It is common for bookmakers to put forward promotions and features that require you to either make a deposit or else have money in your account in order to take advantage of it. If you’re hoping to make use of an offer or live stream but don’t want to actually bet any real money then you might consider making a deposit to get money into your account and then withdrawing it before you’ve placed a wager. The question is, can you do this? The short answer is ‘yes’, though the longer answer is, as you might imagine, a little bit more complicated.
Different bookies have different rules surrounding virtually everything, with deposits and withdrawals being no exception. Some will allow you to withdraw your money no problem, whilst others will only allow you to do it once without charging a withdrawal fee. Others won’t let you do it at all, largely because it costs them money to take deposits and also to allow you to withdraw money so they’ll feel like they need to get something out of it before letting you get your money. In other words, the best thing that you can do is to check the terms and conditions of your bookmaker of choice.
Why You Might Want To Withdraw Your Deposit
The first question that you might be wondering is why you would want to withdraw money without having placed a bet. After all, the whole point of putting money into a betting account in the first place is so that you can place a wager, so it seems entirely against sense to put money in and then take it straight back out again.
There are a number of innocent reasons why it might happen, including the idea that you’ve got accounts with several bookmakers and realise before betting that the odds are better with one of the others. You might therefore decide to put all of your capital with the one bookie in order to take advantage of these better odds.
It is also not out of the realms of the possible that you might have deposited more than you intended to, quickly realising your error and wanting to withdraw the excess money before you’ve placed a wager. Or you might have decided it is a better idea not to bet that money so you want to withdraw it.
Another reason you might choose to put money into your account without ever intending to use it for betting is in order to take advantage of an offer or feature that requires you to do so. You may want to play a ‘free’ game that requires you to have funds in your account. Likewise you might want to utilise the live streaming to watch a certain sporting event and you may need to have funds in your account to do that, but you don’t want to bet with them so you withdraw afterwards.
What The Bookies Will Let You Do
Most of the bigger well known bookmakers will allow you to withdraw a deposit without having placed a bet, no questions asked. The only thing that they will insist on is that your withdrawal method is the same as the deposit method that you used. This is in order to avoid any potential money laundering scenarios, with criminal gangs often trying to use bookies in order to launder their money. Obviously if you deposit money with a debit card that has expired by the time that you’re looking to withdraw then there will be something you can do, as an example of a possible situation.
There are some companies that will only allow you to make one withdrawal without having placed a bet, which they do in order to allow for situations where you might have deposited too much money by accident, say, or change your mind about opening the account in the first place. Once you’ve used up your one freebie, though, you’re likely to be charged money to make future withdrawals unless you’ve placed a bet. The easiest way to avoid charges is to wager some or all of the money and then withdraw what you have left after that. Of course, that involves risk, which may be the reason you wanted to withdraw your deposit in the first place. Unfortunately the only choice in these instances may be to bet or accept a withdrawal charge, which is why it is important to know the terms before depositing.
It is also worth being aware that minimum deposits and minimum withdrawal limits are not always the same. Some sites will offer say £5 deposit minimums but £10 withdrawal minimums. Here if you deposit less than £10 you wouldn’t be able to withdraw without incurring fees. It may be possible to deposit again to get that amount above £10 before withdrawing but only with sites that let you withdraw deposits for free without wagering them.
Why Companies Don’t Like It
Bookmakers exist to make money. They want your money, which is why they offer deals and promotions on a regular basis. The problem is, not everything that they do will allow them to make money, with processing withdrawals being high on the list. It costs betting companies money to process withdrawals, so they want to ensure that they get something in return for doing it. If you’re not placing bets, they aren’t getting their Edge from your betting and therefore processing your withdrawal costs them money for nothing.
It might seem to you as if you’re just one person asking them to withdraw a small amount, but if you can imagine the sheer number of punters that are trying to make withdrawals at any given time, the amount that bookmakers have to pay in fees soon adds up. For that reason, they are quite strict on how withdrawals work, so you need to be wary of what the terms and conditions of your chosen bookie are. There are ways to avoid falling foul of the fees, as mentioned already, but you need to know what the fees are first.
