Casino Banking Methods UK
The market of online casinos in the United Kingdom (hereinafter – the UK) is one of the most regulated ones. Hence, the applicable casino banking methods are not so flamboyant, as one would expect from gaming venues on the Internet registered in other countries and jurisdictions. In this article, we are covering the list of applicable methods of financial transactions, which currently work in the UK’s modern market.
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Why there are so few banking methods in the UK in the first place?
First of all, before reviewing the available casino payment methods in the UK, it is necessary to speak about UK’s gambling license issues for online venues. Particularly, why it is so hard to obtain and keep a license. Whether you’re surprised or not, this plays a dramatic role in the existence of so scarce choice of payment methods in local gambling houses.
First of all, UKGC is the local official authority that grants licenses in the UK to local venues, online and offline. It is considered the strictest and costliest in the world. By applying for a license, you, most certainly, have to collect a large package of various documents to be eligible to get it. And the consideration time may take anything from weeks to months.
The next important thing is the fees and payments. Under the UKGC regulations, the types of licenses you may be granted are hundreds, each for its own casino activity’s type and volume. So, it varies tremendously, we’d even say, gigantically. A long story short – obtaining a license may cost anything from several dozen thousand British pounds to over a million. And you’re obliged to pay annual fees for its maintenance and prolongation, which would also include the revenues you generate and the type of your company. For instance, the fee for only getting a Bingo license is near £19,000 and a yearly fee for keeping it active is £226,000!
In addition, there are about 10 types of reporting that you have to provide to the UKGC authority, including such ones as anti-money laundering, corporate control and its change, report on suspicious operations, security breaches and their closure/avoidance, protection of gambler’s from the point of view of safety of their funds and de-escalating their gambling addition, various kinds of routine business notifications, income gross book, tax reporting, transactional reporting (that’s exactly about casino banking methods and sums transacted through them, in and out – which is a part of a quarterly fund report; needless to say, all used channels must be in the legal field of the UK’s government, banking, and police), reviews of casino’s charges, commissions, and their change, and any updates to legal documents of the gaming venue. These all come in addition to the obligation of every UK-licensed casino to take part in the Game Stop scheme, which also imposes further restrictions and limits.
All in all, a UKGC-registered online gaming venue simply can’t use any of the online casino banking methods unapproved by the UK’s current legislation. This results in the scarcity we observe.
Although, there is another way: to register an online gaming venue elsewhere other than the UK but keep being open to the provision of gambling services to the people in the UK. The people will be playing in such venues at their own risk, though. However, this solution is insanely popular in modern days. Using it, venue operators can more or less freer increase the list of available casino payment methods for their fun houses, as well as use gaming providers and games currently forbidden by the UK’s casino laws and demands
Best casino banking methods
What methods of payments, besides cash, one can apply in the UK? Here, we’re speaking of them in a broader sense – not just as the casino banking methods but also payments done everywhere, including online shopping, groceries, supermarkets, transport, bars, and so on.
The list in 2021 looks as follows:
- Debit and credit cards: Visa, MasterCard, AmEx, Discover
- Online wallets, including PayPal, Google Wallet, Klarna, Sofort
- Bank transfers (the majority of them today are made via the ‘Faster Payments Network’): Open Banking, PayByBank, Direct Debit.
- Instant payments that are provided by Mobiamo (convenient to pay through a mobile phone), SEPA, Allopas, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Mint, and Bacs.
Other than the named systems aren’t used as the online casino banking methods – even cryptocurrencies are very rigorously and closely monitored by local authorities and mostly forbidden to online venues like casinos. Definitely, they’re disallowed to holders of the UKGC licenses (unlike they’re striving to lose their license, of course).
How to choose the right payment method?
A choice of a correct one amongst the casino payment methods is pretty straightforward in the UK’s gaming venues: gamers have to choose the one from those available to them in a selected venue.
Another factor of selection is the simplicity of refilling a balance of this or that channel (or the availability of such a balance already, enough to make a transaction).
If all presented casino banking methods are equal for a gamer, then such criteria of choice would come into play:
- the convenience for a gamer (that’s, basically, nothing but a personal preference)
- commission taken for a transaction (usually, there are no commissions or fees for depositing but there are for withdrawals)
- time of fulfillment of the operation (depositing usually happens in a blink of an eye, while withdrawal is mostly hand-managed and takes anything between minutes and weeks. Some large lumped payments may even take months to fully complete). Usually, classic online casino banking channels brag about instant depositing, but not cryptos – they usually require at least minutes, at most hours to complete. However, as we’ve mentioned, UKGC-licensed venues won’t operate with cryptocoins – only those having other licenses while catering to UK citizens.
Remember that most gaming venues establish limitations in online casino banking options for depositing and separately for withdrawal. These can be about min and max limits, fees, the possibility to use some method in both sides of financial operations, and other requirements. We advise you to carefully read the Terms and Conditions of every venue to avoid facing such limitations, which would be inappropriate for you.
Top casino banking options for UK players
While you’re in the UK physically or simply spend your time in local gaming houses of entertainment, the top casino banking methods UK usually will be those (presented in 95%+ of catalogs of such places):
- Visa
- MasterCard
- PayPal
- Sofort
- Klarna
- Bank payment
- Apple/Google.
Remember that if some local casino is closed for visiting from your country that means you should better refrain from creating an account there via connecting to the website using a VPN service. It might allow you to create an account and even deposit some money but it will definitely forbid you to withdraw your money when you win since you violate the rules of the place. Surely, that doesn’t concern you when you, a citizen of the UK, play from the UK.
Conclusion
A list of convenient payment methods for you to utilize when gambling on the Internet is humble in the UK-registered venues. However, it still embraces 90% of all methods popular in the world in general, so we won’t consider you will be too limited when actually starting playing in any UK venue. Especially given the fact that if you’re a UK citizen, you don’t have much choice if you want to rely on a trusted place.