It is rapidly becoming apparent that the internet and the huge online corporations which dominate it are effectively taking over our lives. Almost everyone you see on public transport or even in the street appears to be glued to their mobile phone checking their twitter account, facebook or one of the other so called social media platforms. It is also true that there are very few of us who have not purchased something through one of the big online retail sites, and almost all the banks, energy companies and even government departments are actively encouraging us to carry out our regular transactions online. There is no doubt that using the internet for many of these daily chores is far more convenient for many of us and we have therefore been very happy to oblige in spite of the well-publicised risks. We are all very aware of the dangers of hacking and identity theft but we are still happy to not only use the internet for essential transactions, but also for many of our leisure activities. Online gambling for instance is now the most popular form of gambling in Ireland, both in terms of gambling on sporting events and of course using online casino sites to play casino games. In fact the number of people now playing casino games online far exceeds the numbers who regularly visited a real casino or even the high street bingo clubs. Both sports gambling and playing casino games online however requires us register our personal details with the online gambling site and to carry out financial transactions online, both of which we know carry a certain degree of risk. Here at onlinecasino.ie we have done all we can to ensure that the online casinos on our recommended list have sufficiently robust and secure site management systems to protect our identity and personal financial details, but there are always decisions we ourselves can make to further protect ourselves. All the online casinos on our recommended list and accessible to casino games fans in Ireland offer a wide range of deposit options designed to suit as many of their potential customers as possible, but there is no doubt that some of these deposit options are not as good as others. Many of us have become so accustomed to purchasing products online using a credit card that it is in danger of becoming the default solution for all internet transactions. When it comes to depositing money into an online casino account in order to play casino games however, a credit card is probably the worst of all the deposit options to select. Not only is using a credit card to provide the stake money to play casino games online effectively gambling with borrowed money, it will actually cost you money in charges and interest. Some might say that using a credit card as a deposit option is not gambling with borrowed money providing the whole bill is paid off at the end of every month, nevertheless it is still too easy to play with money you haven’t got and can’t afford, and you will still be subject to unnecessary additional costs. Whether we like it or not, the banks do not like us using their credit cards for any form of gambling and will almost always apply a surcharge of up to 2% on any such transaction. You will also be charged interest from day one because it will be defined as a cash transaction. Both these additional cost are unnecessary because there are many better deposit options available. Most of us have now become so addicted to plastic that the most obvious alternative to a credit card would of course be a debit card. Certainly using a debit card as an online casino deposit option is preferable to using a credit card, because the money has to be in your account for the transaction to be approved, but some banks will still charge you extra because of the way their debit card transactions are processed.
When considering which of the remaining deposit options is the cheapest and most secure, some of us have an ideal solution. In Ireland both Paddy Power and Ladbrokes allow their online customers to manage their accounts in cash through their local betting shop. Clearly there are many advantages to using cash to fund playing casino games online, and if you have easy access to one of their betting shops and enjoy the games offered by these two online casinos, it may be the best option. All the online casinos on our recommended list also accept one or more of the e-wallet accounts as a deposit option, and there are undoubtedly a lot of good reasons why an e-wallet offers the next best alternative to cash. An e-wallet is a separate account designed to be used for any internet transactions, including online purchases and of course funding online gambling. The best known e-wallet is probably Pay Pal, but Neteller is also listed on many online casino deposit options. The main advantages of using an e-wallet to fund playing casino games online are that your bank will not know what you are using your e-wallet account for, and the online casino will have no access to your personal banking details. This means that your personal data is more secure and you will have far more privacy in terms of what you are doing in your leisure time. How you choose to fund your e-wallet is of course your own decision, but most people simply use a bank transfer from their current account. There is also one other deposit option available at almost every online casino site, and that is the pre-paid card. Many of us have begun to use a pre-loaded card or foreign currency when travelling abroad on our holidays, but may not know that the same principle can be used to fund an online casino account. Paysafe and Ucash are just two pre-loaded cards which are accepted at many online casinos, and of course offer the same advantages in terms of privacy and security as using cash.