PayPal enables any business or customer who has an email address to conveniently, securely and cost-effectively receive and send funds online.
Generally speaking, all major UK online poker rooms accept PayPal. Players in the US are going to find that many Curacao, Panama and Costa Rican licensed poker sites do not accept PayPal. Australian and players based elsewhere in Europe will have a hit and miss experience with PayPal poker sites, depending on the poker room they decide to play at. A few real-money poker sites do accept PayPal for deposits and withdrawals. My current top pick is 888 Poker, although you should check the list on this page for the up-to-date list. Can USA players use PayPal for online poker? PayPal is not available to any US-facing poker.
The PayPal network is built on the prevailing financial infrastructure of credit card and bank companies to create a globally accepted payment solution that processes payments in real-time and deliver a product that is ideal for online merchants, individuals, small businesses, and others that are underserved by current payment mechanisms.
In recent years, the company has successfully grown into one of the leading payment methods of purchasing goods and services online.
PayPal, with its hassle-free method of withdrawing funds, purchasing online, and lightning-fast payouts, is no stranger to the online poker community either. We walk you through the rich history of PayPal and include how the company transformed into one of the leading payment methods we all know today.
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We also explain in detail how you can register a PayPal account, reveal the advantages of using PayPal, as well as include a handful of e-wallet alternatives that you can use in the same way as PayPal.
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PayPal was established in 1998 as Confinity, a renowned company that developed security software for both mobile devices and palm pilots. Luke Nosek, Ken Howery, Max Levchin and Peter Thiel formed the company, and in 1999, the company launched PayPal as a currency transfer service through Confinity which was financed by John Malloy, co-founder of BlueRun Ventures.
In March 2000, Confinity joined forces with the renowned X.com, an online banking-based business that was established by Elon Musk. Musk was very enthusiastic about its development and success of Confinity and currency transfer services. Bill Harris, the president and CEO of X.com at that point in time, and Musk disagreed with the Confinity merge which ultimately saw Bill Harris leave X.com in May 2000. By October 2000, Musk chose to close X.com and all other banking ventures to focus purely on PayPal. In 2001, the X.com was re-branded as PayPal and saw rapid expansion within a year. In 2002, the executives made the decision to take PayPal public with its initial listed at $13 a share, generating more than $61 million.
PayPal
After PayPal’s initial public offering, eBay acquired the company for a staggering $1.5 billion in 2002 along with a price per share of $23, or 76% above the IPO price. More than 70% accepted payments through PayPal in auctions through eBay and every one in four online auctions was transacted through PayPal.
PayPal quickly became used by most eBay customers in a very quick period of time.
The payment solution competed with BidPay, a Western Union company, Billpoint, Yahoo’s Paydirect, Citibank’s c2it, and Google Checkout, all of which closed as time passed.
PayPal managed to acquire VeriSign payment solutions in 2005 to offer additional security support, as well as enlarge its e-commerce business. PayPal then announced a partnership with credit card processing company Mastercard in 2007, thereby leading to the introduction of PayPal’s Secure Card services that allowed customers to make payments online to businesses that did not accept PayPal directly. This was achieved by creating a Mastercard number that was unique for single-use in each checkout. By the end of 2007, PayPal managed to generate more than $118 billion in revenue.
In January 2008, the company acquired Fraud Sciences, a company with expertise with internet risk tools, for over $170 million to ultimately increase the fraud management system of the company. In November 2008, PayPal also acquired Bill Me Later, a famous online payment solution company offering transactional credit to over 9,000 merchants online in the U.S. In the first quarter of 2009, PayPal’s revenue was more than $643 million. In addition, the combined value of online transactions was nearly $16 billion, an overall increase of more than 10%.
In 2010, PayPal has acquired in excess of 100 million customers, supporting more than twenty-five currencies that catered to over 190 markets. During 2011, the famous hacktivist group, known as Anonymous, faced charges for the disruption of PayPal operations. The attack occurred in December 2010, after PayPal stopped processing donations to Wikileaks. In December 2013, thirteen alleged members of the hacktivist group plead guilty to a misdemeanour and felony charges that related to the attack.
In 2011, PayPal announced that it will move its business operations offline in order to allow customers to make PayPal payments in land-based retail stores. In August 2012, PayPal announced a partnership with Discovery Card, allowing PayPal payments to be accepted at the 7 million stores owned by Discovery Card. As 2012 came to an end, PayPal’s total transaction value exceeded $145 billion.
In 2013, PayPal acquired both Braintree, a Chicago-based payment solution gateway and IronPearl, an engagement software company, to further product development and mobile services. In June 2014, David Marcus, PayPalès president at the time, announced that he was resigning from his role as president of PayPal. Shortly after that, Dan Schulman was appointed CEO of PayPal, a man who had previously served as the CEO of Virgin Mobile and Executive Vice President of American Express.