Transaction fees are also the main reason why you often see different deposit and withdrawal minimums for different payment methods. For example, you might see that PayPal has a minimum deposit/withdrawal amount of £10 when debit cards are only £5. This is because PayPal fees are higher so the minimums are raised by the companies to compensate. Similarly this is why you don’t see PayPal options with all sites because some bookies opt not to use it due to the fee levels reducing their profitability.
What The UKGC Says
The United Kingdom Gambling Commission is responsible for betting and gaming in the UK. They have strict rules around the withdrawing of deposits and deposit winnings. Players have to be informed that they can withdraw their deposit balance at any time, for example, which includes when a bonus is either pending or active on the player’s account. All companies have general terms and conditions, which must clearly reflect the right of withdrawal available to players during the sign-up process and once they’re signed up.
The UKGC is quick to point out that this right to withdrawal doesn’t mean that operators aren’t allowed to deduct a fee for processing it. Companies are also allowed to limit the size of withdrawals, especially if it appears as if the withdrawal that a punter is trying to make is less than their full deposit balance. The key factor is that it has to be done in accordance with the fair and transparent nature of the contract that the consumer agreed to when they opened their account. The fee also needs to be reasonable in relation to the cost incurred by the operator.
Here is what you might argue is the key section of what the Gambling Commission says on the matter:
“Operators must allow players to withdraw funds from their deposit balance, even if they are allocated to a bonus including when a bonus is pending or active in the account. We recognise that numerous small withdrawals can be costly for an operator, therefore, operators are not prevented from deducting a cost-reflective processing fee for withdrawals. However, this must be made clear to players before they deposit. Any charges for a withdrawal must not exceed the direct processing cost.”
The UKGC also outlines what operators are not allowed to do. They cannot, for example, add layers to the withdrawal process that mean that there are wagering requirements in place if a customer is playing with the balance that they got from their deposit. Wagering requirements can be asked for, but only on bonus winnings and the winnings made with the customer’s own funds can be withdrawn at any time, regardless of how much or of how little a punter has played. It is also key not to mix together funds from deposits and bonus balances when displaying how much customers have in their accounts.
The Gambling Commission offers examples of the sorts of things that companies can’t do, which includes saying something like ‘Your withdrawals are limited to one per day and no more than five per week’. Equally, betting sites are not allowed to tell customers that they are only allowed to withdraw up to £5,000, for example, ‘once you have wagered your original deposit. Similarly, customers cannot be told that they need to wager their deposit ‘five times’ before ‘making any withdrawals’. Any sentiment along those lines would fall foul of the UKGC’s rulings on the matter.
What Might Stop You Withdrawing ?
There are some legitimate things that might stop a company from allowing you to withdraw your winnings. The first and most obvious one is if there is some sort of unusual activity noticed on your account, which will be flagged up by the betting site’s computer system for investigation. This is usually down to companies fearing some form of money laundering taking place, but it isn’t right if a site is trying to hold onto your money ‘unnecessarily’. Regardless, it is import that companies flag everything up in their Ts and Cs.
If you have deposited but you have not verified yourself fully you may be stopped from withdrawing while they ask you for relevant documents. These checks are mandatory for betting companies in the UK. These days the checks are carried out before you are allowed to deposit and bet but in the past they were not. If you have money in an old account you want to withdraw they may need to now verify you first.
If you cannot withdraw your winnings and you think you are being stopped from doing so unfairly, you can make a complaint. As with any complaint about a gambling company, it has to be made to them directly initially. It is only after you have done this and they have exhausted all possible solutions that you can take your complaint further. You will need to follow the complaints process, which actually doesn’t involve the Gambling Commission. Instead, you’ll want to look to an Alternative Dispute Resolution service.