The payment options you’ll have at your disposal really depend on your country of residence or, rather, the bingo site’s extent of operational jurisdiction. Punters in the United Kingdom, the United States, or Canada will have region-specific deposit and withdrawal methods they can use.
But then there is everyday, universally accepted bingo account bankrolling methods players can employ regardless of their country of domicile, as long as the gaming site accepts that particular banking method.
The variety of payment gateways for bettors at most online gaming sites revolves around debit and credit cards, direct bank and wire transfers, and e-wallets. There are other emergent methods such as paying via voucher cards, pay by phone bills, and in very few cases playing with cryptocurrency. Let’s have a deeper look at each of these bingo payment categories in the breakdown below.
Debit and Credit Cards
Cards are by far the most widely accepted payment option on gambling sites, let alone online bingo platforms. Players can select between the more popular card services, outstanding examples being Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, and American Express.
Setting up your card details doesn’t take much effort. All you have to do is provide the card details such as the billing address, the entire card names, numbers, and CVV digits. You can even save these deets as part of your gaming profile.
This way, the bingo room readily credits your card when you make a withdrawal request without asking for additional verification.
However, note that some financial and gaming regulations, for instance, the United Kingdom Gambling Commission’s ban on bingo credit card payments in the UK, disqualify the use of credit cards as a means of accepting deposits or cashing out winnings from bingo rooms.
It’s good that UK punters can still top up their gaming accounts via debits cards. In fact, some gaming sites only offer deposit bonuses to account holders who use debit cards to make a first minimum deposit. Also, Visa now offers Visa Fast Funds, making withdrawals to eligible Visa Cards instant instead of taking the usual 3-5 business days.
E-wallets
Virtual wallets are the second most prevalent payment option for punters at any given gambling site. The beauty of these electronic wallets lies in their ability to process payments in at least 24 hours, if not instantly.
They’re hassle-free payment systems that easily integrate with your bank account and debit or credit card for a check-off payment, especially if you don’t want your e-wallet details falling into the hands of third-party operators.
You can load your e-wallet with a prepaid amount to make payments, or the gaming site can directly charge the deposits to your virtual wallet-linked bank account or debit or credit card.
It would be great for players to check out the deposit and withdrawals terms and conditions to get a list of available e-wallets options alongside the minimum and maximum top-up and cash-out amounts allowed for each digital wallet. Don’t forget to read through the bonus terms, as some sites disqualify some e-wallet first deposits from welcome bonus packages and promotions.
Examples of electronic wallets you’ll come across include:
- Paypal
- Skrill and Skrill 1Tap
- Neteller
- ecoPayz
Mobile Money Transfer and Pay by Phone Bill
Transferring money via your mobile phone is pretty much self-explanatory though it goes deeper depending on what angle you look at it. In its basic sense, it means transferring funds from your mobile money account to your gaming account. Examples here are:
- Boku Mobile Payments
- Apple pay
- Google Pay
- Payforit
But virtually all the other payment methods fall into this category because you can use your phone to access internet banking services and do a bank or wire transfer into the online casino’s bank and your gaming account. You can also download e-wallet apps and make a virtual wallet payment into your bingo account.
Some gaming websites allow punters to play games and charge the deposits or withdrawal fees, if any, to the player’s phone bill. Each Telco has its mobile phone plans that it offers its customers, so check your phone plan and find out whether it’s compatible with the gaming site’s payment option policies
Bank Transfer and Wire Transfer
If your bank account is your preferred gambling site banking method, bank and wire transfers should be your obvious choice for deposits and withdrawals. It’s a direct financial transaction between your bank and the online gaming site’s bank.
Bank transfers are fast, and the online casino doesn’t retain your payment details on file, making it even more secure. They’re also cheap and entail minimal to zero transfer fees at most gambling sites. Some iGaming sites only accept bank transfers due to the ease of use. Online payment platforms you can use for bank transfers include:
- BankTransfer
- Euteller
- Interac e-transfer
- iDebit, and
- InstaDebit, among other bank transfer tools.
Prepaid Cards and Vouchers
You can thank service providers like Paysafecard, AstroPay, Neosurf, and CashtoCode for enabling players to make deposits into their gaming accounts without the need to have a bank account or payment card.
All you have to do is check into a convenience store or other authorized dealer location and buy your prepaid card and voucher. If your gaming site allows this payment method, fill in the prepaid or voucher card details when making a deposit.
You’ll have to provide additional information for account verification. And it’s such a bummer that this payment method is only available for deposits.
Cryptocurrency
The option to play bingo with crypto funds comes last because the payment method is yet to catch on with most online gaming sites for two reasons. One is that the regulation and use of cryptocurrencies themselves are still developing in most parts of the world and industries, let alone the online gambling industry.
And two, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency online games should be based on blockchain technology, whose implementation is proving a difficult feat to achieve. As it is right now, most online sites that accept cryptocurrency do it through the integration of their payment system with licensed crypto payment processing systems, with which players are expected to have running accounts already.
There could be other payment channels in the future, but the above payment categories are the main building blocks for most bingo site payment options.
Citation Sources
Online Bingo Payment Methods – Best Bingo Online Payment Gateways
Online Casino & Bingo Payment Methods – WhichBingo
Bingo Payment Methods | List Of Payment Types You Can Use? (inkedin.com)