It was announced in September 2014 that PayPal will be separated from eBay into an independently traded company. The spin-off was concluded by July 2015 and saw Dan Schulman as President and CEO along with John Donahoe, a former CEO with eBay, as chairman.
In July 2015, PayPal announced that they will acquire the Xoom Corporation, a company specialising in digital money transfer. The deal strengthened the company’s international business thanks to gaining access to over 1.3 million Xoom customers in the U.S.
In September 2015, PayPal announced the launch of PayPal.Me, a peer-to-peer platform for online payments. This service permitted customers to send a custom link in order to request money through texting, email, and various other messaging apps. This service was introduced in 18 different countries.
PayPal is simple to use, but first, you will need to register for a PayPal account. Once you have created your PayPal account you are able to load funds into it through credit cards, debit cards or a bank transfer. You will then need to visit the cashier at the online poker site and select PayPal as your deposit method. Enter the amount that you wish to deposit. You will then be redirected to the PayPal site. You will need to login and complete the transaction. Your funds will reflect in your online poker account instantly.
PayPal is looked upon as the trusted and oldest online payment services to receive and send money online. To register with PayPal is easy and upon the registration process being completed, you can begin sending money immediately after your debit or credit card is linked with your PayPal account. To receive payments, you will need to link your bank account to your PayPal account, and doing so will allow for increased withdrawal limits.
You will first need to visit PayPal.com and register an account. This can be a personal account or a business account, and for those who wish to have both a business and personal account, PayPal will allow for this.
The process requires that you enter your personal information such as name, email address, D.O.B etc. In addition, telephone numbers will be required as will your address, postal code and a variety of other information pertaining to your identity. Thereafter you will be required to accept the Privacy Policy and User Agreement of PayPal. The final step to completing your registration includes your credit or debit card details. Once the registration process is completed, you will receive an email from PayPal to verify your email address.
To link your bank account with your PayPal account may require up to three days, so we recommend completing this step after the registration process is completed on the PayPal website. On the PayPal homepage, you merely need to click on the ‘Add a Card or Bank Account’ link where you will be directed to a page to link your PayPal account to your bank account. Simply state if it’s a chequing or savings account and provide the required information.
Those that have never tried PayPal before may be wondering why so many online poker players utilise their services. Therefore, we included several Paypal advantages that may see you starting using PayPal yourself.
After registering, you’ll be required to enter your credit/debit card information and banking information to make a one-time purchase on their secured system. Once completed, you won’t ever have to disclose financial information in the future.
You will no longer have to feel embarrassed when depositing funds at an online poker site only to be declined. PayPal allows you to register multiple bank accounts, credit cards, and debit cards and will automatically search for the funds through all your available accounts.
PayPal allows you to quickly, and conveniently, send money to friends, family, or colleges with a simply click of a button. This will save you both time and money, and help you avoid costly fees as oppose to using Western Union.
PayPal also offers an innovative app that you can download directly from the Apple iStore to deposit money in your online poker account while you are out and about.
Apart from PayPal, there is a range of other leading e-wallet options available to you that work in much the same way as PayPal. These include Neteller, ClickandBuy, Click2Pay, EntroPay, EcoPayz, eCheck and Paysafecard.
PayPal is the leading e-wallet service that is accepted at many reputable online poker sites. PayPal is a popular payment method because it is quick, convenient and secure.
The main benefits of using PayPal to make a deposit at an online poker room is that the funds are transferred instantly into your poker account and deposits are free. Also, PayPal allows you to make deposits and withdrawals with the same service making it convenient.
You will need to register for a PayPal account. Once you have opened an account you are able to upload money to the e-wallet through credit or debit cards or a bank transfer. This money then can be sent to the online poker site by visiting the cashier and choosing PayPal as your deposit method. You will then be redirected to PayPal where you will need to enter your username and password to complete the transaction.
Yes, you are able to withdraw winnings with PayPal, but withdrawals do take a little longer. A withdrawal using PayPal can take between 24 and 48 hours, but you should check this as poker sites may differ. With a withdrawal, you might be charged a small fee.
PayPal is safe to use and uses encryption on payments. If you have a dispute, they offer a Resolution Centre that can be used if you think your account has been hacked.
Almost everybody has a PayPal account already, don’t they? Whether you use yours for online gambling or shopping at online retailers such as Amazon, having a PayPal account is a must. There are ample poker sites out there on the net which accept this leading worldwide deposit option, and there are many reasons why you should want to use PayPal over other banking options when playing at your favourite online poker rooms.
