Casino sites that accept Osko in Australia: what sits behind the deposit button

Data current as of 29 October 2026; checked against the ACMA’s published register of formal warnings and blocking requests, and against the Australian Payments Plus pages on Osko and PayID.

Eleven offshore brands currently sit on the ACMA’s formal-warning list for offering prohibited casino services to Australians. Some of them publish Osko as a deposit method. That is the starting point this page works from, and it is not a comfortable place to begin: a method that settles a bank transfer in under a minute, 24 hours a day, is also the same method used for groceries, rent and wages — and the marketing copy on these sites treats that fact as a feature rather than a question. The page is not a ranking and does not recommend a place to play. It walks through how Osko actually moves money, what the ACMA has done about brands advertising it to Australians, and what an Australian player weighs when the deposit button is in front of them.

How Osko actually moves money between Australian bank accounts

Osko is a settlement product run by Australian Payments Plus on top of the New Payments Platform (NPP). The NPP went live to the public on 13 February 2018 and connects more than 100 banks, financial institutions and fintechs; the Reserve Bank of Australia built and operates the Fast Settlement Service that sits underneath it, settling each payment individually in close to real time. By 31 August 2025 the platform had reached 128 million accounts and was handling around A$7 billion of payments a day.

What that means for a transfer someone makes today is plain. Osko sends money between participating Australian banks in under a minute, around the clock including weekends, whether the payment is addressed to a BSB and account number or to a PayID. The payment lives inside the ‘Pay Anyone’ section of a bank’s online or mobile banking — there is no separate app to install and no second sign-up. Once Osko is enabled on both ends, a payment can carry a description of up to 280 characters, which is more room than the old direct-entry system ever offered. The 100-plus participants together hold more than 25 million PayID identifiers as of April 2025, so the receiving side is rarely the obstacle.

That is the technology. The reason it shows up on an offshore casino site’s deposit page is straightforward: a player in Australia looking at a casino in Curaçao sees “Osko” listed next to Visa and a couple of e-wallets, and the speed claim looks identical to the one their own bank makes when paying a tradesperson. The page treats the two as the same transaction. They are not. An Osko payment to a licensed Australian merchant is a domestic transfer under Australian consumer law; an Osko payment to a payment account held by an offshore casino brand is a different legal object, even when it moves on the same rails in the same number of seconds. The rest of this page is about that second object.

What the Interactive Gambling Act makes of those payments

The Interactive Gambling Act 2001, as tightened by the Interactive Gambling Amendment Act 2017, makes it an offence for a provider to offer online casino games, online pokies or in-play betting to a person in Australia. No state or territory licenses those products; what is licensable is wagering on races and sport placed before the event, lotteries and keno. The IGA targets the provider, not the individual player, but the practical consequence for the player is sharper than the absence of a prosecution. An offshore site gives no Australian consumer protection, no Australian complaints body, and no Australian recourse when a withdrawal stalls or a balance disappears. The site can also be blocked while a balance is still sitting on it.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority is the body that investigates, issues formal warnings and directs Australian internet service providers to block illegal services. According to a report in June 2026, the ACMA had asked ISPs to block 1,751 illegal gambling and affiliate marketing websites since the first blocking request in November 2019, and more than 230 unlicensed gambling services had left the Australian market since enforcement was strengthened in 2017. The round reported on the same day added twelve more names to the blocking list: 7Signs, ChromaBet, Donbet, Duospin, Freshbet, Slots Gem, Jacks Club, Lucky Start, Pointsbetz.com, Spinrise, Vinyl Casino and Wildsino.

H2 Gambling Capital’s 2025 report puts the cost of that gap in plain money. Australians lose about A$3.9 billion a year to illegal gambling sites, and the share of gambling going through legal channels fell from 74 per cent in 2021 to 64 per cent. The share is moving the wrong way while the blocking list is moving the right way.

The Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 passed Parliament on 19 August 2026 and brings advertising and inducement measures into force on 1 January 2027. That is a law with a start date rather than a statute already biting. The page treats it as law passed but not yet in force.

