The easiest and fastest way to deposit money to an online gambling site is using a credit or debit card. Here’s a list of legit betting sites that accept credit cards.
The credit card industry is huge. Just in the U.S., credit cards were estimated to process $4+ trillion in 2014. Visa is the biggest credit card network with about 25% share of the market while MasterCard and American Express are second and third. There’s 300+ million Visa cards in circulation in the US alone.
Best USA Gambling Sites
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 | BetOnline$1000 Bonus | | Visit Site » |
Using a credit card is the easiest way to transfer money to a gambling site. Enter your card details and – boom – you’re done. The money is on your gambling account in an instant and, in case you live outside of the U.S., you’ll be able to withdraw the money to your card even faster (i.e. go to your gambling account’s cashier and click ”Withdraw”). The same goes for a debit card.
With a pre-paid card, you’re unable to withdraw money back to the card, although many sports gambling sites will send you their own pre-paid card with your withdrawal amount on it. And if not, online gamblers outside of the US have plenty of withdrawal options anyway.
Drawbacks of Card Deposits
Card deposits are an excellent option for those outside of the US. For online gamblers in the US, however, consider the following:
Possible Costs
While most sites process card deposits for free, two of the biggest US gambling sites – Bovada and BetOnline – charge significant fees (4.9% and 6%, respectively) for doing so. That alone makes many U.S. customers consider other options (all of which are explained here).
As mentioned though, it’s rare for credit card gambling sites to charge for a deposit. That type of behavior is essentially non-existent outside of the US market, but I recommend paying attention to this detail if you are from the US.
Security
If you’re like me, you’d rather not share your credit card details unless necessary. The downside of using a credit card to deposit money to a gambling site is, precisely, having to give the site your credit card information. You have to be dealing with one of the legitimate gambling sites to be able to trust them with your information, and even if the site is trustable, what if it gets hacked? Does it have the necessary security in place to stop the hackers from stealing your credit card details? I have no idea, and you’re probably in the same boat.
I prefer to use online payment processors – also known as ”e-wallets” – like Paypal, Neteller or Skrill because they allow you to deposit money to your e-wallet account and then use that account to money money to and from a gambling site. There’s no need to provide credit card details at any point.
The benefit of using a service like Paypal is that you can use it for all kinds of online purchases, therefore rarely having to submit your card details to any site even outside of gambling. They also allow you to track your spending and neatly keep all of your money in one place.
Acceptance Rate
The difficulty of having a card deposit accepted is a real consideration for online gamblers in the United States. In many cases, US gamblers are forced to use other banking methods since a card deposit fails to go through (again, a more thorough explanation here).
However, remember that even if a certain card is declined, other cards may process just fine. If you own multiple credit, debit or pre-paid cards, you might as well try the other ones even if the first card was declined (after all, the average U.S. citizen owns 3.7 credit cards).
Brands
Different brands of credit, debit and pre-paid cards are accepted at varying rates. Visa and MasterCard are accepted at practically all of real-money gambling sites (excluding Bitcoin-only sites which have gained in popularity recently) while American Express is a distant third popularity-wise. DinersClub may work every now and then.
Even if a gambling site lists Visa and MasterCard as accepted brands, though, some percentage of Visa and MasterCard deposits are going to be declined. The success percentage varies based on the gambling site and the brand of the card.
For example, many have reported that Vanilla Visa deposits are declined often (possibly 100% of the time), while there are several reports of Netspend Visa cards being accepted. The brand and type of a card makes a big difference.
Credit Card Fraud
Gambling sites that accept credit card deposits take a risk with each deposit. If a customer loses, he or she can simply reclaim the loss by issuing a chargeback, which is done by waiting for 24 hours, then calling the credit card company to notify them your card was ”stolen.”
Real-money gambling sites deal with this problem every day, and it’s likely one of the reasons Bovada and BetOnline charge customers for credit card deposits (4.9% and 6% fees, respectively). Perhaps they do it, at least partly, to cover the cost of credit card fraud, and to encourage the customer to use alternative deposit methods instead?
Most credit card betting sites, however, are willing to suffer losses due to fraud without charging customers for deposits – in fact, many consider Bovada and BetOnline greedy for charging anything at all, especially since a card deposit is the only sensible option for most of their U.S. customers.
