Thanks to the internet, everything is now faster and easier than it was only a few years ago. This also applies to online gambling that’s been simplified, thanks to a number of reasons. This includes the inclusion of common payment options such as payment gateway providers, which are available at the online casinos in India.
At online casinos, payment gateway providers are, perhaps, the most crucial part of online gambling that’s hardly talked about. The majority of players will only take note of the payment option once they realize it’s not working or they’ve been charged fees for their transaction.
To help you pick out the best payment methods for online casinos, we’ve prepared this comprehensive guide for you. It highlights some of the most commonly used payment options in India expounding more on the advantages and disadvantages of each option.
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What Are Payment Gateway Providers?
In the most basic definition, payment gateway providers otherwaise known as eWallets, refer to online platforms that enable you to send, receive or store money. These are third party payment options that were invented to eliminate the risk of losing your personal and financial details. This is done by simply enabling you to fund your eWallet account through several supported options including bank accounts.
In order to use an eWallet, you are required to open an account with your preferred service provider (eWallet platform). Once you’ve done this, you can link your preferred payment option (such as your bank account, VISA or MasterCard) by inputting the required details. You can then proceed to make direct deposits from the linked source of funds into your eWallet.
With the funds stored in your eWallet, you can then proceed to make a deposit directly into your online casino account, without sharing any of your personal or financial information with the online casino. This is possible because when depositing, all you are required to do is enter your unique eWallet account number or email address and address. The deposits are usually processed instantaneously so you get in on the action ASAP.
The same procedure is usually done when making withdrawals from your online casino account. Once you’ve won some cash, you simply head to the banking section of your account, click on withdraw, choose your preferred eWallet withdrawal option, enter the amount and confirm the transaction. However, unlike deposits that are usually processed instantly, payments made to eWallets take between 5 hours and 24 hours to be processed.
list of payment gateway providers in India
- Skrill
- PayPal
- Neteller
- InstaDebit
- ecoPayz
- Qiwi
What Are the Advantages of Using Payment Gateway Providers
While millions of players have debit and credit cards, there’s a large group of players that still prefer using eWallets as their payment options at the casinos. The main reasons why they choose eWallets over other payment options are highlighted as follows.
- Payment Gateway Providers are easy to set up and use. Signing up at any one of the sites is a simple three-step process and depositing usually takes a few seconds. In fact, with the One-Touch feature, making mobile deposits simply involves using your fingerprint to allow for the transaction
- Because of the fingerprint recognition technology, as well as eliminating the need for you to provide your personal or financial information, payment gateway providers are considered as one of the safest payment option to use online
- Anonymity is yet another great benefit of using eWallets to make deposits. If you don’t want any gambling information appearing on your bank statement, eWallets offer the best alternative
- The processing time of withdrawals is one of the shortest in the industry, coming second to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
- In a bid to encourage players to use eWallets to make deposits, some of the online casinos offer you a match deposit bonus – which is usually 10-15% of the amount you deposit. Just ensure you go through the terms and conditions section so you don’t miss out on this offer
Pay by Phone Payment Option
The easiest way for you to understand Pay By Phone payment option is by thinking of it as a payment option that allows you to use your mobile phone as if it were a debit or credit card i.e. each time you’d like to make a deposit into your casino account, you use your mobile phone. The payment made is usually billed from your airtime or charged directly to your phone bill at the end of each billing cycle.
To facilitate mobile payments to the casino, all you need to do is pick the ‘Pay by Phone’ option under your account, enter your phone number and start making deposits. Once you’ve made your deposit, the casino will always send you a unique security code, which you have to enter in order to complete the transaction.
However, unlike the other payment options where you have high deposit limits, Pay by Phone option is usually limited to a maximum of €20-€40 per day, which is roughly equivalent to ₹1500- ₹3,000.
While this payment option is yet to become very popular with Indian casino players, we believe it’s the future to online casino depositing and soon enough, several players will start adopting it. For those who would like to use Pay by Phone as their preferred payment option, there are several options to pick from. They include:
- Zimpler
- Boku
- Payforit
- ApplePay
The main disadvantage with Pay By Phone option – which we have to note here – is that you cannot use it to make withdrawals at the casino. It’s strictly meant to facilitate payments only, which means you’ll have to pick another option (preferably eWallets) to make your withdrawal.
The Benefits of Pay by Phone
We are big advocates of Pay by Phone here at Indiaslots.com due to the number of benefits that this payment option offers. Below are some of the advantages of each option.
- You only need a phone and internet connection to make the payment
- There’s no need to create an account
- You are the only person who can authorize the payment, thanks to the unique security code sent to your phone. This makes it a highly secure payment option
- It is one of the best payment options for players who don’t have self-control as the deposit limits are usually set at €20-€40 per day
Is Security Compromised Once You’ve Lost a Phone?
