If you enjoy taking advantage of online poker room bonuses (hopefully ours!), then you’ve no doubt been faced with the question that all poker bonus hunters have had to confront at some time or another… which payment processor should I use?
The easiest way to fund your account, wherever you might reside, is by using your MasterCard, VISA, Amex or other accepted credit cards. However, if you plan to make any withdrawals (and we hope you do) you will find that this becomes an issue. If you are lucky enough to be using a credit card which allows reversals/credits, that might work, but you are probably going to be subject to some fees and more importantly, foreign exchange costs (usually 2.5% taken off the top) if you are not dealing in the same local currency.
There has been a lot of recent shuffling in and out of major players in the payment processing world. Neteller and Click2Pay have very solid reputations and have been around since the beginning of online poker, but they have been dropped by a lot of major online poker rooms as payment options, for reasons we don’t pretend to understand. If you’ve already got an account with one of them, it’s good to use as a backup, but they will only issue you payment in Euros (€), so if you are playing in US$ on your site, you are again going to be faced with exchange fees (albeit much more reasonable ones than your credit card company will stick you with), plus they ding you with overinflated ‘handling’ fees for issuing cheques and for bank transfers. Nonetheless, moving money between (to/from) poker sites is free, and if you are making larger value transfers on a regular basis, the net costs are reasonable.
Moneybookers has become the defacto payment processor for nearly all online poker rooms, regardless of which currency you deal with. The beauty of Moneybookers (and to be clear, we have absolutely no arrangement with them so this is not a paid advert!) is that you can open your account in any currency. They do charge exchange fees when you are withdrawing from poker sites, but there are no additional fees. There are also no fees when making a deposit to a poker site. Further, the fees that Moneybookers charges when you make a withdrawal are very reasonable (~$5 or €3 to issue a cheque). They are also extremely efficient. Deposits to poker sites are immediate, and cash out are processed within 24 – 48 hours. Withdrawals by cheque are done within a week. Finally, the fact that literally every poker room uses them means that Moneybookers is a one-stop shop for your payment processing and lets you optimize your poker bonus strategy. To optimize your account and costs, you should try and ensure that you set up your poker accounts in the same currency (your local currency, if possible).
There are scores of other payment processors, but they tend to be much smaller and not widely used, and so tend to be one-off solutions for players who simply can’t use one of the above-mentioned processors for one reason or another. If you need to use another payment processor, our suggestion would be to get in and get out as quickly as you can. When you decide to cash out you might be better off just having the poker room transfer your payment directly, and stick with sites that use the major payment processors. Don’t leave money lying around with a processor that you are seldom going to use… you never know when the poker room might stop using them.
In the interest of full disclosure we should warn you that setting up your account at Moneybookers, Click2Pay, Neteller, etc. is a pain. They make you go through hoops to confirm that you are who you say you are, and will request anything from copies of utility bills with your name, driver’s license scans, passport (with photo) and will also require a preliminary deposit from a credit card or bank account, which requires you to provide additional personal information. It can be time consuming, but at least it’s not as costly as just using your credit card and worrying about cashing out later. Be proactive and set up your account with a payment processor first, and you’ll be much better off in the long run.