Summary:
- The digitization of money continues at a rapid rate and bookmakers are desperate to ride this trend.
- Why mobile ewallets are simpler and more secure than traditional debit card payments.
- Complete comparison guide to the latest and best ewallets for gambling which you can download and use today.
- Finally which ewallet I currently use for sports betting and why.
Content:
Secular Shift to Digital Wallets
Ewallets in Gambling
So Many Choices
7 Best eWallets for Gambling Sites
Bookmaker eWallets for Central and East Asia
Pros and Cons of Gambling eWallets
The Downside to eWallets
What about Google Pay?
Hang on… You Missed out Bitcoin?
The Secular Shift to Digital Wallets
Online digital payments may sound like brand new ground-breaking tech, but they’ve been been around for quite some time.
Just take PayPal as an example, the company has been operating since the late 90’s.
But it wasn’t until mobile apps and big players such as Google and Apple stepped in that we started to see a shift in consumer appetite to electronic wallets – or ewallets for short.
In a recent poll 21% of sportsbook customers regularly use ewallets to transfer funds.
Within this group 48% account for 18-34 year-olds – that’s nearly half of all gambling ewallets are held by this age group.
And this growth looks set to continue into the next decade as more gambling customers switch from the highstreet to online and we move to a cashless society.
Ewallets in Gambling
But this trend hasn’t caught the gambling industry off-guard.
Bookmakers and casino sites have been well prepared and stayed ahead of the curve when it comes to early adoption of financial technology – fintech.
In fact while researching for this article I found that Paddy Power had accepted Neteller ewallet payments since 2006 – so well over a decade.
They were also early adopters of online payment services such as PayPal with most major bookmakers now accepting the digital service.
So Many Choices…
Nowadays punters have more choices than ever on how to deposit funds to gambling sites.
Bwin has over twenty eight different payment methods!
The problem is which one should you go with?
After all half of these companies you’ve never heard of, so why should you trust handing over your hard-earned-cash to a mobile payment platform?
After going through every major bookmaker to see what payment options they provide their customers, (for the complete guide you can check out our Banking page) we’ve selected the very best ewallets for gambling.
7 Best eWallets for Gambling Sites
Were very early adopters in this space – way back in 1998. During the past twenty years they have dominated the online payments industry, accounting for over 72% of all ewallet transactions.
Accepted by Bookmakers:
888sport, Bet365, Paddy Power, William Hill, Coral, Betvictor, Betway, Sportnation, Racebets, Masion Bet, Bwin, 10Bet, Betstars, Tonybet, Mobilewins.
Withdrawal times: Within 24hrs
Deposit Limit: £10
Transaction Fee’s: None
Mobile App: Available
Pros – Most widely used ewallet on the planet and accepted by most bookmakers
Cons – Bank account verification process can take some time.
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Neteller is a global leader in the industry for ewallets and can be used with a variety of merchants including Spotify and Google.
Neteller also accepts Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency deposits.
Accepted by Bookmakers:
888sport, Bet365, Paddy Power, Betfred, William Hill, Coral, Betway, Totesports, Racebets, Matchbook, Come On, Bwin, 10Bet, Leovegas Sports, Betstars, Royal Panda Sports, Mobilebet, Tonybet, Fans Bet and Mobilewins.
Withdrawal times: Within 12hrs
Min Deposit: £15
Transaction Fee’s: None
Deposit to Bookie: Free
Mobile App: Available
Pros – Quick setup time and great mobile interface.
Cons – Demands additional security passwords which are necessary to access account.
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Built a strong reputation as a reliable and trustworthy payment service, so much so that they are accepted by most major bookmakers.
Accepted by Bookmakers:
Bet365, Paddy Power, Betfred, William Hill, Coral, Betvictor , Totesports, Racebets, Matchbook, Come On, Bwin, 10Bet, Leovegas Sports, Betstars, Royal Panda Sports, Mobilebet, Tonybet, Fans Bet and Mobilewins.
Withdrawal times: 24hrs
Minimum Deposit: £10
Transaction Fee’s: None
Mobile App: Available
Pros – Accepted by most leading bookmakers.
Cons – User interface is slightly confusing.
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Apples own digital wallet is not just accepted online but widely used on the highstreet. With fingerprint password protection, you won’t find a more secure and trusted brand.
Accepted by Bookmakers:
888sport, Bet365, Paddy Power, Betfred, William Hill, Betfair, Sportingbet, Bwin, Mobilebet.
Withdrawal times: NA
Minimum Deposit: £5
Transaction Fee’s: None
Mobile App: Available
Pros – Can also be used in most retail stores.
Cons – Available on Apple devices only.
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A lesser-known ewallet but beginning to gain momentum and is now accepted by some well known bookmakers.
Accepted by Bookmakers:
William Hill, Coral, Bwin, 10Bet, Tonybet, Fans Bet, Mobile Wins.
Withdrawal times: 24-48hrs
Deposit Limit: £10
Transaction Fee’s: None
Deposit to Bookie: Free
Mobile App: Available
Pros –
Cons –
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Relative newbie in this space with the company only founded in 2015, but already we’re finding this ewallet crop up with a number of bookmakers.
Accepted by Bookmakers:
888Sport, Sportingbet, Bwin, Betstars.
Withdrawal times: 24-48hrs
Deposit Limit: £5
Transaction Fee’s: None
Mobile App: Available
Pros – Low minimum deposit amount.
Cons – Quite new ewallet with very few bookmakers accepting this payment.
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Slightly lesser known brand to the other but has been operating for the past 8 years and built up quite a following with over 14 million users globally.
Accepted by Bookmakers:
888sport, William Hill, Sportnation, Black Type, Come On, Bwin, Leovegas Sports, Mobilebet, Fans Bet, Mobile Wins.