A second layer sits on top of the prohibition. Under the IGA as amended in 2023, Australian-licensed online wagering services cannot accept payment by credit card or by other credit-related products. The restriction also constrains gambling use of a linked digital wallet such as Apple Pay, because the wallet is being used to spend from a credit source. For a licensed operator, the legal deposit routes narrow to debit card, bank transfer, PayID/Osko and BPAY. The list of legal methods and the list of legal products are not the same length, and that gap is exactly the space the offshore sites market to.

The ACMA register, and the brands on it that publish Osko as a deposit

The comparison table below lists the eleven brands in the ACMA’s published register of formal warnings that are commonly advertised to Australians with Osko in the deposit column. It is not a ranking and not a recommendation. Each row records the action the ACMA took, the operator named in that action, and what the brand publishes about Osko support — a confirmation when the operator says so itself, a note that the only sources were marketing listings where that is all that exists, and an em dash where neither the operator nor the listing pages offered a usable answer. The reader is the judge; the table is just the visible evidence.

The same operator can sit behind more than one brand, which is why several rows above repeat a name. Dama N.V. has been the subject of warnings in May 2022, March 2025 and May 2025; Consolutetish S.R.L. picked up warnings in July 2025 over two brands that had earlier been the subject of older actions against TechSolutions. The point of recording the operator alongside the brand is to make that reuse visible. Two different brand names, one corporate parent, two formal warnings at different points in the ACMA’s register — that is the pattern that a marketing page would prefer the reader not assemble.

The “Subject support” column is honest about its own narrowness. A row with a long dash means neither the brand’s own cashier page nor any third-party listing that research consulted gave a usable statement on Osko support; that is not a denial, it is the absence of an answer. A “listings-only” tag means the only places that carry a confirmation are marketing listings, and the brand itself does not publish it as a cashier method. The brand still appears in the table on the strength of the ACMA action, because the ACMA action is the load-bearing fact and the deposit column is just the marketing claim the action is about.

Where the brands sit against each other

Eleven rows read as a long list. Read across, they group themselves into three shapes, and the shape is more useful than the row count.

The largest cluster by operator name is Dama N.V., with three of the eleven brands currently under warning and one more from the 2022 round that is still active. The cluster is also the one the ACMA has acted against most recently: Woo Casino in March 2025 and Spirit Casino in May 2025 sit two months apart, which is a short interval for an offshore group. Dama N.V. is the operator behind RocketPlay (warned again in March 2026 under Pulsup Ltd), Level Up Casino, Woo Casino and Spirit Casino. None of the four publishes Osko support in a way that survives a check past the cashier page; the listings pages are the only source.

The second cluster is the warnings issued in July 2025 — National Casino and Bizzo Casino under Consolutetish S.R.L., and Ignition Casino under Bamboo Media. National Casino and Casino Intense are the only two rows where listings pages make a statement about Osko. Ignition Casino and Bizzo Casino sit in the em-dash group on that column: no usable answer either way.

The third cluster is the single-brand warnings from operators that have only appeared once in the register: EOD Code SRL over Instant Casino in February 2025, Sterplay Holding Ltd over Casino Intense in April 2025, Ryker B.V. over Jackbit and CasinOK in April 2026, and Hollycorn N.V. over Sky Crown in September 2022. Each row is a brand on its own. The Hollycorn warning is also the oldest still-current entry on this list, which raises a question the table does not answer on its own: a formal warning in 2022 over Sky Crown does not, by itself, mean anything has changed at the operator since.

The cluster that tells the reader most is the Dama N.V. one, because it has both the breadth and the freshness. A formal warning is not, on its own, a closure: the ACMA’s process is investigation, warning, then referral to ISPs for blocking if the conduct continues. A second or third warning over the same operator is closer to the next step in that sequence.

Why the ACMA blocking number moves the way it does

The arithmetic of the ACMA’s blocking programme is a running total. As of the report published in June 2026, 1,751 illegal gambling and affiliate marketing websites had been blocked since the first blocking request went to ISPs in November 2019. That is a per-month rate of around 22 sites a year over the period — but the rate is not constant. Some rounds block a handful, some block a dozen or more; the June 2026 round alone added twelve sites, and earlier waves added larger clusters. The figure is best read as the cumulative count of a programme that has accelerated since enforcement was strengthened in 2017, with the present year adding to it rather than capping it.