Let’s look closer at Paypal poker sites
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Online banking options don’t really come much more famous than PayPal. This online e-wallet can be used by people across the globe, but only a handful of players will find PayPal accepted at poker sites. We’ll get into that in a little more detail, shortly, but first, let’s have a look at PayPal itself.
PayPal is an e-wallet, which means electronic wallet. It is a stop-gap between your bank and the place where you wish to purchase or deposit something. In short, you can transfer funds to your PayPal account from your bank, and then access those funds in the e-wallet to deposit at your favourite online poker sites without ever having to hand over your banking details to the poker room. This provides an added sense of security for players since at no point does the poker room know your bank account information. If the poker room were to be hacked – which is unlikely – nobody is getting hold of your banking information.
PayPal provides safe and secure deposits to and from your favourite poker rooms, it allows players the opportunity to make smaller deposits than they would otherwise be able to do with credit cards, and the good news is that most of you already have a PayPal account. Using this method at PayPal poker sites is a doddle…
Before you can deposit or withdraw with PayPal, you need to have a PayPal account. If you don’t already have one, you can sign up for one for free at PayPal’s website. Once you have linked it to your bank and transferred some funds over from your bank into your PayPal account, you’re armed and ready to play online poker with PayPal.
PayPal is ideal for players who want to play micro stakes, or just deposit small sums of cash to their online poker site account. By clicking on the banking section of your poker room and selecting PayPal as the deposit option, you can deposit anything from £10 (sometimes as little as £5) up to more sizeable sums. The deposit lands in your account instantly, and there are no fees for this transaction.
Withdrawals are also possible with PayPal. Have a look at the list of withdrawal methods available at your PayPal poker site and select PayPal. From there, you can select the amount you wish to withdraw. Provided you have fulfilled the wagering requirements from any bonuses you may have claimed at the PayPal poker site, your withdrawal should land in your PayPal account within 24 hours. There are usually no any fees for withdrawals, either. Once you have your winnings in your PayPal account, it is up to you if you wish to leave them there or transfer them over to your bank account.
Ordinarily, PayPal poker sites don’t charge fees for depositing or withdrawing to and from your account. However, that doesn’t mean to say that some poker rooms won’t, or that PayPal doesn’t charge fees themselves. Should a currency conversion be required (for instance, if you’re playing at a poker room which is offshore and doesn’t offer you local currency) you may find yourself charged with a small fee for that conversion.
A good number of the leading poker rooms will cover that charge for you, but not all of them. PayPal sometimes applies charges to deposit or withdrawals to and from your account, but this is rare and only really occurs with traders and business PayPal accounts, not the standard PayPal accounts that most players use to play at PayPal poker sites.
No. In fact, many online poker rooms do not. Given this, we would always advise that players check out the list of payment methods (particularly those for withdrawals) before they decide to sign up and play at any online poker room. There are, however, ample lists of PayPal poker sites out there which showcase all the leading poker rooms which accept this banking option.
Generally speaking, all major UK online poker rooms accept PayPal. Players in the US are going to find that many Curacao, Panama and Costa Rican licensed poker sites do not accept PayPal. Australian and players based elsewhere in Europe will have a hit and miss experience with PayPal poker sites, depending on the poker room they decide to play at. For UK players, though, none of this is of any concern.
There are many reasons why you may wish to use PayPal. As we’ve said, you can cut-out the risk that your banking details will be stolen when using e-wallets such as PayPal. That added sense of security and the rapid deposit/withdrawal times it brings are of instant appeal to players at poker sites. However, alongside PayPal poker sites, there are other e-wallets which also offer similar features, such as Skrill and Neteller, to name but a few. These are just as good (although Neteller is known to charge hefty fees) but neither is as renowned as PayPal, even if they are more commonly offered at poker rooms.
Yes, PayPal has an inherent mobile app for both iOS and Android users which allows you to deposit and withdraw money from your e-wallet using a smartphone or tablet.
This matter is treated differently across various countries, but overall PayPal does set a certain limit. Mainly, anyone over 18 can use it, although at some countries, users need to be 21 or older.
Not really. A few PayPal poker sites will actually offer players special alternative deposit bonuses if they happen to use PayPal, but not many. These bonuses often consist of a 10-15% bonus on top of whatever you deposit when you choose PayPal. Like we’ve said, though, these bonuses tend to be few and far between.
Absolutely. Even if you are hesitating about using PayPal at online poker sites, we certainly recommend you get a PayPal account. They cost nothing, and almost all major online retailers (such as Amazon) accept PayPal. Once you’ve got an account, you will quickly find that there is very little you cannot do with a PayPal account, including gambling at your favourite PayPal poker sites.