You’ve played some free poker and now you’re ready to gamble some real money. But how should you go about getting your cash into a poker account to bankroll your online play?
First things first, you’ll need to have a player account with the site you want to play at.
Sign up with the site and create a user name and password. Some sites will ask you to download their poker application at this point, which is often snazzier and packed with more facilities than playing through your web browser.
Once you’ve got an account, you just need to get some funds in there that you can build into a poker fortune. It’s not quite as simple as tossing a fiver onto the felt, but it’s not far off – and it’s reassuringly secure and controllable too.
Most major sites have a “cashier” option at the top of the browser, accessible by clicking “my account”. Hit that and then look for the option to “deposit” and you’re likely to have the following main options for cashing in…
Credit/Debit Card
Most poker sites accept a broad range of credit and debit cards. Quite simply, you enter your card details to deposit a one-off sum to your poker account. You can save your card details there if desired, so you can deposit again in future.
It’s common for sites to have a minimum deposit amount, usually around $10 (be prepared to see your pounds turned into Uncle Sam’s dollars, the international currency of poker, at many sites), but there shouldn’t be a fee to deposit the cash.
From this point on, your deposit is stored securely by the poker site itself, as will any winnings you add to your bankroll. If you’re concerned that you’ll be tempted to loosen your purse strings and replenish your account too often, there are also options to set a limit of how much you can deposit in one period of time.
At this point, before we continue to look at other options of cashing in, we should take a moment to have a brief look at…
Cashing out
We’re going to be playing winning poker, of course, so there’ll be some lovely cash to take out and return to your bank account now and again. You can access the “cash out” option in a similar way to the “deposit” facility, via the cashier.
But bear in mind that this is often not as swift as paying in. Sites can make you wait a few days from the point of requesting a cash out to receiving the funds – they do this to prevent fraudulent activity. There are also limits on how much you cash out at a time, and how many withdrawals you make in one time period.
Coming back to credit and debit cards… some cards won’t allow you to be credited more than you were debited – so check the rules governing your card if you’re unsure whether you’ll be able to get your deposit and your winnings.
If the site cannot credit your card beyond your original deposit amount, they will arrange another form of payment (eg a cheque) to pay you the rest of the money. But it is for this reason that some people prefer these alternative pay in options…
Online wallets
Also referred to as eWallets, these are effectively go-between accounts that sit between your bank account and your poker account and allow you to securely and directly transfer funds back and forth without the use of a credit or debit card (though you can set it up to link to those as well if you want).
Some commonly used eWallets on major poker sites include Paypal, NetTeller, Moneybookers and ClickandBuy. You just have to sign up with one, deposit funds directly from your bank account and then you can use it to fuel your poker account in a less cumbersome way than with your credit or debit cards.
Some eWallets do charge a fee for each transaction, so check out their terms before signing up. But you won’t face the cash out restrictions that can crop up with debit cards, and you could use your eWallet to move funds quickly between poker sites to take advantage of any tasty sign-up bonuses you see elsewhere.
Wire transfer
As a third option, you can instruct your bank to set up a direct transfer to the bank account of the poker site, the details of which should be available on the payment section of the site or by contacting customer services.
Once this is done, payments can be made instantly and cash outs are again free from the restrictions that affect some credit cards. But transactions carry a fee, which means it’s probably more cost effective for you to use an eWallet anyway.
The wire transfer is more of an option for high rollers who may wish to shift large sums between accounts at short notice, but you should be aware it’s available to you as a cash-in option too.
Finally, whichever way you chose to put money into your poker account, be aware that some poker sites have a policy of charging a fee – automatically taken from your bankroll – if your account is inactive for several months at a time.
Not that this is going to effect you of course, you’re going to be playing and cashing out your profits regularly!
So you now know how to pay money into a poker site. But you may not know where you want to play and where you want to open an account. Read Finding the right site.
