When the internet first came into mainstream use, poker was one of the first games to go digital, striking a chord with early internet adopters.
In the nearly three decades since the game has gone from strength to strength online and is now a multi-million dollar industry in its own right. There’s a huge number of operators competing to attract players with enticing poker promotions and innovative new features. Whilst there is little innovation to be had in the historic game itself, that doesn’t mean that the world of online poker is without innovation at all.
In recent years the payment methods widely accepted for online poker games have increased and expanded to include a whole range of previously unthought-of of payment methods.
In this article we take a look at some of the newest forms of payment methods and analyse whether they are convenient and worth using, read on to find out what they are.
Crytpocurrency
Thankfully the days of listening to men with bears drone on about the latest cryptocurrency that is definitely going to replace dollars and pounds are over.
That’s not to say that we don’t think cryptocurrency has its uses, it’s just to say that we were sceptical about the bold claims made by its biggest fans.
The main benefit of cryptocurrency is that it is one of the securest ways of paying for things online as it uses Blockchain technology. This technology never shares your private, sensitive data with merchants meaning there is 0 chance of your identity or financial details been stolen or sold.
There are a couple of downsides when it comes to paying with cryptocurrency though, the first of which is ease. It just takes a little bit longer to pay with crypto than it does with traditional payment methods which can be a pain if you’re trying to enjoy a casual evening of Texas Hold ‘em.
Secondly it’s a risky business. The value of your cryptocurrency can go up and down in ways that traditional currencies just don’t tend to do. Although something of an extreme example, the tale of Laszlo Hanyecz who bought two Papa John’s pizzas with 10,000 Bitcoin in 2010 should serve as a cautionary tale to all those wanting to wager with crypto.
To put that into perspective, Hanyecz could have kept hold of those Bitcoin and sold them for just over $610 million in November of 2021.
Bank Wire
If you want to go old school you can fill up your online poker account by bank wire. Whilst this method has the highest limit the downsides are that all it takes is one slip of the finger to enter the wrong details and pay the wrong person and the potential delays.
Although bank wires are usually instantaneous, they can take up to 10 days to verify and are known to be slower over weekends and public holidays. So unless you’re making a large bank wire to cover a couple of months of wagering or even a year, we’d advise you to instead use something a little more practical
PayPal
Digital wallets like PayPal are super safe and super secure ways of buying and selling things online. That’s because they act as intermediaries between you and the company you are buying from and as such, don’t share any of your sensitive personal data.
PayPal also gives you a lot of extra safety and security measures which you might not get from other payment methods. The downside though is that PayPal’s benefits are largely covered by faster and easier to use payment methods such as…
Apple and Google Pay
The final payment methods that we are going to cover in today’s article are two incredibly easy to use and safe payment methods. Choosing which one to use ultimately comes down to your choice in mobile phone. If you have an Android Google Pay is your option and if you have an iPhone, Apple Pay will be your weapon of choice.
Like PayPal, both of these payment methods don’t share any of your private information with vendors. When you make a $40 deposit with your online poker provider and pay through Apple of Google, your provider will receive the equivalent of a voucher which they can cash for the value of $40.
So at no point will they receive your bank details, which is what makes Apple and Google Pay so secure. Overall it would be our preferred payment method because of the aforementioned security benefits and how easy it is to use – just double tap the home button and use Face ID.
