PayPal is one of the most prevalent third-party payment services used across the globe. Here in Canada the service is a common alternative to sending and receiving money from one person or organization to another, and there are roughly six million users in Canada as of 2016 that take advantage of the service. Almost all online stores accept PayPal and all signs are showing the service is expected to continue growing in Canada. But when it comes to platforms offering online gaming, most notably online casino gaming for real money games such as blackjack, are Canadians able to use PayPal for making withdraws and deposits? In this article we answer this question head on and also provide some alternatives you may want to consider.
Is PayPal Accepted at Canadian Online Casinos?
The short answer to this is no but we should preface this by saying this answer has changed over the years. At large PayPal stays out of the way of how and what people use their services but when it comes to gambling the company’s policy has shifted largely due to concern of money laundering. You should not be alarmed to read this, as the casino sites we promote on this site are not associated with such practices, but know that like all industries there are scammers. Previously, one of the easiest ways for scammers to get receives payment without having to go through accreditation or oversight was through PayPal. This trend actually took place mainly throughout Asia in countries like China and Malaysia back in the early 2000s when fake casino sites were attempting to bank off Singaporean and Chinese gamblers. Although such examples were few and far in between, these developments were enough for PayPal to gain a bad reputation in parts of the world where the company was trying to strengthen its image. In order to avoid further controversy the company decided to discontinue payment options at online casino games across the globe, including hubs providing gaming to Canadians.
There was rebuttal from this in the online casino world and not so long afterwards PayPal re-instated that it was once again allowing its services to be used in places such as Canada where there was little or almost no blowback from scamming in the casino world. With this change operators were required to submit their company information, reports from organizations such as eCOGRA that oversee international gambling standards, and other documents showing that online casino providers were not attempting to abuse PayPal’s services. All seemed to go smooth but the company again changed its policies once acquired from eBay and since then has been changing its policies back and forth to the point where casino operators prefer not to offer their payment service. You would think PayPal would fight to keep its stake in this market since the online real money gaming sector is so huge but apparently it has enough business elsewhere.
Alternative Payment Options at Online Casinos
As a result of the constant changes at PayPal online casinos do not offer the payment service at large, at least that is the way with operators providing real money gambling to Canucks. We understand that perhaps your reasoning for using PayPal is to keep your casino funding, personal information or credit information separate and therefore recommend you consider other payment options. We should note though that you should not be concerned over your personal credit being affected or your identity somehow being at risk over fears of online gambling being illegal, as neither of these factors applies to Canadians. Online gambling both in terms of playing and funding is 100% legal.
Some of the most popular alternatives include:
- Credit Cards
- Debit Cards
- Entropay
- Wire
- E-checks
- Skrill
- ClickandBuy
- UseMyFunds
- Ukash
All of these payment methods have their pluses and minuses but in short are funded by your banking account one way or the other. The only question is how closely related do you want them to be. With debit cards there are a lot of pluses since the money is transferred both to and from directly to your account whereas third party services separate the direct info and therefore you need to take extra steps to both fund and withdraw from them. Canucks in fact like to use e-Checks quite a but credit cards are also very popular since banks offer protection should your info ever be leaked even though this is highly unlikely to occur.
Choosing the Right PayPal Alternative Casino
With PayPal or any other casino deposit method, this is the first step to getting started at an online casino after verifying your personal information such as name and address. The casino will ask you how much you would like to fund and you can then choose your preferred payment method. This funding remains in your account and you can use it to play whatever type of blackjack game or other casino game of your choice. Many players like to double up on games but since we like blackjack the most we keep things simple and switch between blackjack variants.
All of the casinos listed here provide a wide variety of payment methods that gained approval from each corresponding company such as Visa, MasterCard, Entropay etc. and therefore their transactions are tracked. Rest assured that no matter which payment method you go with you are in good hands.