The reader-facing point is closer. The list of 1,751 sites is not a tally of Australians who tried to play and were stopped; it is a tally of provider pages that an ISP has been told to refuse to resolve. A site that lands on the list one month can reappear the next under a new domain, and a brand sitting behind a stable domain can have its cashier page rewritten the same week. The 1,751 is the count of blocked pages, not of unique operators, and a single operator can sit behind several of them.

A second measure sits beside it. More than 230 unlicensed gambling services had left the Australian market since 2017. “Left” is the regulator’s word and includes both withdrawals under pressure and exits after a blocking request. The two numbers are not redundant: 1,751 blocked pages are the visible result, 230 exits are the quieter one. The blocking programme is the louder tool; the exit count is what it sometimes produces.

The measure the page does not run on is the H2 Gambling Capital figure of A$3.9 billion a year flowing to illegal sites, because it sits one step removed from the Osko question. The reason it surfaces here is that the losses figure and the blocking figure are tracking the same thing in different units. If the blocking programme were winning, the losses figure would be falling; in the data on the page, the share going through legal channels has fallen from 74 per cent in 2021 to 64 per cent, which is the share moving against the regulator rather than with it.

How a deposit works in practice, and where the bank sits in it

The deposit itself, when a brand accepts it, is a regular Osko transfer. The player opens their own bank’s app, selects the casino from their saved payees or past transactions, enters the amount and sends. The transfer arrives in under a minute because that is what Osko does, and the casino credits the account on receipt because that is what its cashier does. The settlement speed is genuinely fast; that is not the marketing claim, it is the rails.

Three things sit underneath that, and a player is better off understanding all three before sending anything.

The first is whose account receives the transfer. An Osko payment addressed to a BSB and account number goes to the account at the receiving bank; an Osko payment addressed to a PayID goes to whichever account the PayID is registered against. Australian Payments Plus warns that being asked to send money to a PayID on an illegal gambling site almost certainly means a scam site, because a legitimate domestic merchant is not asking an Australian customer for an instant transfer to a personal-looking identifier. A brand on the ACMA register that advertises Osko is, by definition, asking for a transfer into an account the regulator has been told to act against. The PayID lookup on the sending side will show the registered account name; if the name that comes back is not the brand name on the casino’s footer, that is a piece of evidence, not a curiosity.

The second is the bank-side block. Westpac’s gambling block works at card level: it refuses authorisation of transactions registered under the merchant category code ‘Betting/Casino Gambling’ on eligible personal credit and debit cards. ANZ’s block, activated in the ANZ app, also blocks gambling transactions made through a digital wallet such as Apple Pay on an eligible card, not just the physical card itself. Once turned on, ANZ’s block carries a 48-hour waiting period before it can be removed. Both banks warn that the block is not perfect — not every gambling transaction will be caught, and some non-gambling transactions can be blocked in error. The block operates against the merchant category code, not against the Osko rail, and Osko transfers to an account that does not match an MCC-tagged merchant may not be caught by the same mechanism.

The third is what AUSTRAC does and does not see. The threshold-transaction-report rule, which requires reporting of transfers of A$10,000 or more, applies only to physical cash. Ordinary electronic bank transfers are not subject to that per-transaction reporting requirement, regardless of the amount sent. A player moving ten thousand dollars through Osko is not, by virtue of the amount, triggering an automatic report. The reverse also holds: the absence of an automatic report is not evidence that nothing unusual happened.

Responsible-gambling supports that actually apply to this page

Two of the Australian responsible-gambling supports are relevant and a third is often misnamed as relevant.

BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register, has been live since August 2023. It binds Australian-licensed online and phone wagering services. An offshore casino is not connected to it; a self-exclusion registered with BetStop does not stop an offshore site from accepting a deposit, and does not block an Osko transfer at the bank. The page says this plainly because the opposite is widely assumed.

The National Gambling Helpline on 1800 858 858 is free, runs 24/7 and offers web chat at Gambling Help Online. It is the support that does apply to anyone in Australia who feels their gambling is heading the wrong way, including on an offshore site. State-level self-exclusion schemes exist for land-based venues and, in some states, for the online wagering services licensed in that state; their scope is narrower than BetStop’s and the offshore sites are outside it.

The third item is the tax position. Under section 6-5 of the ITAA 1997, gambling winnings of a recreational player are not assessable income and losses are not deductible, unless the person is carrying on a business of gambling. That is the model; the page repeats the model’s own qualifier and the reader is the right person to check their own position with the ATO.

