Is credit card casino gambling the best option

As part of our continuing mission to help new online casino gamblers, it is time to revisit the question of how best to fund playing casino games online. All the major online casinos on our recommended list offer a range of deposit options which they clearly hope will satisfy the requirements of all their prospective new customers. These deposit options include debit cards, credit cards, e-wallets and even cash in the case of Paddy Power and Ladbrokes, who both let customers in Ireland pay-in and withdraw cash in their high street betting shops. There are of course advantages and disadvantages with all these options, and the choice depends on your own personal circumstances, but we have yet to be convinced that credit card casino gambling is ever a good idea. Credit cards are obviously extremely useful for many online transactions, particularly when the goods or services you are purchasing may prove to be unsatisfactory, but this factor never applies when you are playing casino games online. Funding an online casino account using a credit card is effectively gambling with borrowed money, furthermore rightly or wrongly the credit card issuer will almost certainly charge you for using their card for gambling purposes, and because it is considered to be a cash transaction interest is charged from day one. Even if the idea of gambling with money you don’t have does not worry you, if you add up all the extra charges associated with the credit card deposit option you are already in the red before you have even started playing your casino games. (more…)

Is a credit card casino account a good idea

It’s time to return to one of the most important choices you will make when you start to play casino games at an online casino, and that is the question of how you are going to make deposits and hopefully withdrawals from your online casino account. We make no apologies for addressing this question on a regular basis because we believe it to be as important a factor in your enjoyment of playing casino games online as the games themselves. In this day and age there is a tendency for all of us to reach for a credit card when paying for online transactions, and often with good reason because of the insurance element associated with using a credit card for online purchases, but a credit card casino account is another matter. Firstly, funding an online casino account is a cash transaction and therefore attracts interest from day one. Secondly, most credit card companies will automatically levy a 2% charge on any gambling transactions, and although every online casino will accept credit cards as a deposit option some may also make a charge. These two factors alone mean that you will have already lost money before you have even started to play any casino games. There is also another very important factor to bear in mind before you reach for your credit card, and that is whether it is ever a good idea to gamble with borrowed money, because that is what using a credit card to pay for online casino games really is. (more…)

Credit Card Casino

We all take both credit cards and online casinos for granted as if both had been around forever but of course they have not. The two main credit cards that players use to fund their online casino accounts are Visa and MasterCard but actually Diners Club was the first in the market introduced into America in 1950. We refer to this as a credit card but actually it was not a true credit card as the balance had to be paid off at the end of every month. American Express followed quickly on the heels and they even charged customers for the privilege of having a card, a policy which they maintained for many years. The first true credit card however, one which had a credit facility which did not need to be paid off every month, was Visa. Visa was a brainchild of Bank of America, the company is still registered there in San Francisco, California, and they launched what they called the Bank Americard in 1958 by issuing some 60,000 cards in Fresno without any application form or credit checks. This initial foray into the market was not totally successful as the credit department of the bank rather overestimated the goodness of the customers and although they had planned for a 4% default rate on card debts by 1959 it was running at 22%.

It is probably not generally considered but Visa does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers; Visa merely provides banks with Visa-branded payment products that they then use to offer credit, debit, prepaid and cash-access programs to their customers. For many years the only licensed “Americard” in the UK and Ireland was Barclaycard but as we know today there are a multitude of different issuers, all of which can be used to deposit into your online casino account as long as it carries the Visa sign.

Other banks in the USA were not about to let Bank of America have a monopoly and soon a few of them got together to form what was then known as the Interbank Card Association which was the forerunner of what we know today as MasterCard.

Visa and MasterCard are used by many to make deposits into their online casino accounts both in the form of credit cards and debit cards but there is a difference. A debit card is purely a cash transaction meaning that when you deposit into your casino account the cash comes straight out of your bank account which means that the money has to be there in the first place (unless you have some other arrangement with your bank). Because this is a cash transaction there should be no charges either from the bank or the casino. Using a credit card to fund an online casino account is however not a cash transaction so although the money will be available instantly in your casino account you do not have to pay immediately. This form of funding can be subject to charges by the online casino although often is not but is always subject to charges from your bank or credit card issuer. Funding an online casino account using a debit card is cheaper than funding using credit card.

Online casino deposit options and credit cards

Further to our recent article detailing how we try to help new online casino games players get started and hopefully continue to enjoy playing casino games online, it is perhaps time to take another look at the question of how to fund an online casino account. All the major online casinos offer us a wide range of deposit options designed to make it as easy as possible for us to transfer the funds necessary to play their casino games, but experience tells us that some of these options may not be the best choice. Since the internet started to become a major platform for purchasing goods and services we have become used to the idea of using a credit card for online financial transactions and there are often very good reasons to do so, but is a credit card the best online casino deposit option?. Almost all the online casinos are credit card casinos and willingly accept most credit cards as a deposit option, but we must remember that playing casino games is a form of gambling even if you are playing for minimum stakes. Using a credit card as an online casino deposit option is therefore effectively gambling with borrowed money, which is never a good idea. On top of that the banks also object to us using a credit card for any form of gambling, and will almost certainly apply a surcharge of up to 2% on any transaction related to gambling using a credit card. In addition to that anyone using a credit card as a method of funding playing casino games will find that it is also considered to be a cash transaction and will therefore attract interest from day one at credit card rates irrespective of whether or not you pay off your credit card bill every month. (more…)