Why Do Minimum & Maximum Deposits Vary By Payment Method?

two piles of money different sizes in hands comparedThose of us that like to have a flutter will usually make deposits into our bank accounts in order to put ourselves in a position where we have a bankroll to place our wagers with. Unless we’re particularly successful, we’ll be making deposits much more often than we’re making withdrawals, so you might be wondering why it is that the amount that we’re allowed to put into our betting account and the amount that we can withdraw from it differs by the payment method that we use. There is no hard and fast answer to that, with each bookmaker having its own rules.

One thing we can tell you is that bookies tend to be charged for any banking transaction that they carry out, which is why they feel the need to add a minimum deposit amount, so that they can cover their backs. As for withdrawals, it is important for bookmakers to track money in order to ensure that they aren’t falling foul of money laundering by nefarious characters. On this front, banks are more robust that e-Wallets and the like, meaning that it is common for companies to limit e-Wallet withdrawals more than any withdrawals that customers are making with their bank account.

Varying Amounts Depending On What You Use

Payment Method Minimum Amount Maximum Amount
Bank Transfer £10 No Limit
Debit Card £10 No Limit
NeTeller £10 £5,000 Per Day
Skrill £10 £5,000 Per Day
PayPal £20 £200 Per Day
Trustly £40 No Limit

If you login to your betting account and head to the banking page, there is a good chance that you’ll be able to find some information about the minimum and maximum deposit amounts. You might find a table that offers the various banking methods available to you, perhaps looking something like the above.

As you can see, the minimum and maximum amount that you’ll be allowed to deposit can vary wildly depending on what it is that you’re wanting to spend your money on. The more traditional banking methods tend to have a much higher maximum withdrawal, if there is even a limit put in place at all.

The methods that are less-known, such as e-Wallets, will have a lower maximum withdrawal and even a higher minimum deposit. This can give some people pause for thought when it comes to deciding which method to use to get money into and out of their betting account.

The Closed-Loop System

closed loopYou can read about the closed-loop system that online bookmakers use in more detail elsewhere on this site. It is worth offering a quick explainer of it here, however, so that you can figure out what it is that happens when you place your deposits and try to make a withdrawal.

In essence, the key thing that you need to realise is that companies require you to take the same amount of money out of your betting account with the same method as you put in in the first place. In other words, if you deposited £200 with your debit card and won an additional £500, you’d need to withdraw at least £200 with your debit card before you could withdraw via another method.

This allows companies to ensure that people aren’t using their betting account for the purpose of money laundering, which is a major concern of the United Kingdom Gambling Commission. If you’d deposited £100 with your debit card and £100 with your Skrill before loading a PayPal account onto your betting account, you would need to withdraw £100 to Skrill and £100 to the debit card before you’d be able to withdraw anything to your PayPal account. You don’t need to worry about this, insomuch as your betting company of choice will tell you what you can and can’t withdraw and where you can and can’t withdraw it to.

Why Minimum Deposits Vary

illustration man cutting the word fee with scissorsThe first thing that we’ll look to answer here is why it is that some companies have different minimum deposit amounts for various methods to others. In short, it tends to be about how big the company is that you’re dealing with.

A company like Betfair, for example, is dealing with thousands of transactions a minute, meaning that they’re able to negotiate with the banks and e-Wallets a good deal when it comes to the fees that they pay for the processing of these transactions. A smaller company, such as a white label betting company, isn’t so lucky.

Because they are processing far fewer deposits, they need to ask for a larger minimum in order to be able to cover their own costs. At the same time, if a company such as PayPal decides that volume of transactions alone isn’t a good enough reason to offer lower transactions fees, then even the bigger companies will ask for a larger initial deposit.

Different companies will charge different transaction fees, which is why you can often see a different in minimum deposit amounts between providers, even when they are all, say, e-Wallets rather than regular banks.

Maximum Deposits Also Tend To Vary

giving money to someone elseOne of the biggest concerns of the UKGC is people using gambling as a means to launder money. It is a business that makes a lot of sense for money launderers, of course, given the sheer amount of money being moved between accounts at any given moment.

Companies that fall foul of the Gambling Commission’s rules and regulations on money laundering can be hit with high fines, so they do their best to ensure that they comply as much as possible. One of the ways that they can do this is by only allowing big transactions to be carried out with banks rather than e-Wallet companies.

Banks have much more robust systems in place for the tracking of money, being able to see when it is being moved from one place to another and where it ultimately ends up. e-Wallets, meanwhile, sell their businesses on being the best ones to use for people that want to keep their financial transactions private.

This robustness of the banks as opposed to e-Wallet creators leads betting companies concerned about money laundering to limit the withdrawals that can be carried out with e-Wallets at the same time as making it much easier to withdraw money to traditional banking methods.