The Best UK Casinos That Accepts PayPal

All You Need To Know About PayPal Gambling

Why Play with PayPal?

If you’ve ever bought something or sold something online through PayPal, this will be pretty self-explanatory. It’s pretty much the easiest way to send money digitally, and is backed by military-grade security protections for a rock-solid experience. It’s simple to sign up for and use your account to move money, with instant payment processing and fast withdrawals, directly to your bank account.

PayPal isn’t perfect, and some people experience difficulties with verification later down the line, or other policies from PayPal which seem arcane and unnecessarily complicated. But it’s still head and shoulders above any other payment method, especially for online gambling deposits and withdrawals, which is why it’s still a preference for so many players in the UK.

Advantages & Disadvantages Of PayPal

Is PayPal the Payment Method For Me?

It’s Free and Fast

Perhaps the biggest advantages of PayPal casino payments is the fact you don’t have to pay for an efficient service. All online casino deposits are completed in seconds, regardless of the method you use. When it comes to withdrawals, however, timeframes differ. In general, PayPal is twice as fast as credit/debit transfers. Once your request has cleared an operator’s security checks (typically between 24 and 28 hours), your funds will be credited to your PayPal account within a few hours.

An Added Layer of Protection

Another huge benefit of using PayPal is that it acts as a barrier between you and any criminals out there. When you make a payment, the only information you have to include is the email address associated with your PayPal account. Because your PayPal account is protected by a password (and possibly 2FA), an email address isn’t enough to put your funds at risk. In contrast, when you input your credit/debit card details, there’s a chance someone could steal that information and use them to access your money.

A Greater Degree of Flexibility

As well as being a payment processor, PayPal is also a secure place to store your funds. Because it’s an online platform, it’s easier for you to move your money from casino-to-casino (i.e. other online platforms). What’s more, PayPal deposits/withdrawals aren’t recorded by your bank. So, if you’re worried about affecting your credit rating (you shouldn’t be) or you want to play at more than one online casino, PayPal is the most efficient and flexible payment option.

Are there Any Downsides to Paying with PayPal?

Three Steps to Pay

When you use PayPal as a casino payment method, you’re essentially adding another step to the process i.e. money moves from your bank, to PayPal to the casino site. As we’ve said, having a middleman is great because it acts as another layer of protection. However, the downside is that it means you have to do a bit more work. Fortunately, adding/withdrawing money from PayPal is extremely easy, so this extra step isn’t a huge issue. The fact remains, however, that there is another cog in the virtual payment wheel.

It’s Not Available Everywhere

Despite being one of the most efficient payment processors, PayPal isn’t accepted at all online casinos. Even some of our top-rated platforms haven’t integrated this method into their platforms. Therefore, if you’re looking for a PayPal casino and won’t consider any other deposit option, you may have to search a bit harder than you normally would.

It Could Kill Your Bonuses

Although it’s less common than it once was, some operators won’t allow you to claim welcome/deposit bonuses when you use PayPal. In general, this clause is typically applied to Skrill and Neteller. However, because PayPal is part of the same eWallet family, there are times when it gets caught up in this no bonus trap. Additionally, the withdrawal limit with PayPal is often lower than Skrill and debit cards.

PayPal Alternatives For Online Gambling

PayPal is great for online gambling, but it’s not necessarily for everyone. If you’re looking for an alternative method of deposit or withdrawal to PayPal, here are a few of the next-best-things you might want to use instead.

• Credit/Debit Cards: This is fairly straightforward, and most people own a credit or debit card that is supported by online casinos – if it’s VISA or MasterCard, you’re guaranteed to be accepted pretty much anywhere. One snag here is that you can’t usually withdraw to a credit card, and there may even be some fees applicable for certain types of card transactions. But otherwise, it’s a secure, quick way to send funds to or from your gambling account.
• Neteller: This is a payment wallet similar to PayPal, except with less stringent verification requirements in many cases, and often lower fees. It works in much the same way, but it a little more limited than PayPal in terms of the merchants that support it. Nevertheless, it’s a popular choice in the gambling industry for its speed and convenience, and is one of the main PayPal alternatives for gambling online.
• Skrill: Another e-wallet, working in much the same way as NETELLER and PayPal. It’s more commonly used in gambling and gaming than in any other sector, but its main advantage comes in the form of lower fees relative to some PayPal transactions.
• Paysafecard: Paysafecard isn’t a wallet-type service, but a voucher. Its main advantage as a PayPal alternative is that it’s completely anonymous and secure, because it isn’t linked to your bank account. Think of paysafecard like a gift voucher or similar – you buy the voucher, then type in the code to deposit to your account. Again you can’t withdraw to a paysafecard, but it can be used in conjunction with a debit card pretty easily as a credible alternative to PayPal.
• Pay by Phone: If you value security and efficiency, pay by phone casino deposit methods are a great alternative to PayPal. By choosing a processor such as Boku of Payforit, you can charge small deposits to your monthly phone bill or pay as you go credit. In simple terms, when you make a deposit, the amount will be added to your bill rather than taken from your bank account. The benefit of this is that you don’t have to include your personal or financial details at any point. Instead, all you have to do is supply your phone number and confirm the payment. This is great because it means the chances of someone stealing your money are greatly reduced.

PayPal And Gambling’s Strained History

While it’s easy to take PayPal as a payment method for granted, it wasn’t always this way. In fact, PayPal has only started supporting gambling payments in the UK comparatively recently, having reversed their previous policy of excluding any gambling transactions whatsoever from running through its systems.

Without getting too technical, the legal position of online gambling in the US is significantly more restrictive than in the UK, with onerous requirements put on what few operators are legally allowed to exist. While this puts the US at odds with much of the rest of the world, where gambling is freely permitted and encouraged as a pastime, it has had knock-on effects for payment processors like PayPal.

As a US company, PayPal elected to duck out of the gambling sector globally when laws in the US began to tighten. This created something of a vacuum in the online gambling market, not to mention leaving a majority of UK players scratching their heads.

Fortunately, PayPal have since reversed this position, and returned to the gambling market – at least as far as players in the UK are concerned. That means you can enjoy the same flexibility with PayPal at online casinos as you can with any other merchant – just spare a thought for our American counterparts who are still left in the dark.

Conclusion

PayPal is a fast, easy and available method of making a purchase, donation or a deposit online. No matter the product or the vendor, PayPal’s friendly system works for everyone internationally and even aims at reaching out further by developing a program enabling money transactions in outer space.