Bookmakers Mastercard

What is Mastercard?

Mastercard is a payment network, not a bank. It does not issue cards: your bank or a card company does, and the card carries the Mastercard mark because the issuer belongs to the network. When you deposit at a bookmaker, Mastercard carries the authorisation request from the bookmaker’s bank to your bank and the answer back. What the card costs you, from the annual fee to the exchange rate, is decided by the issuer.

The network began in 1966, when a group of US banks formed the Interbank Card Association; the card became Master Charge in 1968 and MasterCard in 1979. Mastercard bought the Cirrus ATM network in 1985, launched Maestro in 1991, merged with Europay International in 2002 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2006. Mastercard Incorporated has its head office at 2000 Purchase Street in Purchase, New York; in Europe the scheme is run by Mastercard Europe SA in Waterloo, Belgium.

The figures on mastercard.com give more than 210 countries and territories, more than 150 million acceptance locations and 3.5 billion Mastercard and Maestro cards in circulation; the network processed 159.4 billion transactions in 2024. For a bettor the card has two uses: a deposit that lands at once, and, with a debit card, a withdrawal that comes back to the same card.

How to get a Mastercard and use it at a bookmaker

1. Choose the kind of card. A debit Mastercard draws on your bank account and is the card that can receive payouts. A prepaid Mastercard is loaded before you spend; register it, because Mastercard’s Zero Liability promise does not cover unregistered prepaid cards such as gift cards. A credit card borrows the money: it is refused for gambling in the United Kingdom and Australia, and elsewhere the issuer may bill the deposit as a cash advance.
2. Get it from an issuer, not from Mastercard. Mastercard does not issue cards. You apply to a bank or a card company; the Find a card section of mastercard.com lists the credit, debit and prepaid cards on offer. The issuer sets the fees and the spending limits.
3. Set up Identity Check with your bank. Mastercard Identity Check is Mastercard’s version of 3-D Secure, built on the EMV 3-D Secure 2.0 standard. You confirm an online payment with a one-time code or biometrics: a code sent by SMS that is valid for a few minutes, a fingerprint or face scan on the phone, or a prompt in the bank’s app. Which of these you get is set by the issuer, in its app or on its site.
4. Add the card in the cashier. Choose Mastercard, or Card, in the deposit page, type the 16-digit number, the expiry date and the three-digit code on the back, then the amount. Bookmakers ask that the name on the card matches the betting account, so that winnings can go back to the same card.
5. Confirm the deposit. Identity Check runs in the background: Mastercard’s own figure is that nine transactions in ten pass without a prompt. When the bank wants proof, it asks for the code or the biometric check on your phone. Once it answers, the money is on the betting account at once.

What it costs

Three parties can charge you on a card deposit, and Mastercard is the one that does not. It publishes no fee for a cardholder’s purchase: its consumer FAQ sends every question about charges, from ATM fees to currency conversion, to the issuer of the card. Bookmakers rarely add a fee on card deposits. The costs are at the issuer, and they depend on which card you use and in which currency.

What a Mastercard deposit and withdrawal cost

Read on 19 October 2026 on mastercard.com: the consumer FAQ, the currency converter page and the Zero Liability page. Mastercard publishes no figure for what issuers charge; the cash-advance figures are those reported by the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on 16 December 2024 for American cards. For a European card, read the card’s own tariff: the foreign-transaction fee and the cash-advance fee are in it.

Deposit and withdrawal times

Deposits are instant. The bookmaker’s bank sends the authorisation through the Mastercard network to your bank, which answers in seconds, and the amount is on the betting account as soon as Identity Check has cleared it. The minimum and maximum are the bookmaker’s card limits and the daily limit set by your issuer.

Withdrawals come in two stages. First the bookmaker approves the request, from a few minutes to a few days depending on the operator and on whether your account is verified. Then the money travels back to the card in one of two ways: as a push payment through Mastercard Send, now part of Mastercard Move, which Mastercard says makes funds available in near real time in more than 200 countries and territories and lists gaming and gambling payouts among its uses; or as a refund of the original deposit, which the issuer posts in its own time, a figure Mastercard does not publish. Not every bookmaker can pay every card: where its payment provider cannot credit yours, the payout goes by bank transfer to an account in your name.

Where you can use it

Mastercard is accepted in more than 210 countries and territories and at more than 150 million locations, so the question is not whether the card works but whether your country lets you bet with it and with which kind of card. Four rules matter.

• United Kingdom. Since 14 April 2020 gambling businesses may not accept credit cards, online or in a shop, and the Gambling Commission expects them to check that money paid from an e-wallet was not loaded from a credit card. Debit Mastercards are allowed; the only exception for credit cards is lottery tickets and scratchcards bought in a shop alongside other goods.
• Australia. Since 11 June 2024 online and telephone betting services may not take credit cards, “funds linked to a credit card (including digital wallets)” or digital currency; lotteries are exempt. Debit cards are allowed.
• United States. Credit cards are not banned, but the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that the main issuers treat bets as cash advances and that Bank of America and Wells Fargo say they may decline internet gambling transactions. A debit Mastercard avoids both.
• Europe. Mastercard Europe SA, in Waterloo, Belgium, is Mastercard’s company for the EEA, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. Maestro, the debit brand Mastercard launched in 1991, is listed on its own in bookmaker cashiers and has its own page here.

Whether a cashier lists Mastercard also depends on the bookmaker’s licence and on its card acquirer: a few of the bookmakers reviewed on Betandlink take Visa and not Mastercard, and one does the opposite.

Mastercard and welcome bonuses