Comparing the operator register: what separates one row from the next

A ranking of casino sites that accept Osko has to decide what it is ranking. If the ranking is on bonuses, payout speed or game count, it is ranking offshore sites on the metrics the offshore sites publish about themselves — which is the same thing as ranking marketing pages against each other. If the ranking is on the ACMA register, the list is the same eleven rows in any order the writer cares to choose, and the differences between rows are dates and operator names. If the ranking is on the underlying payment rail, every Osko transaction settles in the same window and arrives in the same way, and the differentiation is zero.

What separates one option from another on this page is the ACMA action. Brand A was warned once in 2022 and has not been on the register since; Brand B was warned in 2025 and again in 2026 against the same operator; Brand C has a warning plus a listing-only claim on Osko support; Brand D has a warning plus no confirmation either way. The reader is not choosing between eleven good options. The reader is choosing between eleven illegal options with different regulator histories, and the page puts those histories on the table rather than smoothing them into a list.

The legitimate Australian alternative is not on this list because it is not the subject of the page. What is licensable in Australia is wagering on races and sport placed before the event, lotteries and keno. The Northern Territory Racing and Wagering Commission regulates 52 of Australia’s online bookmakers — Sportsbet, Bet365 and Ladbrokes included — which are licensed in the Territory for tax reasons; the commission has no full-time staff and meets once a month in Darwin. A player who wants to wager within the Australian rules wagers on those products with those operators, and Osko is one of the legal deposit methods for them.

The deposit route at a licensed Australian operator, for comparison

The reason the deposit list is short at a licensed Australian operator is that the law has already done the filtering. Credit cards and credit-related products are out under the 2023 IGA amendment; digital currency is out under the same rule. What is in is debit card, bank transfer, PayID/Osko and BPAY. A player depositing at a licensed operator sees that list because the operator’s licence requires it.

Osko works the same way at a licensed operator as at an offshore one. The transfer arrives in under a minute, 24/7; the description can run up to 280 characters; the PayID lookup shows the registered account name on the sending side. The only thing that changes is whose name comes back from the PayID lookup. At a licensed Australian wagering operator the name is the operator’s corporate name; at an offshore casino on the ACMA register it is whatever the operator chose to register, which may or may not match the brand on the page.

What the brands on the ACMA register look like, one by one

The eleven rows of the register are written up below in the order research gives, with the ACMA action on the record and what the public-facing evidence supports. The page does not recommend any of them.

RocketPlay

The ACMA issued a formal warning over Rocketplay.com.au in March 2026, naming Pulsup Ltd as the operator. RocketPlay had already been the subject of an earlier Dama N.V. warning in May 2022. Online casino games cannot be licensed in Australia, and the brand sits on the register under two different operators at two different points. No usable statement on Osko support appears on either the cashier page or the listing pages consulted.

Level Up Casino

The ACMA’s May 2022 warning named Dama N.V. as the operator over Level Up Casino and five other brands. Listing pages include Osko in the deposit column, but the brand itself does not list it as a cashier method. A formal warning five years old is not, on its own, evidence of present conduct; the ACMA register does not say the conduct stopped, and the brand remains an offshore site offering products that are not licensable in Australia.

Woo Casino

The ACMA issued a further formal warning to Dama N.V. over Woo Casino in March 2025. Woo Casino is the second Dama N.V. brand on the list to be acted against in 2025 after the May 2022 round, and the pattern repeats with Spirit Casino two months later. The site’s own cashier page makes no mention of Osko, and third-party listings remain the only source for the claim.

Spirit Casino

Dama N.V. was the subject of a formal warning over Spirit Casino in May 2025. Two months separate it from the Woo Casino warning, which is a short interval for the same operator under the same regulator. Osko is not a supported method on the brand’s cashier page; the claim only appears in marketing listings.

National Casino

The ACMA’s July 2025 warning named Consolutetish S.R.L. as the operator over National Casino. While some listings carry Osko in the deposit column, the brand’s cashier page does not. Consolutetish S.R.L. was named in the same round over Bizzo Casino, which is the second appearance of the operator in the register after TechSolutions in 2022.

