Mastercard Casino Deposits
MasterCard is the second biggest credit card brand in the United States and the only threat to the hegemony of Visa. Unlike its competitor, MasterCard is a multinational cooperative of more than 25,000 financial institutions. The cards issued by these companies allow all kinds of people from all over the world to process payments between their banks and the banks used by the vendors that they opt to deal with. MasterCard is fairly popular among online gambling casinos due to the fact that making a deposit using this method is relatively easy and doesn’t require you to have an e-wallet account.
The biggest downside of depositing via MasterCard is the fact that you have to provide your operator with your credit card information and billing address, which might be problematic for people concerned about their anonymity. Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that all the high-profile sites do an excellent job when it comes to protecting your sensitive data, as any mistakes on their part would be immediately exploited by other online gambling casinos operating in this exceptionally competitive market. In fact, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that trusting one of the industry giants with this kind of information is pretty much as safe as trusting it to a bank.
Making a MasterCard Deposit
Transferring funds to your gambling site account using your credit card is no different from online shopping. Once you open the cashier menu, you have to select MasterCard as the preferred banking option, fill the form that will appear on your screen, confirm the amount of money that you’d like to transfer, and that’s basically it. Once you send the funds, you’ll have to wait a few minutes before the money actually goes through and becomes available. Most online gambling casinos process credit and debit card payments automatically, which means that MasterCard deposits are almost as fast as e-wallet services like Neteller or Skrill.
The biggest and most annoying drawback of using a MasterCard credit card is the fact that virtually no sites support MasterCard cash outs, so you’ll have to go through the hassle of picking an alternate banking option to complete your withdrawal. In the case of some US-facing sites, this might force you to choose between a traditional wire transfer and check by courier. Both methods tend to be rather expensive and slow, so you should always check for alternate withdrawal options before you actually transfer any funds to your site.
MasterCard Payments in the United States
American gambling enthusiasts have plenty of reasons to complain about the deposit methods available to them, as most payment processors were forced to withdraw from the US market due to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. The good news is that MasterCard payments are supported by most of the offshore US online casinos. The bad news is that MasterCard payments are extremely unreliable, as the card acceptance rates are simply atrocious when compared with their direct Visa counterparts.
As a result, any MasterCard deposit attempt is basically a coin flip. If you’re out of luck, your transaction will be blocked due to the fact that while the federal law doesn’t prohibit individual players from engaging in gambling online, it does explicitly prohibit financial institutions from processing gambling-related transactions. Consequently, transferring funds to your on-site account via MasterCard might require you to try numerous cards, which might get tedious after several failed attempts.
Fortunately, once you hit a card that works, odds are high that it will work on a subsequent approach. On a brighter note, MasterCard is still more reliable than American Express in this regard – but if you have a choice, you should definitely stick with Visa. Regardless of the brand, you have to ensure that your card has been cleared for international transactions, as none of the popular domestic-only cards will work.
Best Online Casinos That Accept MasterCard
Whether you live in the United States or in a country with rather lax gambling laws such as the United Kingdom, odds are high that the vast majority of online casinos, card rooms, and sports betting sites that you come into contact with will support MasterCard payments.
The card acceptance rate issues are pretty much exclusive to the US, which means that European and Asian gambling enthusiasts don’t have to consider stacking up on credit cards and prepaids to save time before actually attempting to fund their online accounts using this method.
Just like in the case of Visa payments, many smaller operators require their customers to follow rather strict minimum and maximum deposit rules. If you don’t want to play on one of the major network sites, you’ll usually be required to pay at least $5 but no more than $2,000 or $3,000. If you’re a high-roller, you’ll probably be happy to learn that many sites are willing to bend those rules to cater to returning customers, but usually you’ll have to make a standard deposit a few times to prove that you’re a reliable customer before you’ll be allowed to transfer more.
