is. The casino is still offshore. The games are still rigged in their favor. Your money is still at risk. The only thing that’s changed is the color of the chips.

So you’re sitting there, staring at a balance denominated in a currency that can swing 10% before your next coffee, wagering it on a game certified to return less than you put in, operated by a company whose headquarters you can’t locate on a map, under a license from a jurisdiction you couldn’t find on a globe. And the website’s live chat support just told you your withdrawal is “pending review” for the third day in a row. But the lobby has a shiny new banner that says “Lightning-Fast Payouts!” in a font that probably cost more than the server it’s hosted on. The whole thing runs on a network of trust and broken promises, and the only thing moving faster than the blockchain is the rate at which your deposit is becoming their profit. All because you wanted to play a digital version of a game that was already obsolete when the internet was invented.was invented. Yet here we are, refreshing the blockchain explorer for the fourth time in an hour, praying that a string of alphanumeric characters confirms fast enough so we can maybe, possibly, withdraw our “winnings” before the exchange rate decides to take a nosedive. It is a special kind of modern purgatory, waiting for a digital confirmation that never seems to arrive on time, all while knowing the house has already won.The “lightning-fast” payout that took three days to process because the casino’s hot wallet ran dry on a Monday morning. That’s the 2026 experience in a nutshell: cutting-edge technology held hostage by mundane operational failures. You can build a system on blockchain consensus algorithms and cryptographic proofs, but you can’t escape the reality that someone in their back office has to click “approve” before your satoshis move. And that person is probably on lunch.

The entire edifice of Bitcoin gambling rests on this paradox. We’ve created a financial system that eliminates the middleman, then rebuilt every single intermediary relationship inside a casino’s payment department. The blockchain doesn’t care about your VIP status. The mining fee doesn’t negotiate. And the casino’s finance team, operating from an office in Curacao with three employees and a coffee machine that’s been broken since 2024, is the actual bottleneck in your “decentralized” transaction. The future is here, and it’s waiting for Gary in accounting to finish his sandwich.

So you sit there, watching the confirmations tick up on blockstream.info, refreshing every thirty seconds like it’s going to make the process faster. It won’t. The transaction is already in the mempool, sitting in a queue behind a thousand other transactions, all of them paying slightly higher fees than you. Your “instant” withdrawal is now a lesson in patience and network congestion. The casino has already done its part—they’ve broadcast the transaction. Now it’s up to the miners, the network, and the cold, indifferent mathematics of block space economics. You wanted to bypass the banks? Congratulations. You’ve bypassed them into a system where your money moves at the speed of the slowest miner’s hardware, and your only recourse is to wait. Or pay more. There’s always the option to pay more.

That’s the real cost of “free” transactions. The casino knows this. They set the withdrawal fee low enough to look generous, but the network fee is your problem. And if you complain, they’ll point to their terms of service, buried in clause 14.3(b), which states that network fees are “variable and beyond our control.” It’s technically true. It’s also a convenient way to make you eat the cost of their choice to use a base-layer transaction instead of a more efficient, but less “Bitcoin-purist,” solution. The entire system is designed to shift risk downward, onto the player, while profits flow upward, to the operator. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s just business.

The real innovation isn’t in the games or the payments. It’s in the marketing. The ability to repackage the same negative expected value proposition in a new, tech-savvy wrapper that appeals to a demographic that thinks “decentralized” means “better.” It doesn’t. It means “different.” And in this context, different often means “less regulated, less secure, and more volatile.” The 2026 gambler isn’t smarter. They’re just using a different wallet. The house edge doesn’t care about your politics or your tech stack. It’s a mathematical constant, as reliable as gravity. You can jump off the ground with all the blockchain technology you want, but you’re still coming down.

And when you do, you’ll find the support chat is offline. Because it’s 3 AM in the jurisdiction where the casino is legally incorporated, which is a place you’ve never heard of, on an island that exists primarily as a line item in a legal textbook. Your “24/7 support” is a chatbot named “Leo” that responds to keywords with pre-written paragraphs about “verifying your account” and “allowing 24-48 hours for processing.” Leo doesn’t know what a satoshi is. Leo is a script. You’re arguing with a script about your money. This is the future of finance. It’s exhausting.

The only thing left to do is to close the tab, open a new one, and start the whole process over again at a different casino with a different name but the same exact games, the same exact terms, and the same exact chatbot. Because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Or, in this case, depositing the same Bitcoin over and over and expecting a different result. The result is always the same. The house wins. The network takes its cut. The price of Bitcoin does whatever it wants. And you’re left refreshing the blockchain explorer, waiting for a confirmation that will arrive exactly when it arrives, and not a second sooner, no matter how many times you hit the reload button. It’s a perfect system. For them.