PandaLive coins, gifts and VIP, explained

Coins are PandaLive's currency. You buy them in the wallet, and they pay for the things that are not covered by the free part: matches after your free ones, call time after a match's free countdown, gifts and games in live rooms, and VIP. Your balance sits at the top right of the match screen.

Getting started does not need any. You can open PandaLive as a guest, look around the online list and the video feed, and use your first matches before the wallet matters at all.

Mostly in two places: calls and live rooms. On the match screen, coins pay for matching once your free matches are gone and for time on a call after its free countdown. In live rooms, they pay for gifts, the wish card and the wheel. VIP, opened from the top of the match screen, is bought with coins too.

A gift is a small animated sticker you send into a live room. The quick bar above the bottom buttons shows a row of them, each with its price in coins, from cheap little ones to big showy ones. The gift box button at the bottom right opens the full collection. Tap a gift and it plays on screen for everyone watching, with your name on it.

People send gifts for the same reasons they would buy someone a drink: to say thanks for a good laugh, to get noticed in a busy room, or because the person on stream asked for something on their wish card. Nobody has to, and you can watch and chat without ever opening the gift box. What a live room looks like, from the room chat to the viewer list, is covered on the Panda Live streams page.

Many rooms show a wish card on the right: a short note from the person on stream, like "I need coffee", with a matching gift and its coin price. Sending that gift fills the wish. It is a friendlier way to ask than repeating it in the chat every few minutes.

The wheel, in the top-left corner of the room, is a small game with its own coin price per spin. Think of it as a bit of fun for the room. If games like this are not your thing, ignore it; nothing in the room depends on it.

VIP is a paid option you open from the gold VIP button at the top of the match screen. Its current benefits are listed on that screen before you buy, and we leave them out here because they can change. If you only use PandaLive now and then, the free part plus the odd coin top-up is usually enough.

A fair test before buying VIP: use the site for a few evenings, notice what you keep running out of, and then read the VIP screen to see whether it covers that. The VIP screen is also where to check what changes when it runs out.

Top-ups happen in the wallet, which you reach from the coin balance on the match screen or from the prompts that appear when you run low. Payment is handled by a payment provider, not typed into a chat. Before you pick a pack, check three things: which pack you tapped, the price your payment screen shows, and that the page you are paying on came from PandaLive itself.

Never buy coins from someone who messages you offering a deal. Coins only come from the wallet, and anyone selling them in a chat or room is running a scam. The PandaLive safety rules list this and other tricks to ignore.

Before buying anything, use what you are given: free matches for new users and the rewards that pop up along the way, both laid out on the page about what is free on PandaLive.

If coins you paid for are missing, the PandaLive contact page lists what to send so the team can trace the payment.

The rules on coins and purchases are set out in the Terms of Service.