Bizzo Casino

The ACMA’s July 2025 warning named Consolutetish S.R.L. as the operator over Bizzo Casino. Bizzo had already been the subject of a 2022 formal warning to TechSolutions (CY) Group Limited and TechSolutions Group N.V. Two operators, two warnings, same brand. Whether Osko is supported is unclear; the brand offers no such confirmation on its cashier page.

Ignition Casino

The ACMA’s July 2025 warning named Bamboo Media as the operator over Ignition Casino. The brand’s cashier page carries no statement on Osko, leaving marketing listings as the sole place the method appears. Ignition Casino sits in the em-dash group of the table.

Instant Casino

The ACMA’s February 2025 warning named EOD Code SRL as the operator over Instant Casino. Listings include Osko in the deposit column, though the brand itself does not. Instant Casino is one of three rows where the listings carry a statement on Osko that the brand itself does not repeat.

Jackbit

The ACMA issued a formal warning in April 2026 to Ryker B.V. over Jackbit and CasinOK on the same day. There is no Osko support listed on the brand’s cashier page, and third-party sources offer no confirmation. The April 2026 warning is the most recent entry on the register that involves this brand.

Casino Intense

The ACMA’s April 2025 warning named Sterplay Holding Ltd as the operator over Casino Intense. The listing pages consulted carry Osko in the deposit column; the brand’s own cashier page does not confirm it. Casino Intense is the third row where the listings carry a statement on Osko that the brand does not repeat.

Sky Crown

The ACMA issued a formal warning to Hollycorn N.V. over Sky Crown and Blue Leo casino services in September 2022. It is the oldest still-current entry on the register. Osko is not listed on the cashier page, nor do listings provide a statement. A formal warning in 2022 does not, by itself, indicate what has happened at the operator since.

What the credit-card and digital-wallet rules do at this end

The 2023 IGA amendment that bans credit cards and credit-related products at Australian-licensed online wagering services also constrains gambling use of a linked digital wallet such as Apple Pay. The reasoning is plain: the wallet is being used to spend from a credit source, and the law reaches the underlying transaction rather than the front-end instrument. By the end of 2025, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay transactions collectively accounted for around 45 per cent of all card payments in Australia by number. The wallet is the front door for nearly half of all card spending, which means the credit-card ban is enforced against half of card payments in practice, not against an obscure minority.

For a player at an offshore casino, the credit-card ban does not directly apply. The operator is not licensed in Australia, and the bank-side block is the relevant mechanism rather than the statutory one. Westpac’s gambling block refuses authorisation at the merchant category code level; ANZ’s block reaches Apple Pay transactions on an eligible card and carries a 48-hour waiting period before removal. Neither block is a complete filter. ANZ itself warns that not all gambling transactions will be blocked and some non-gambling transactions might be blocked in error.

Apple Pay itself does not charge consumer fees for using the wallet in stores, online or in apps; any surcharge is the merchant’s own card-processing fees, not Apple’s. Transaction limits and PIN requirements for Apple Pay purchases are set by the card issuer or the merchant, not by Apple. The wallet is a pass-through, and the spending rules that apply to the underlying card apply to the wallet.

The numbers that move, and the numbers that stay put

Two figures on the page move with the regulator’s calendar. The first is the ACMA blocking total — 1,751 since November 2019 as of the June 2026 report, with twelve more added in the most recent reported round. The second is the count of unlicensed services that have left the Australian market since 2017 — more than 230. Both totals move forward, not backward, and the next published figure will sit above the one on this page.

Two figures stay roughly put. Australians lose about A$3.9 billion a year to illegal gambling sites, on H2 Gambling Capital’s 2025 estimate; the share going through legal channels fell from 74 per cent in 2021 to 64 per cent. The losses figure is an annual estimate and will not refresh as the calendar turns; the legal-share figure is the one that tells the reader whether the regulator is winning, and on this page it is moving against the regulator.

The Australian payments numbers are also roughly stable. NPP at 128 million accounts and around A$7 billion a day as of 31 August 2025; more than 25 million PayIDs registered as of April 2025; Osko at under a minute end-to-end, 24/7. The platform numbers do not need to refresh for the page to remain accurate on what Osko does, and the regulator numbers are the ones that change between reprints.

What an Australian player actually weighs

The page works through five questions a player at an offshore deposit screen has in front of them, and answers each from the evidence on the page.

