There are all sorts of things that people will weigh up when considering which companies to bet with. Obviously those that offer the best odds will be near the top of the list, as will how good their customer services seems to be. If you want to bet on an exchange then having access to one will be an important consideration. Another thing to think about is how quickly you’ll be able to withdraw your winnings when your bet comes home.
The majority of bookmakers offer a wealth of different banking options, but not all of them offer every available choice. If you want to be able to get your money out as quickly as possible then those with eWallet options are the best, even though moving your money from the eWallet to your account adds time to the process. Debit cards are also improving in speed with every passing day, week, month and year.
The Different Withdrawal Options
There are many different options when it comes to getting money withdrawn from your bookmaker, which is why it’s important to weigh them up and make sure that you sign with a bookmaker that offers the one that matters to you the most. Debit cards and bank transfers remain the most popular, with virtually every trustable bookmaker offering them both as one of the main options for depositing and withdrawing money.
eWallets have increased in popularity year-on-year, which is why many bettors have at least one eWallet available to them to help them move money around between their betting accounts. They’re fast to get money from your bookmaker of choice, but not necessarily the quickest way of getting said money into your bank account, which is why most punters use them for transfers rather than withdrawals.
Here’s a look at each of the different options, alongside the pros and cons of using them:
Debit Card
Using the debit card that you’ve been sent by your bank is one of the best ways to pay for things online. Aside from anything else, the moment that you pay for something or use a debit card to transfer money to a betting account, it shows up on your bank statement. This means that you’ll know exactly how much money you have available when you check your bank balance and won’t need to wait for payments to be processed.
Money is added to your account from your debit card virtually immediately, which is why it’s such a common payment method. Betting companies have also worked hard to improve the payout time from their accounts to your debit card, with some getting fast enough to mean that you’ll often receive your payout within an hour or two, if not faster. This is especially true of mainstream betting companies.
The downside to using a debit card for your banking is that you lose some of your anonymity. There are all sorts of reasons why someone might not want to have a betting company’s name show up on their bank account statements, but if you use a debit card then you’ve got no choice in most cases. It doesn’t matter to everyone, but those who it does matter to will consider it to be a dealbreaker.
PayPal
There are a wealth of different eWallets that you can use to deposit money into betting accounts, with PayPal remaining one of the best known. More and more bookmakers are willing to accept deposits made via PayPal and withdrawals to it as a method, which is great because payments are normally done on the same day. Indeed, in the vast majority of cases the money will move between services immediately.
The problem with PayPal when it comes to withdrawals is a problem that is encountered by most, if not all, eWallets: they are separate from your bank account. In other words, you ask to put funds onto your betting account with PayPal and you get them immediately, but it takes a couple of days for PayPal to move that money, meaning you might have a false idea of how much money you’ve actually got in your bank account.
The same is true of transactions done the other way, too. You make a withdrawal from your betting company of choice to your PayPal account, but you then need to move it from PayPal into your bank. This can take a couple of days to process in some cases, meaning that it’s not actually the betting company you use that’s stopping you from accessing your money as quickly as possible but PayPal’s internal systems.
If, however, you don’t take money back out of an eWallet and instead use it to fund other purchases then it is the fastest way to withdraw.
Other eWallets
Whether it be NeTeller, Skrill or some other option, there are a host of eWallets out there that are a really good way of moving your money around. The chief benefit of such a payment method is the anonymity that it provides, allowing you to keep your banking information private and away from the grasp of betting companies. It’s not that you should be wary of such companies having your information, but some people like to keep things separate.
In most cases, you’re talking a couple of hours to be able to get the money into your eWallet, but it depends entirely on the bookmaker that you use. Some can be virtually immediate, others can take up to two days to make the transfer. eWallets are one of the quickest ways to make the transfer but, as we explained when talking about PayPal, the transfer from your eWallet to your bank account may take longer.
The other reason you need to be wary of using eWallets for betting is that most bookmakers don’t allow customers depositing money via eWallets to take advantage of welcome offers. There are many reasons for this, with the main one being that it’s difficult to stop a customer from taking advantage of an offer numerous times on different accounts if they use an eWallet, so bookmakers simply don’t allow it as an option.
Whether it be PayPal, Skrill, NeTeller or some other eWallet that you have chosen to use, there’s a very real chance that a bookmaker may charge you fees to deposit and withdraw money using that method. This is something that you’ll need to add into your consideration of which payment method to use, given that how much money you’re able to ultimately get into your bank account will likely be one of the deciding factors over the method you choose.
Cash Deposits
One of the most immediate methods of withdrawing money from a bookmaker is by doing so in one of the physical shops that they have up and down the country. Even after many of them closed their doors in the wake of the Fixed Odds Betting Machines maximum stake reduction, there are still hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of them up and down the country that you can pop into.
This means that you could be out in the pub with some mates, put a bet on a horse race, win and then go into the betting shop next door to receive the actual cash much as you would do with a cash machine. The problem, of course, is that not all bookmakers that operate online actually have physical shops that you can go into, so the amount of choice available to you on that front is decidedly limited.
There’s also the fact that many companies that do have high street shops that you can go into in order to withdraw your money want you to sign up to a scheme in order to be able to do so. Not everyone is happy when it comes to signing up to schemes that involve them giving over their personal details, so this might well preclude such people from using it as an option. If you’re happy to do, however, it’s probably the best method available.
It’s The Company You Use That Matter
Most of the time, it’s not actually the method that you choose that will limit how quickly you’re able to get your hands on your winnings but rather the bookmaker that you’re signed up with. Newer bookies, especially those that only operate online, will often take much longer than the bigger, better known companies out there. There are many reasons for this, including the fees that have to be paid for each transaction made.
Think about it; if a bookmaker has hundreds of thousands of customers then they will be able to better absorb the cost of making transactions, as well as come up with deals with the banking methods involved to reduce their fees and speed up their transactions. A company with only a few hundred customers, on the other hand, will not have the same access to deals and speedy transactions so things will be much slower.
If speed of withdrawal is something that matters to you then the best thing that you can do is deposit and withdraw money with a number of different bookmakers and see which ones are the fastest with your chosen payment method. Sometimes it might be a matter of having to accept lower odds for faster payments, or sacrifice quicker payment methods if you’re determined to get the best odds around.
Processing Time
This is the time it takes a betting company to process a withdrawal request and in many cases is the biggest time limiting factor. It can be quite hard to find the details of processing time on a betting site but if you ask via live chat they will usually tell you.
Processing time can vary from a matter of hours to 7 days and so it is important. Just because an eWallet withdrawal is instant when they authorise it, if they don’t press that button for 2-3 days then you are ultimately still waiting 2-3 days.
As a general rule of thumb the bigger operators tend to have quicker processing times, but not always. Processing times can also vary, e.g. can take longer at the weekend or during holiday periods.