Alternatives for online poker withdrawals, deposits

NETeller and Citadel may have tucked their tails between their legs and scurried away from the U.S. market's online gambling customers, but there are still several ways for customers to continue depositing and withdrawing money from their online poker accounts.

Aside from those two, popular sites, there are other e-wallet options for players. What your options are may depend on what poker sites you prefer to use, however.

For instance, UltimateBet works with Click2Pay and ePassporte. Both online money transfer companies still work with U.S. customers who want to transfer money to online gambling sites.

PokerStars.com is also working with ePassporte, and in their payment options, the poker site recommends using that service for deposits as it is a "reliable, safe and convenient way to transfer money to your account."

ePassporte works as a pre-paid and re-loadable Visa Virtual Account. The customers ePassporte account is first loaded with money from a Visa, MasterCard or bank account, and then the customer can use it to transfer money to their online gambling account.

Click2Pay works in a similar way.

There are some good, old-fashioned ways to make a deposit in your online gambling account as well. A wire transfer or a bank transfer is one secure way. Many poker sites supply an address as well for you to send a cashier's check or bank draft.

Amazingly, some poker sites will even accept a personal check for your deposits.

Credit cards are another option, but it depends on who has issued the cards. Many lenders in the United States have blocked the use of credit cards for online gambling sites.

Those that do still allow you to make payments to a gambling site may not let you put money back on your cards from the same site if you want to withdraw your poker winnings.

That seems to be the area most affected by the pullout of NETeller and Citadel. It's still pretty easy to get money to a poker site, but not so easy to get it back.

The most popular way to handle the matter right now is for poker sites to issue paper checks to customers who want to withdraw money from their accounts.

"At this time, the only other regular cashout method available to U.S. customers is by check," PokerStars.com said on their site. "The minimum cash out by check is currently $50. All checks over $1,000 are sent by courier; smaller checks are sent by regular mail, but can be sent by courier if you pay a $25 fee."

UltimateBet issued a similar statement on their site saying that along with PokerStars.com and Full Tilt Poker, they too were only able to send out paper checks for withdrawals at the moment.

"That may change (it's something we at UB are working on as I write) and we'll of course keep you posted as events warrant," a message on the UltimateBet site said.

Paper checks are the predominant option for withdrawal, but some sites such as Mansion Poker still have a bank transfer option for funds.

What it comes down to is that U.S. poker players will still be able to play online and still get their money. Right now the only thing affected is how many options they have to do it and how fast those options are.

courtesy of Sarah Polson

News Added: 21 January, 2007

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