Bingo Payment Methods

Online Bingo Payment Methods

Credit Cards

Credit card is a deposit method that you definitely WON’T be able to use at any UK bingo site (even though you may have done so in the past).  Indeed, credit cards can’t be used for any gambling transactions in the UK, either directly or via a payment services provider, and this has been the case since the Gambling Commission ban on credit cards took effect back in April 2020.  The ban covers offline as well as online transactions, and it is no longer permissible to use a credit card even for something as apparently innocuous as buying a raffle ticket for charity!  The ONLY exception allowed is when you buy a lottery ticket along with a load of groceries.

As well as outlawing credit cards themselves as a deposit method, this has led to the removal of several other deposit methods at many bingo sites, because the operator didn’t want to be bothered policing whether a credit card could have been involved at some stage of the process.

Debit Cards

A debit card isn’t just a universally accepted and easy to use payment option – if you don’t have one, you may find it difficult to open an account in the first place.  Most bingo sites now require you to register a debit card with them for account verification, even if you use a different method when you actually deposit. The card MUST be in the name of the player – it is not possible, for instance, to use a card belonging to a family member and if you try to do so you are likely to have your account cancelled.

Visa debit cards are generally preferable to Mastercard debit cards for two reasons:

1. There have been reported issues with some Mastercards not accepting withdrawals at all
2. Many operators now offer the new Visa Fast Funds service which means that withdrawals to eligible Visa cards are instant rather than taking the usual 3-5 days. If you see the stopwatch logo next to your card number when requesting a withdrawal, it’s been enabled for your card

The main disadvantage of using a debit card is that if it is linked to your regular bank account, the potential consequences of a security breach may be harder to deal with than they would have been with a credit card.  Ways around this include opening a separate bank account just for online purchases or using a prepaid debit card (be warned, though, that some sites don’t accept prepaid cards or attach conditions to their use).

A prepaid debit card is NOT linked to a bank account in the same way as a regular debit card. With a regular debit card, the money is debited from your bank account at the time of transaction.  A prepaid card has to be pre-loaded with funds (and typically there is either a charge for doing this, a monthly fee or a transaction fee).  Prepaid cards can be physical (in which case it may be possible to fund them with cash) or virtual (in which case they need to be funded from a linked bank account).  Again, be aware of the above mentioned problem with Mastercard withdrawals.

If you are making your first deposit with any method OTHER than a debit card, be sure to check the terms and conditions before depositing, to ensure your deposit will qualify for the welcome bonus.  Lots of bingo sites exclude many of the alternative payment methods!

Prepaid voucher payment systems

Most bingo sites currently accept at least one of these (one notable exception being Gamesys bingo sites which now only accept debit cards).  The main advantage of prepaid voucher payment systems is that you do not need any form of bank account or payment card to use them – cash will do.  They can also make it easier for players to stick to a budget.

Paysafecard is the best known prepaid voucher payment system, but there are others.

Neosurf is the latest entrant to the prepaid voucher system market. It’s originally French and as yet very few UK bingo sites accept it.  You can buy Neosurf vouchers at many convenience stores or online using cash or cards (for gambling in the UK, of course, it can’t be with a credit card).  It has the same advantages and disadvantages as Paysafecard – safe and secure but can’t be used for withdrawals, and you’ll still have to give the bingo or slot site a lot of personal information for account verification.

PromoCode is a 12 digit code specifically for gambling credit, issued as some kind of a reward.

CashtoCode allows you to deposit up to £250 at sites that accept it, funded in cash with no need for bank or card details.  First, you go to the cashier at the site where you want to deposit, select CashtoCode and choose the amount to create a barcode.  Then, you visit a PayPoint retail outlet where the staff scan the barcode and you hand over the cash.  Bingo! Your deposit is ready to use!

E-wallets

The main difference between a prepayment system and an e-wallet is that e-wallets can accept payments as well as make them – so if you deposit using an e-wallet and win, the proceeds can be paid back into the e-wallet.  Most bingo sites accept at least one type of e-wallet (usually it’s Paypal).

