Problems funding online casinos with Maestro

Here at onlinecasino.ie, we continue to hear of problems when online casino gamblers attempt to use their Maestro cards to deposit funds into their casino account. We have attempted to address this problem before, but it is clearly necessary to raise the issue again. Most of the cards issued by Irish banks carry both the Maestro and the Laser symbols, with Maestro being the debit card function of Mastercard. As you probably know, we would never recommend that gamblers online should use a credit card to fund their online casino account, partly because of the charges which tend to be applied by the card issuers but also because we believe it is important that gamblers do not play with borrowed money. A  Maestro card should therefore be a preferred option if a card needs to be used. When using a Maestro card in Ireland the transaction tends to go through the Laser system and should present no problems other than the potential charges, but if Irish gamblers try to fund their casino accounts from outside Ireland with Maestro they may find that the chip cannot be read and the transaction fails. Whilst we will continue to recommend debit cards as opposed to credit cards to fund online casino accounts, we believe that the best option to fund any  online casino account is to use an e-wallet, which can then be funded using Maestro if necessary.  Not only will you probably avoid the charges, but your transactions will remain private and because both the e-wallet and the debit card are effectively cash, the money should be available immediately. For more information on e-wallets, check our Deposit Options page.