I would say a whale owns at least 1000 BTC
That said the definition of a whale is someone who has a lot of money
By Fiat Standards a whale would be someone who has
300 to 600 BTC to spend in vegas at an exchange rate of $500
1000 BTC in Macau
From Wikipedia
A high roller, also referred to as a whale in the casino industry, is a gambler who wagers large amounts of money. High rollers often receive lavish "comps" from casinos to lure them onto the gambling floors, such as free private jet transfers, limousine use and use of the casinos' best suites. Casinos may also extend credit to a player to continue betting, offer rebates on betting turnover or losses, and salaries of employees may also contain incentive arrangements to bring in high rollers.
The definition of a high roller varies. At Crown Casino in Australia it involves bringing between A$50,000 and $75,000 to the table. High roller players often have very high table limits allowing the high roller exclusive use. Casinos compete on bet limits, in Australia limits of A$300,000 are common, in Las Vegas they are between US$150,000 and $300,000, and in Macau they are up to US$500,000. Only casinos with "substantial financial firepower" can accommodate high-stakes gambling due to the "volatility" of results.
That said the definition of a whale is someone who has a lot of money
By Fiat Standards a whale would be someone who has
300 to 600 BTC to spend in vegas at an exchange rate of $500
1000 BTC in Macau
From Wikipedia
A high roller, also referred to as a whale in the casino industry, is a gambler who wagers large amounts of money. High rollers often receive lavish "comps" from casinos to lure them onto the gambling floors, such as free private jet transfers, limousine use and use of the casinos' best suites. Casinos may also extend credit to a player to continue betting, offer rebates on betting turnover or losses, and salaries of employees may also contain incentive arrangements to bring in high rollers.
The definition of a high roller varies. At Crown Casino in Australia it involves bringing between A$50,000 and $75,000 to the table. High roller players often have very high table limits allowing the high roller exclusive use. Casinos compete on bet limits, in Australia limits of A$300,000 are common, in Las Vegas they are between US$150,000 and $300,000, and in Macau they are up to US$500,000. Only casinos with "substantial financial firepower" can accommodate high-stakes gambling due to the "volatility" of results.
Great post, thanks for justifying your number, but I think you're off a bit.
In Macau, Gambling amounted to $24B ( http://www.heritage.org/index/country/macau ), since BTC is only about 1/3 of that, it makes since that whales should be too. So around $167K USD. Or 278 BTC at 1 BTC = $600.
278 BTC doesn't seem to high though considering that we have people with 10K+ BTC in the markets. So perhaps that 278 BTC is only the amount that they actually have invested in alts, in which case, the definition of whales becomes much more strict.
Thoughts?
In that case I would say that the one person I am really aware of that would classify as a whale besides the early betters on Satoshi Dice would be Nakowa or possbily Celeste from Just Dice who was able to bet up to 1% of the bankroll and created a rule change because to much capital was being moved back and forth
By that definition a whale in Bitcoin would be someone who is capable of making the casino take precautions to lower the risk the house faces by being capable of moving the variance significantly.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=242962.880
With around 222 Bitcoins but winning a few times that would be enough to be a whale.
