What do the following poker sites have in common? All of them…
- Accept credit cards.
- Process deposits instantly.
- Deliver cashouts promptly.
As Fast and Simple as Ever
- You get the money instantly. By making an online poker deposit with a credit card, you’ll have the money on your player account instantly and it only takes a little work (enter your card details to the deposit form).
- Using credit cards is cheap. Other deposit methods are relatively expensive but credit card deposits are usually processed at no cost from the online poker site (or as in Ignition’s case, for a 5-7% fee).
- It’s convenient. Using credit cards is the most convenient way to deposit money to US internet poker sites.
Can I Use Credit Cards for Online Poker?
Yes. In fact, all major online poker rooms accept credit card deposits, although there are three things that influence the success rate of your online poker credit card deposits:
- Brand:
Poker sites accept VISA cards more often than others, Mastercard the second most often and American Express the least often. - Location:
US-based players have their credit cards accepted less often than players from outside of the US. - Card type:
Confirm that your credit card is eligible for international purchases and online purchases – otherwise the deposit will fail.
Even though you’d have the best of everything, you’re still not going to see a perfect success rate (but it doesn’t hurt to try).
What’s the Best Credit Card for Online Poker?
VISA is available at all credit card poker sites. From what I’ve heard, it also seems to have the highest success rate with deposits, which is probably the reason why it’s accepted everywhere. Therefore VISA is the best credit card for online poker in the US and elsewhere.
Mastercard has made quite a comeback to online poker sites and is now accepted at three rooms in the list above, although only of them accepts USA players. American Express (Amex) credit cards disappeared from all US poker sites at one point but have since returned to one USA-friendy poker room.
Prepaid Credit Cards
When you’re unable to deposit via standard credit cards, a prepaid VISA card may work for you. You can actually use a rejected VISA credit card to buy yourself a gift card for online poker or a pre-paid debit card for online poker.
As with standard cards, not all prepaid cards are going to work. The trick is to find the cards that do work and stick to buying them. Start with a small prepaid credit card in order to test if it works.
You can find prepaid credit cards for online poker by visiting VISA’s gift card locations. There are different kinds available; Green Dot, NetSpend and WiredPlastic cards come to my mind but there are even more. Always check the fees involved with the card before buying since they vary greatly.
How to Withdraw Credit Card Deposits
What is the best poker site for credit card deposits? The question demands a two-part answer, since it depends on the speed and reliability of both deposits and withdrawals.
See US poker payout report if you want help deciding which credit card poker sites to choose, since withdrawal times can be significantly different from site-to-site.
Usually, after depositing with a credit card, you have to withdraw via a check, and depending on the site you have to wait anywhere between one week and four months for the check to arrive.
You may have to sacrifice money for speed or the other way around. For example, Ignition Poker charges 5.9% out of VISA deposits, however, they provide some of the fastest check withdrawals. Some other credit card online poker sites may have low deposit fees but slow withdrawals.
Online Poker Without a Credit Card
You can play online poker with no credit card. In fact, all poker rooms have other payment methods available, so not to worry in case you have problems with getting your card to work or you don’t own a credit card to begin with.
We have two ways to play online poker without a credit card:
- Use other payment methods.
- Use no-deposit bonuses.
If you want to use other US poker payment methods and therefore play online poker without a credit card, you can choose between at echecks, MoneyGram® and Rapid Transfer at Ignition.
If you want to use no-deposit bonuses to fund online poker with no credit card, you can do that at some newer, less reliable poker rooms. And you usually have to deposit at some point in order to be able to withdraw what you’ve won anyway. (Zero of the bigger US poker sites offer no-deposit bonuses as of now.)
My Credit Card Doesn’t Work — What Can I Do?
Have you used an accepted credit card brand (listed on top of this page)? Even if you did, the success rate of online poker credit card deposits is less than 100%. The good thing is that you can try your credit cards and you lose nothing if the transactions fail to go through.
Additional methods are listed in the section above (“Online Poker Without a Credit Card”) and you should consider using pre-paid debit and gift cards as well. Netspend debit cards have worked well at Carbon so I’d start there; it’s the easiest way to deposit money to internet poker sites excluding credit card deposits.
More information on credit cards: