The Best Payment Methods to Use While Playing iGaming Platforms

The world of online gaming has seen a huge uptick in popularity, particularly since 2020, as more and more people seek the thrill and adrenaline of playing their favourite casino games whilst they are sat comfily on their sofas.

The stats bear that out too, type the words online casino UK into Google and you’ll be greeted with over 4.1 million results. Dig deeper and you’ll see that last year almost £3 billion in revenues were generated from online casinos alone.

Is it any wonder then that you’re currently reading an article about the best payment methods to use with an online casino? Whether curiosity finally got the better of you or all those recommendations from your friend finally worked, we’ve got you covered. 

Below we’ll cover every imaginable way to make a deposit with an online casino so you know exactly what you’re doing when you open your first online account.

Credit and Debit Cards: Route One. The Belt & Braces option. You use them to pay for your Netflix subscription, to buy things that you don’t really need from Amazon and to pay for that takeaway you swore you weren’t going to have on a Wednesday evening…

If you want you can use your credit and debit cards to make deposits with online casinos, although there are more secure ways if you’re worried about your security (more of that later). Additionally there are some providers that won’t allow you to make deposits with your credit card as they don’t want to encourage their customers to get into debt whilst playing.

To be sure of specific payment methods, make sure to read the terms and conditions before signing up to a site.

E-Wallets: Now we’re talking safety. When it comes to protecting your personal data we always recommend using an e-wallet for online payments. If you do you never share your card number with the merchant which means if there’s ever a data leak or a hacking event, your details are safe and secure.

Bank Transfers: Okay maybe we messed up with credit and debit cards by calling them Route One because what could be more Route One than the lesser spotted bank transfer? This payment method is lesser spotted for a reason and that reason is that it’s slow and perhaps the least secure option on this list. It is ideal however if you’re looking to deposit huge amounts that are likely to be blocked as card transactions although if you’re doing that you should probably rethink your relationship with online wagering…

Prepaid Cards: Much like an e-wallet a prepaid cards allows you to make deposits without ever actually sharing your private sensitive data. The only downside is you actually have to go out of your way to get one and top it up which oftentimes involves sharing your private sensitive data…

Cryptocurrencies: To paraphrase one of the greatest mathematicians of all-time (Dr. Ian Malcolm…) just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Sure you could make a deposit to your online casino of choice with Bitcoin but you’d be absolutely crazy.

Why make a deposit with a volatile currency that could be worth double the price in 24 hours? To paraphrase Dr. Malcolm once again, that’s chaos theory!

Things to Consider

Now you know all the ways you can pay with online casinos, here are a few things that you need to consider before you choose one:

Security: How secure is your method of payment? How much do you trust your provider to look after your details? Is there a way you could make this safer and more secure?

Speed: How quickly do you want to start playing? If it’s immediately you might want to rethink making a deposit by bank transfer as that can take hours to translate into online credits.

Fees: Is there a fee for using this particular payment method? Some providers don’t like American Express, others will charge for crypto. Read the Terms and Conditions beforehand to make sure you’re not stung.

Ease: Ultimately we all want what’s easiest. You don’t want to be rooting around for your account number and sort code or have to spend five minutes digging out an old card or navigating to a prepaid card website that you’ve already forgotten the password to.

In Summary

We recommend an e-wallet like Apple Pay or Google Pay. They are super secure and easy to use and if you already have it set-up on your phone you can make a deposit in a matter of seconds. There are no fees for using e-wallets either so make the smart choice and deposit with an e-wallet.