One big advantage of e-wallets is that you only have to share your card details with the e-wallet provider once and there’s no need to send them multiple times over the internet to different operators.

Other e-wallets sometimes used by UK players are Neteller and Skrill/Moneybookers.  Both Skrill and Neteller are owned by the Paysafe Group (who also, as the name suggests, own Paysafecard).  Skrill and Neteller have little to recommend them to bingo players, however, as deposits made by these methods are almost always excluded from bonus offers.

E-wallets are subject to the “no credit cards” rule and both the operator and payment processor are responsible for policing that; perhaps this explains why some operators (such as Gamesys) have dropped e-wallets completely.

E-wallet apps

An e-wallet app works on your mobile phone, drawing funds from a connected card to fund purchases on or offline.  Apple Pay is the most widely accepted e-wallet app at UK bingo sites – it is available at most Dragonfish bingo sites – but it can’t be used for withdrawals, only for deposits.

Paypal is also available as an app as well as a regular e-wallet.  The latest e-wallets are only available as apps.

MuchBetter comes with an optional debit card and contactless fob.   It offers enhanced security and the MuchBetter Rewards loyalty scheme so looks like an interesting alternative to Paypal – but only a few UK bingo sites accept it at the moment.  More casinos accept MuchBetter, though, so it is probably only a matter of time before MuchBetter bingo sites appear.  Interestingly, MuchBetter can itself be funded using CashtoCode.

Luxon is another e-wallet app that isn’t widely available at the moment but looks set to gain traction in the near future.

Omni-channel payment methods

Omni-channel gaming is frequently touted as the future of online bingo and all other forms of gambling.  In Playtech’s vision of the omni-channel user experience of the future, the same account and wallet would be used to play bingo, slots and casino games and place sporting and celebrity bets and this could be done online via any device or offline in a variety of venues.

Omni-channel payment methods have yet to gain much traction, with the first to appear being the multi-channel version of Coral Connect. Coral Bingo players can get a card with a PIN number that can be used (in conjunction with supplementary ID) to deposit cash to and/or withdraw cash from a Coral Online account in any of Coral’s betting shops across the country.  New players can now open a Coral Connect account at a Coral shop by depositing cash and this enables players to have access to Coral Online without having to have a debit card (although they will still have to satisfy ID requirements).

At Mecca Bingo,  Cash Out In Club is another means of depositing to and/or withdrawing from an online bingo account in cash, although there is a limit for both types of transaction of £100 a day and you have to phone them ahead of time if you want to withdraw.  Again, supplementary ID is required.  Funds can also be transferred from a Mecca Max account (for playing bingo on a tablet in a club) to an online account.

Yet another option is the branded prepaid debit card solution seen at Paddy Power and other large operators.  Winnings can be withdrawn to the prepaid card which can then be used elsewhere just like a normal debit card.

Buzz Bingo have gone one step further still and rolled out single wallet functionality at all of their clubs.  Now that the roll-out is complete, each player’s account operates seamlessly across their website and all Buzz clubs in a way which is truly omni-channel.

Other payment solutions

For those who do not want to transmit any bank or card details over the internet, there are ways to deposit such as a direct bank transfer (e.g. at Dragonfish sites) and Western Union (e.g. at Ladbrokes), plus direct transfer methods such as Trustly and Sofort many of which are valid in certain specified countries only (such as the German Giropay).  Trustly in particular is rapidly gaining traction with UK players, but while there are plenty of UK facing sites that accept it, not many have bingo.

This type of solution can seem attractive if you want to give the bingo site as little as possible of your personal information – but since the sites are required to carry out age and ID verification as a condition of their licence, expect to have to supply lots of other forms of ID in order to withdraw or possibly even just to keep playing.

What about Crypto?

