Is PayPal an option for online casino deposits?

As one of the most trusted names in online shopping, PayPal has led the pack during the digital payment revolution, processing over 12.5 million payments around the world every single day. Given the many advantages and prevalent popularity of this trusted service, you may be surprised to hear PayPal is not often offered at online casinos. We explain why this is and what PayPal alternatives are available.

What is PayPal?

PayPal was one of the first digital payment services, paving the way for the web wallet systems we know today. PayPal is a free service allowing customers to sign up for a secure account to store bank account details, including credit cards, debit cards and savings account information, with all information protected by the highest of digital encryption security.

When it comes time to make an online purchase, you can then use your PayPal details to complete your payment anywhere PayPal is accepted, without ever having to reveal your personal financial details to the vendor you’re buying from. It’s safe, fast, convenient and widely accepted, with a vast majority of global brands and service providers accepting payments via PayPal.

Why can’t most players use PayPal to deposit at an online casino?

Given the differing online gambling laws around the world, PayPal is often not available for online casino deposits. One of these such countries is Australia, which we use as an example below. Whether PayPal is available to you will depend on the online casino in question and the country you are playing from.

The reason PayPal isn’t offered as a common deposit option at online casinos Down Under has to do with the laws surrounding virtual gambling in Australia. There are some stipulations in the Interactive Gaming Act (the IGA) of 2001 restricting online casinos from offering services to players from Australia without an official license from a governing state or territory.PayPal steers clear of offering its services to Australian players based on a couple of provisions in their terms and conditions of service:

• The site operator must have obtained approval from PayPal to accept payments via the PayPal service.
• The site operator and all of their customers must be located exclusively in jurisdictions where online gambling is allowed under local laws.

It’s this second condition which has casino vendors steering clear of PayPal. Offshore operators know applying for PayPal licensing will be difficult (if not impossible) due to this stipulation so rather than go through a long application process and hoop-jumping, it’s easier to simply exclude PayPal from the list of deposit options entirely.

Given the number of reputable and equally secure deposit options offering the same benefits of PayPal, players have plenty of other great choices available that ensure not having access to deposit with PayPal won’t be a hindrance.

Using PayPal to deposit at UK casino sites

UK players are the only ones who can deposit using PayPal, thanks to the great lengths the United Kingdom government has gone to to regulate the online casino industry with the help of the United Kingdom Gambling Commission. Despite UK players having legal access to a range of UK-certified gambling sites, PayPal deposits are still hard to come by, with most online casino vendors favouring other deposit options instead. The casino sites accepting PayPal deposits are listed in our table at the top of this page.

PayPal alternatives

Before you start worrying about not being able to use your PayPal account, fear not, as there are many fabulous alternatives bringing the same level of security and convenience. If you don’t want to hand your credit or debit card details direct to a casino vendor, consider any of these safe deposit options:

• Prepaid cards
  Prepaid cards like Paysafecard and Flexepin allow players to purchase e-Vouchers in real life from retail outlets, so you don’t need a credit card or bank account and you can keep your financial information offline entirely. In exchange for cash, you are given a unique PIN number, which can then be entered at your chosen online casino to transfer your funds to your online casino account. Payments are safe, fast and entirely anonymous.
• Web wallets
  e-Wallets like Neteller and Skrill work in a very similar fashion to PayPal, the major difference being instead of preserving your bank account details, you’re required to load the desired amount of funds to be held in your web wallet. Once you’ve transferred money to your Neteller or Skrill account, these services work very similarly to PayPal – you only need to hand over your web wallet details in the casino cashier, never revealing your bank account information.

All casinos recommended here at RealMoneyCasinoSite.com offer an array of secure deposit options and are protected by a minimum of 128 Bit SSL Security encryption. Follow our links in the casino table above to sign up for a real money account today and you’ll also receive some great welcome bonuses to get you started. We recommend checking out Slots.lv, our top-rated casino site for players from United States, which has some excellent welcome bonuses available for new players along with hundreds of real money casino games to choose from, with no downloads required.