What Is PayPal?
Although credit and debit cards are still the most popular way of funding online poker accounts, PayPal has gone widely popular over the past few years. The company was founded back in 1998 and currently can be used in 202 countries. PayPal accepts a total of 25 currencies so it’s no wonder a lot of poker players use it for deposits as well as withdrawals. In the first quarter of 2018, PayPal reported to have more than 237 million active accounts worldwide.
Setting Up Your PayPal Account
Creating your PayPal account will require no longer than several minutes. First, you will need to go to www.paypal.com and click on the “Sign Up” button. There are two types of accounts which you can make on their website – personal and business account. Since you will be using this for playing online poker, choose the “personal account” option. After that you need to fill in your name, email address, a password and your address. Once your account is set up, you can connect your PayPal to your bank or credit card.
Making Deposits and Withdrawals on PayPal Poker Sites
After the sign-up process, you can use PayPal to make deposits and withdrawals on your preferred poker website. To do this, simply navigate to your account page and click on “Deposit”. Here you will see a bunch of payment methods you can use. After selecting PayPal, you will be redirected to their website and be asked to log in using your email and password. From there, just type in the amount you wish to deposit, and the funds will be transferred to your poker operator almost instantly. After your deposit is accepted, you can start enjoying your next poker hand.
The similar procedure goes for withdrawals. Navigate to the cashier section of the poker website where you can collect your winnings and choose PayPal from the list of payment options. Select the amount you wish to withdraw and shortly thereafter you will receive an email stating that the money arrived to your PayPal account. While you can instantly use this money over the internet, moving it to your bank account will require several business days. There are also some fees involved with this action that we will talk about below in more detail.
Minimum/Maximum Amounts and Processing Time
The good thing about PayPal is that there are almost no limitations on how much money you can move around with it. The deposit and withdrawal limits will depend on the poker operator’s rules. Usual minimum deposits can be as low as $5 and the maximum withdrawal limits can be up to $20.000. Some sites have VIP memberships or loyalty programs that will allow certain number of players to exceed their withdrawal limits. The poker websites you can see listed here are some of the best for PayPal users as they have few limitations considering these limits.
As for the processing time, we already mentioned how both deposits and withdrawals are almost instant when using PayPal. However, once you get the money to your PayPal account and want to transfer it to your bank account, it may take several business days for it to arrive. This waiting time is usually determined by factors like your location and the bank you chose, but it can also be that the poker site might require some time to approve your withdrawal.
PayPal Poker Sites Transaction Fees
What separates the best from the rest when it comes to poker operators is that the top poker websites don’t charge any fees for transaction processes. Some websites do charge fees for certain amounts, but this is rarely the case with websites we review here. For the most part you can deposit and withdraw from our recommended poker sites using PayPal without having to pay any additional fees.
PayPal itself also doesn’t charge fees when making deposits or purchasing anything over the internet. However, when it comes to withdrawing money to your bank account, you can run into some small fees. The size of these fees will mostly depend on what country you live in and which currency you use. The fee will consist of a small fixed amount and a certain percentage of the sum you’re withdrawing.
The Downsides of PayPal Poker Sites
Overall, PayPal is a fast, easy, and reliable payment option for most poker players across the globe. However, there are a few disadvantages worth mentioning about this payment method.
Now, PayPal is fast for both depositing and withdrawing. If you want to use money on your PayPal for funding your poker account or purchasing stuff over the web, you will love it. However, if you want to have that money transferred to your bank account and collect it in cash, you will have to wait several days. While this might be standard for all e-Wallets, it’s still annoying.
Another issue with PayPal are its fees. A small fixed fee when withdrawing to your bank account is not that big of a problem, but the percentage fee of your sum can be damaging. If you’re withdrawing big sums of money you can lose tens, and sometimes even hundreds of dollars in the process. Nevertheless, this will depend on the currency you use as well as the country you are residing in, so make sure to inform yourself about these rules before making an account.
In some rare cases your PayPal account can be frozen. This might happen for instance if you’re getting some uncharacteristically large payments for a certain amount of time. However, these issues can be quickly resolved once you contact PayPal customer service. [1]
Although all poker sites we talk about here are considered safe and have no recent reports of fraudulent activity, a lot of players are still a bit hesitant to leave their banking account details to them. If you are one of those players and you don’t like to spread your financial information around, then PayPal can be very handy. More so, almost all major poker websites accept PayPal as a payment method. Another thing that’s great about PayPal is that you can connect it with several different cards and bank accounts.