Your phone number is the most important feature when it comes to making payments using Pay by Phone payment option. Therefore, if you happen to lose your phone and someone has access to all the details – including the password to your casino account – there’s a high probability that someone can make transactions on your behalf.
If you’ve lost your phone, or suspect that someone has access to your account details, it’s important that you contact your Pay by Phone payment provider to freeze your account immediately.
What Are The Transaction Fees Associated With Pay By Phone Payment Option?
The majority of the pay by phone payment options don’t charge any fees for their services. This also applies to some online casino sites. However, you should watch out for those platforms that will charge a fee of 3-10% of the transaction.
Cryptocurrencies
Unless you are still living in the 19th or 20th century or hiding under a rock, there are chances that you’ve heard of cryptocurrencies. This is a general term used to describe digital currencies that operate independently and in parallel to the global economy. The value of the cryptocurrencies is dictated by the supply and demand principle. This means that every time there are few cryptocurrencies, the demand gets high and so does the price of the cryptocurrency.
Unlike the conventional payment option(s), cryptocurrencies use new, futuristic Blockchain technology to encode all the transactions. The transactions are recorded in what is referred to as a ledger, which is found within the blockchain. Because of the blockchain technology, all the transactions are completely anonymous and untraceable and usually take a few seconds to hours to be completed.
Popular cryptocurrencies online include:
- Bitcoin
- Litecoin
- Dogecoin
- Ethereum
- Ripple
Advantages of Using Cryptocurrencies as a Payment option
There are several advantages associated with the use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies when it comes to online casino gaming. Here are some of the few notable advantages.
Nobody Is Watching
Dollars. Euros. Pounds. Rupees. Quetzal. Yen. They are all the same. These are printed currencies that are controlled by the central government. This means that any time you are using these currencies, you are always under someone’s thumb and meant to confine to whatever atrocious game of Simon Says each time they want to play and how you should spend it.
Bitcoin? It’s a decentralized currency. This means that nobody is governing it. Besides shutting down the internet – which is impossible at this point in life – no one can take your Bitcoin away. There are no rules on how to spend this digital currency and there’s no printing more of it, which will eventually water down its value.
Your Location Doesn’t Matter
Are you travelling to a country where the government has a new online casino ban? Have the banking kingpins blocked your Visa from making a payment option from a foreign country? Don’t stress. Bitcoin has your back.
Since the Bitcoin payment option isn’t controlled by anyone, it means no one can block it. As a matter of fact, when transacting, you don’t have to provide your location or enter your real name when creating a Bitcoin wallet or transacting. This occasionally blows the minds of those who are accustomed to using the traditional banking system.
Bitcoin-Friendly Casinos Are 99% More Safe and Anonymous
Not many people might have noticed this but your bank might as well be having a secret camera hidden in your wallet. They know how much you earn, where you are traveling, which cloth you’ve bought or how much you have remaining in your card.
But, are you willing to let them know how much you are spending on casino games regularly?
With Bitcoin-friendly online casinos, you are the bank. The BTC wallets don’t need any of your personal information when setting up and the transactions you conduct are only recorded as a long alphanumeric string. As for the bank, they only see you transacting with the BTC exchange platform, not the online casino!
Bitcoin Payments Are The Fastest Online
The normal online casino payment options take somewhere between 12 hours and five business days to pay out winnings. However, this isn’t the case for Bitcoin casinos. No reputable site takes more than 12 five hours to payout Bitcoin.
Debit and Credit Cards Are Part of The Past
Despite the huge diversity of payment options available to Indian players at the online casinos – most of which are much more convenient – the most sought after method for making payments remains to be debit and credit card.
This huge popularity can be attributed to the fact that the majority of Indian banks issue Visa cards, once someone opens up an account with the bank. This, therefore, means that there are literally millions of Visa debit cards sitting inside the wallets of people in India. This makes them the most obvious and easy choice for players to make payments at the online casinos.
What’s The Main Difference between a Debit and Credit Card?
Okay, you’ll have to bear with us as this may sound like an obvious and straightforward question! While the main differences between debit and credit cards are pretty obvious, it’s the advantages and disadvantages that you need to be aware of.
Before we take a look at the advantages and disadvantages, let’s start off with the basics. Debit cards allow you to deposit funds directly to your online casino account from your bank account. It, therefore, means that you can only deposit funds that are AVAILABLE in your bank account.
On the contrary, credit cards let you borrow cash i.e., make deposits without having any cash in your bank account. You can then pay off the amount of money ‘borrowed’ at the end of the month or as per the agreement with the bank.
Which Are Some Of The Best Debit/Credit Card Payment Methods?
