Take care when choosing your online casino deposit options

There is no doubt that the internet has changed the way we lead our lives in almost every sphere of activity including of course how we spend our leisure time, but like any other resource it needs to be used carefully. In particular we need to be careful whenever we carry out a financial transaction online. One of the first decisions new online casino games players need to make when they have registered with an online casino is which of the many online casino deposit options is right for them, a financial transaction which needs careful consideration for a variety of reasons. Almost all of us with easy access to the internet now do some shopping online and many of us also now do our banking and pay our bills online, but all of these activities carry an element of risk in terms of our personal data security and of course the service or product we are buying may also be unsatisfactory. Whilst the last of these considerations is not really relevant in the context of paying money into an account to fund playing casino games, there is a potential increased cost element with some of the deposit options offered by the online casinos. All of the online casinos on our recommended list offer a very comprehensive range of deposit options so that their customers have as wide a choice as possible when it comes to funding playing their casino games, so let’s have a look at these options in more detail.

As we have already commented on most of us have now experienced doing some shopping online, hopefully trouble free, but we have to accept that it is not the same as walking into a high street store and requires a certain amount of increased trust in the internet retailer. When we walk into a store we immediately get a sense of what sort of organisation it is and what the quality of the products and the customer service is likely to be. That is not quite so easy when buying on the internet, so many of us have got into the habit of using a credit card for almost every internet transaction because of the built-in insurance element offered by the card suppliers should the products or service not come up to our expectations. Clearly that is a very good and logical reason for using a credit card in those circumstances, but not for every internet transaction. All the online casinos do of course accept all the major credit cards within their range of deposit options because they want to offer us as much choice as possible, but it is difficult to think of a good reason for using a credit card to fund playing casino games online, and even more difficult to justify the inevitable increased cost of doing so. There is no product or service involved in playing casino games which could lead to us needing the reassurance of the insurance, so there is nothing on the positive side of the argument, but there are definite negatives. Here at onlinecasino.ie we are not here to pontificate on the morality or even potentially the stupidity of gambling with borrowed money on a credit card, but we are duty bound to raise another negative associated with using a credit card as an online casino deposit option. We may not object too strongly to using a credit card to fund gambling, but the banks definitely do object to us using their cards for this purpose. They show their displeasure in the only way that banks know and that is to apply additional costs to any such activity. If you use a credit card to pay money directly into an online casino account, you will be hit by a surcharge on the transaction of up to 2%. You will also be charged interest on the money at credit card rates from day one because it is considered to be the equivalent of taking cash from an ATM on a credit card. Playing casino games at an online casino is great fun, and most of us are only too aware that it is a leisure activity which could cost us money, but the increased costs of using a credit card as a deposit option make that even more likely and it is not necessary to incur those costs.

Most people who hold a current account with a bank will probably have a debit card linked to that account, so is a debit card a good way to fund playing casino games online. Certainly all the online casinos are perfectly happy to accept most debit cards as a deposit option, and most of the banks will not object by imposing additional charges. It is also true that money can only be paid using a debit card if there are sufficient funds in the account to cover it, so there are also no interest charges to be paid. However there are potential downsides regarding security and privacy which we should at least point out. Using a debit card to directly transfer money to an online casino account inevitably means that the online casino has access to your banking details on that account. Similarly your bank will also be aware that you are gambling so your privacy is somewhat compromised by using a debit card, or indeed a cheque or bank transfer.

Another online casino deposit option offered by the online casinos on our recommended list is a pre-loaded card such as Paysafe or Ucash. At least one of these cards is accepted by most online casinos, although for some reason 888 will not allow you to withdraw funds from your account directly onto a pre-loaded card.

Next up is the e-wallet as an online casino deposit option. The e-wallet is of course effectively a bank account designed specifically for online financial transactions. The most well known e-wallet is of course Pay Pal, but most online casinos will also accept at least one of Neteller or Moneybookers. This is by far the best casino deposit option with the exception of cash, with none of the additional charges nor even the privacy and security issues of a debit card. How you fund your e-wallet is up to you but it is definitely the best way to directly fund an online casino account.