The first is whether the brand is on the ACMA’s register. The table above is the register for the brands that advertise Osko; the broader list of 1,751 blocked pages is larger. A brand not on the table is not, on that ground, safer — it may simply not have been investigated yet.

The second is what the bank’s own gambling block does. Westpac’s block refuses MCC ‘Betting/Casino Gambling’ transactions; ANZ’s block covers Apple Pay and carries a 48-hour cool-off. Neither is a complete filter, and the page says so because the bank itself says so. An Osko transfer to a non-MCC-tagged account may not be caught by the block.

The third is what AUSTRAC sees. Threshold-transaction reporting at A$10,000 or more applies to physical cash, not to electronic bank transfers. The absence of an automatic report at that threshold is not evidence the transfer was unremarkable, and the presence of one is not evidence anything is wrong.

The fourth is the responsible-gambling support that applies. BetStop binds Australian-licensed services; the National Gambling Helpline on 1800 858 858 is the support that applies regardless of where the play happened. State-level schemes cover their own scope.

The fifth is the legal route. Osko is a legal deposit method at a licensed Australian wagering operator, and the legal wagering product in Australia is on races and sport placed before the event, on lotteries and on keno. The legal product list and the legal method list are short on purpose, and the gap between them is exactly the space the offshore brands market to.

Frequently asked questions

Is it legal for an offshore casino site to accept Osko from an Australian visitor?

No. Under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 as tightened in 2017, it is an offence for a provider to offer online casino games, online pokies or in-play betting to a person in Australia. The IGA targets the provider rather than the player, but the practical consequence for the player is that an offshore site offers no Australian consumer protection, no Australian complaints body, and no Australian recourse when a withdrawal stalls. Osko is simply the rail the deposit travels on; the legality of the transaction sits upstream of the rail.

How quickly does an Osko transaction typically settle?

Under a minute, end to end, 24 hours a day including weekends. That figure comes from Australian Payments Plus and is the same whether the payment is addressed to a BSB and account number or to a PayID. The settlement speed is a property of the New Payments Platform, not of the merchant receiving the transfer, and the casino’s own internal processing time is what comes after settlement.

Does using Osko offer any buyer protection if an offshore site refuses to pay out?

No more than any other bank transfer would. Osko is a settlement rail; once the funds have arrived at the receiving account, the rail has done its job. Australian consumer protection law does not reach an offshore casino’s withdrawal terms, the ACMA’s complaints process does not bind an offshore operator, and the bank-side gambling block operates before the transfer, not after. A refused payout is a dispute with the operator, not a chargeback opportunity on the bank statement.

Can Osko be used to fund a licensed, land-based venue in Australia the same way it’s used online?

At a land-based venue, the payment method is at the venue’s own terminal — eftpos, BPAY or a similar in-person instrument. Osko is a digital rail for online and mobile banking, and the in-venue equivalent is the card terminal. At a licensed Australian online wagering operator, Osko is a legal deposit method, and the operator’s cashier will list it alongside PayID and BPAY. The legal product list at that operator is wagering on races and sport placed before the event, lotteries and keno; online casino games are not on it.

What deposit limits are commonly attached to Osko at offshore casino sites?

The plan’s research did not surface a single market-wide limit on Osko deposits at offshore sites; the cashier pages set their own minimums and maximums, and they vary by brand. The 2024 prohibition on credit cards and credit-related products at Australian-licensed online wagering services does not reach the offshore cashier directly. The bank-side gambling block at Westpac and ANZ operates at the merchant category code level and may catch an Osko transfer if the receiving account is tagged as gambling; the page above covers the conditions under which that does and does not happen.

Why might a bank block an Osko transaction flagged as gambling-related?

The bank does not see “Osko”; it sees a transfer to a named account, and the MCC tag on the receiving side where one exists. Westpac’s gambling block refuses authorisation at the MCC ‘Betting/Casino Gambling’ level on eligible cards; ANZ’s block covers Apple Pay transactions on an eligible card and carries a 48-hour waiting period before removal. Both banks warn that the block is not a complete filter — some gambling transactions will not be caught, and some non-gambling transactions may be blocked in error. An Osko transfer to an account that is not MCC-tagged may pass through, which is why the page is plain about what the block does and does not do.