Generally, the debit/credit card industry is dominated by three main players, who extend their services to online casino players; MasterCard, Visa, and Maestro. The majority of you will be familiar with MasterCard and VISA as they are the most preferred payment processors for the majority of the national banks. So, most of you will be asking, what exactly is Maestro Card?
Maestro Card is the common name but its full name is Maestro MasterCard. It’s referred to as Maestro MasterCard as it is owned by MasterCard. Also worth mentioning is that it’s a debit card rather than a credit card.
Advantages of using credit/debit cards at online casinos
- The most obvious advantage is the convenience it offers to use the payment option. Since they are readily available in our pockets, making payments is a one-step process
The other advantage is that payments made through this option are processed instantly
- Security is another key feature of credit and debit cards. Since they are pin protected, it’s usually difficult for someone to make a payment without the pin
What Are The Qualities of a Good Online Casino Payment Method?
Online casino sites were invented to make the whole online casino experience as entertaining as possible. There’s nothing as un-entertaining as struggling with easy and straightforward things such as payments – be it withdrawals or deposits. Therefore, as you look for the best payment option to suit your needs, you need to consider some of the following features as well as ask yourself some of the questions below.
For Deposits
- Do you need to register an account with the payment provider or you can use their services right away? Good payment option(s) should make it easy for you to start using their services. Even if they require you to create an account, it should take you only a few seconds to do so
- Does your payment clear to your account instantly or you’ll have to wait for a clearing period? Since most payment providers offer instant deposits, why should you choose a payment that has a clearing period unless its other advantages outweigh the instant deposits advantage?
- Are there any fees involved required when making a deposit?
- Is the payment option supported for both deposits and withdrawals? Some of the online casinos require you to make withdrawals using the same option you used to make a deposit.
- Are there any incentives – such as bonuses – that are linked to the payment option you want to pick?
For Withdrawals
- You need to consider if the option has fees attached to it for the obvious reasons. You don’t want to pay the casino’s fees and pay for the service provider’s fees.
- How fast will you have to wait for your winnings? If you need cash fast, eWallets and Cryptocurrencies are the best as casinos take between 5 hours to 24 hours to pay out winnings requested through this option
- What are the limits supported? Payment options such as credit and debit cards have higher withdrawal limits as compared to Cryptocurrencies and eWallets. This makes them suitable for high rollers
Which Options Work Best With The Mobile Platform?
Most of you are already thinking in line with the Pay by Phone bill payment option. While this is true, it’d worth mentioning that all the options listed in the casino’s payment section can easily be used on mobile devices. Since the majority of the online casinos use the mobile-first approach to offer their services, it means making deposits and withdrawals is now easy through the mobile platform.
I’m I Restricted to Use a Specific Banking Option to Receive the Welcome Bonus?
Not quite! Regardless of the payment option, you pick (unless otherwise stated in the terms and conditions section) you still qualify for the welcome casino bonus. However, there are special promotions (or offers) that require you to use a certain payment provider to qualify for a bonus.
How Safe Are The Payment Options?
You can rest assured that the payment options at the online casinos are safe and secure, provided you’ve signed up at a renowned online casino site. In addition to using the state of the art SSL encryption technology to ensure the safety of your personal and financial information, there are other measures put in place to warrant your safety and security.
For instance, the casinos that we review here at Indiaslots.com are PCI compliant. This means that these online casinos have put up a set of security rules aimed at protecting your privacy whenever you are transmitting any credit card information on their platform. The technology, PCI DSS, helps prevent identity theft and security breaches at the online casinos.
These same online casinos use anti-fraud technology and firewalls to keep your personal and financial information safe from third parties.
They also have strict policies of keeping player’s money separate from the casino’s capital. This way, in the event of insolvency, players are assured of getting their money back.
Conclusion – Which Is The Best Payment Gateway Providers Overall?
After all is said and done, there are three payment gateway providers that stand out from the pack; Skrill (formerly referred to as MoneyBookers), Neteller and Bitcoin. Why do we vouch for these payment options?
In addition to the bonuses organized by these payment providers, some of the online casinos also offer you with a match deposit bonus each time you make your deposit using the eWallets or Bitcoin.
Best of all, these payment providers also offer you an opportunity to apply for ATM cards, linked to your eWallet. This way, you can use the card to make instant, convenient payment(s) using your winnings at any store that accepts VISA or MasterCard. These payments are usually charged fees (that are reasonable) so it’s important that you check the exact tariffs by going through the terms and conditions section.
Casino, Betting, & gambling expert with 11+ years of industry experience. publications featured in the Hindustan Dainik, Dainik Bhaskar, the Times of India & many more. Vichaan Acharya is our in-house gambling expert here at Indiaslots.com
