Bookmakers Payment Methods

Visa and Mastercard: how to get a card for betting

Visa and Mastercard are in 55 and 52 of the 65 cashiers on this site, so a card in your name is the one method that works almost everywhere. Neither company issues cards: a bank or a payment institution does, and that is where you apply.

• A debit card from your bank account. Every current account comes with one, usually free or for a few euros a year. It is the card bookmakers pay winnings back to, so the account must be in your name.
• A card from an online bank. Revolut, Wise, N26, bunq, Monzo and the others open an account from the phone in minutes and issue a Visa or Mastercard debit card, with a free plan, low exchange mark-ups and, at several of them, a gambling block you can switch on yourself. The online banks page compares them.
• A prepaid card. Sold by banks, post offices and payment companies, loaded in advance, with no account behind it. It works for deposits; a payout to a prepaid card is often refused, and the bookmaker then pays by bank transfer.
• A credit card. Refused for gambling in the United Kingdom since 14 April 2020 and in Australia since 11 June 2024, and elsewhere often billed by the issuer as a cash advance with its own fee and interest from the first day. A debit card is the safer choice everywhere.

Whatever the card, the bookmaker will ask for 3-D Secure (Visa Secure, Mastercard Identity Check) on the first deposit, and a copy of the card with the middle digits hidden before the first withdrawal.

Online banks for bettors

An online bank gives you the card, the IBAN for payouts and the exchange rate in one app, without a branch. For a bettor the questions are four: which card scheme it issues, what the plan costs, how much the exchange mark-up is when the bookmaker bills in another currency, and whether the bank lets you block gambling payments yourself.

The online banks page answers them for Revolut, Wise, N26, bunq, Monzo, Starling and six more, with the fees read on their own sites.