Withdrawal times: 1-2days
Deposit Limit: £10
Transaction Fee’s: None
Mobile App: Available
Pros – Well established brand supported by a large number of bookmakers.
Cons – Time to withdraw is slightly longer than other brands.
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Bookmaker eWallets for Central and East Asia
Qiwi
The leading mobile payment service in Russia with over 21 million customers and accounts for 78.6% of ewallet transactions in the Russian digital payments service.
Currently only William Hill and 888sport are the only western bookmakers that accept QiWi deposits.
It’s highly likely we will see more western bookmakers accept QiWi payments, due to the sheer size of the Russian market and opportunities available there.
Pros and Cons of Gambling eWallets
So why should you switch to ewallets when gambling, what are the advantages?
Don’t get me wrong there’s nothing wrong with using traditional debit card payments, but digital ewallets have some pretty compelling arguments to convert.
Below is a list of the pros and cons of moving to mobile ewallets. Some of these are fairly obvious, but some are less so.
1. Convenience
It goes without saying but transfers to bookmakers using ewallets are much simpler and quicker than entering debit card details during signing up.
This is more so if you are a frequent “bonus-hopper” i.e. someone who frequently switches bookmaker to take advantage of their new customer offers.
In most cases selecting the correct payment carrier will automatically redirected you to the mobile app. From there you simply enter your password and confirm the amount you want to transfer, and hey presto you’re done!
There’s also a huge security benefit to this which we’ll come to further down.
2. Two Factor Authentication
Where mobile ewallets come into their own is with enhanced two-factor authentication. You may have already used this feature to sign into your Amazon or Ebay accounts.
Generally it requires you to enter a six digit number that the carrier sends to your mobile as a text message. Simply enter the code into the pop-up screen and you’re done.
This ensures the carrier that your account hasn’t been hacked as only you can confirm the transaction when receiving the text on your mobile device.
3. Fast Winnings Withdrawals
It feels incredible when you win big.
But the problem that most of us face is not having the funds available straight away to celebrate.
With ewallet funding you may get your winnings back sooner than you think.
In general ewallet transaction times are twice as fast as card transfers. Ewallets usually take between 24-48 hours. In contrast traditional banking can be anywhere between 3-4 working days.
4. Enhanced Security – Protect your Card!
Generally we don’t know for sure that the device we’re using hasn’t been compromised in some way, either by a hacker gaining access or by an inconspicuous virus.
In the past, viruses made themselves visible to the user to somehow extort money from the user. But more modern viruses are much more sophisticated and will sit in the background monitoring your activity and collecting information you enter such as debit card information.
Now this is not intended to scare anyone that their mobile or laptop is infected. The point i’m making here is that the less information you enter while online, the less chance there is of someone stealing your information and use it against you.
In contrast if you have an ewallet already setup on your phone, you simply tap the icon and enter your password.
In some cases you can also use a keylocker and your finger print to unlock your ewallets password, eliminating any keystrokes from the process and enhancing security – not to mention it’s pretty cool!
The Downside to eWallets
Ok so ewallets are not without their flaws.
Below is a list of issues we came across while using ewallets for gambling sites.
Deposit Limits
Similar to your wireless bank card, ewallets have a daily deposit limit of £30. So once you transfer £30 into you bookmakers account, you won’t be able to repeat this until the following day.
But don’t worry…
You can resolve this by speaking to a member of customer services and request that this threshold is increased to an amount your comfortable with.
On the plus side, this helps anyone who spends too much time gambling to limit the amount they spend each day.
Welcome Bonus Restrictions
In some cases we have found restrictions on using ewallets to receive new customer sign-up bonuses.
So if you are a first time depositor with a bookmaker and want to take advantage of their offer, just make sure you check all of the acceptable deposit options available.
As part of our comparison guide above, we’ve highlighted which bookmakers exclude certain ewallets as part of their promotions.
Just make sure you check the bookmakers terms and conditions that your ewallet can be used before depositing.
Transaction Fees
Nearly all ewallet providers will charge customers a small transaction fee to transfer funds back into your ewallet.
It’s unclear whether bookmakers will include this as part of their commission for processing the transfer, so it is best to check with them before requesting the transfer.
Fees will vary but are generally within 1-2% range of the total amount to be received.
What about Google Pay?
Well surprisingly the worlds largest search engine has only one supporter when it comes to mobile payments.
Bet365.
Yes Bet365 is the only bookmaker that currently (as of late 2019) offers Google Pay as a payment option.
Why is this?
Well we could speculate a number of reasons, but I think it’s more than likely the requirements to be a registered Google Pay bookmaker will be quite high and so most will avoid having to do this.
I do believe as more and more customers start using Google Pay to pay for groceries and everyday items, we’ll see bookmakers and casinos adopt this payment option.
Hang on… You Missed out Bitcoin?
What about Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies? Surely they should be included in the list of ewallets?
While it’s true that crypto currencies are in fact digital cash and should be included, the trouble is there are just too many wallets to choose from.
As a result we’ve decided to write a separate article that’s dedicated to crypto wallets which should be released shortly.
Our Verdict
Digital ewallets have come such a long way over the past decade (I still remember the first release of Neteller!) and their integration as mobile apps will only simplify the way we pay for goods and services in the future.
Punters do need to be aware that some ewallets CANNOT be used if you want to take advantage of bookmaker new customer offers.
But for the rest of us that frequently use the same bookie you could save time and enhance your security by adding one of the ewallets we’ve discussed, chances are you may already have an account with one.
So what do you think? Have you used any of the ewallets for sports betting we’ve discussed? Let me know in the comments section.
[1] Those are customers based in UK, US and Australia.