Cryptocurrencies have been touted for many years as the future of online payments.  There are many of these, with Bitcoin being the best known, and there are certainly players out there (though maybe not bingo players) who want to play in Bitcoin – back in August 2013, a single Bitcoin gambling site accounted for more than half the volume of all Bitcoin transactions!

In 2024 there are NO bingo sites for UK players that accept Bitcoin – not legal ones anyway, as the UK Gambling Commission has made it clear that as far as it is concerned cryptocurrencies count as “money’s worth” and that therefore any UK facing gambling sites operating in Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency require a UK licence (and would be subject to UK taxation).  This would mean that the sites had to run on an already licensed platform and in fact this is a major obstacle for bitcoin gambling in the UK because Bitcoin casino games are generally based on the same blockchain technology as Bitcoin itself rather than using a licensed RNG. The advantage of this is that bets can be provably fair, although goodness knows how this would be implemented for bingo games.  The situation is further complicated by the position regarding the regulation of the cryptocurrencies themselves which is still developing.  Since gambling sites are already subject to the know-your-customer and anti money laundering requirements but the bitcoin exchanges (in some ways the equivalent of banks) are not as yet, it seems simpler for bingo sites to wait to accept bitcoin until the FCA gets around to regulating it, especially as in other gaming jurisdictions such as the Isle of Man the process is already under way.

Various attempts have been made over the last few years to bring crypto to UK facing gambling sites. Way back in 2014 it was announced that Cozy Games had partnered with GoCoin (a cryptocurrency payment processor) which would enable Cozy powered sites to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as the meme-inspired Dogecoin, but unsurprisingly nothing came of this. Although Cozy had an IoM licence, for UK players to be able to deposit or play in Bitcoin this would also have to be allowed under its UK licence.  Following the demise of the Cozy platform, this is now never going to happen.  One UK facing casino did accept Bitcoin for a while, again back in 2014 (Bitcoin deposits were converted into pounds or euros at current exchange rates and play was in regular currency but if deposits had been made using Bitcoin withdrawals were issued in Bitcoin) but this stopped after discussions with the regulator (Malta Gaming Authority as this was before the change to UK regulation).

Another factor is that Bitcoin prices peaked back at the end of 2013 and when the price declined so did the excitement – although world events in 2016 caused Bitcoin prices to rally as investors become nervous about any type of fiat currency, and the summer of that year saw a major step on the way to regulation with the introduction of Europe’s first regulated exchange traded instrument for cryptocurrency.

Crypto prices surged again, repeatedly, and even though they have also nosedived repeatedly there will no doubt be plenty of would-be crypto gamblers around in 2024.  The latest official view in the UK, however, seems to be that cryptocurrencies are not actually currencies at all but “crypto-assets” – and super risky for those who trade in them – so while regulation is almost certainly coming, crypto gambling may never be allowed at UK sites.

It might have been different were it not for Brexit, as the European Union HAS now moved to regulate cryptocurrency issuers and exchanges; the MiCA licensing regime will come into effect in 2024 opening up the possibility of properly regulated crypto gambling sites in EU member stats.

If this all sounds like gobbledegook, the TL;DR version is that Bitcoin bingo or any other form of crypto bingo is unlikely ever to be available at UK licensed bingo sites.

FAQ's

What does Closed Loop mean?

Closed Loop means that if you have used a deposit method that accepts withdrawals, you MUST withdraw an amount equal to all the deposits you have made with that method, back to that method, before you can choose how you withdraw.  For example, if you have made £50 of deposits with your debit card and £20 with Paypal, and want to withdraw £100, £50 has to go to the debit card, £20 to Paypal and you can choose where to send the remaining £30 and any future withdrawals.  This is required under UK anti money laundering rules.

I deposited with a method that doesn't accept withdrawals - how can I cash out?

If you deposited with a method you can’t withdraw to (mobile phone billing, some Mastercards, in some cases Paysafe) the bingo site will normally pay you via bank transfer.  Expect to have to provide a lot of documentation to verify your ID and prove the bank account belongs to you.