MasterCard Online Casinos

The way you fund your casino account is an important issue for online casino customers. Security and safety in the industry has massively improved in recent years. However, you still need to keep your head on around any online payment. MasterCard online casino deposits included!

Players want a payment method that is fast, cheap (free ideally), and secure.

We think MasterCard is all of the things, or at least it can be if you follow our advice.

In this guide, we’ll explain what MasterCard is, how to find safe casino sites you can use MasterCard at, how to judge payment methods and casino sites for safety and value.

You see the MasterCard logo dozens of times every day and at almost every UK online casino site, where it is the most commonly used payment method with the exception of VISA.

We think you can use MasterCard safely and effectively at online casino sites.

Let’s have a look at how.

Best MasterCard Online Casinos UK

What is MasterCard?

MasterCard is payments services and banking brand. It is not just a debit or credit card any more.

For UK online casino users the relevant parts of the MasterCard empire are its debit cards and its prepaid debit cards, a newer addition to the stable that is specifically designed for the only world.

Credit cards, which MasterCard also produces, cannot be used legally in the UK to fund gambling. If you see a site that offers credit cards as a payment option then you need to turn around and run away!

MasterCard comes with great security and tech to help keep you safe, but it is not perfect, and you need to take precautions on your own account too.

Debit cards are a way to access your bank account with just a piece of plastic, using them online is incredibly easy: simply type in your details (your name, your long card number, the expiry date, the CV number) and your payment should be verified and sent as close to instantly as it’s possible to get.

Prepaid debit cards are slightly different. Instead of accessing funds in your bank account, the cards spend money that is “loaded” onto them in advance. The payments can be processed in a very similar way, but there’s a couple of advantages to these cards specific to the gambling industry that we’ll cover later.

How to Find MasterCard Online Casinos?

Payment methods are a big deal. No payment method – no online casino industry.

They’re also a big deal for players. If you don’t have the right payment method you simply cannot play at a casino site.

This means that casino sites are generally very keen to let you know what payment methods they offer.

In most cases, if you scroll down to the bottom of the front page you will find a list of logos of accepted payment methods.

You can also look for listings of sites prepared by casino review and industry news sites.

How to Find Safe MasterCard Online Casinos

Finding a site with a MasterCard logo on the front page is great. However, you should never take things at face value.

Welcome to the world of paranoia! Or, as we like to put it, welcome to the world of taking the basic precautions to keep yourself online when you play at online casino sites.

A licence is the first thing you need to look for at an online casino site. It is illegal to offer gambling services to anyone based in the UK without an up to date licence from the UK Gambling Commission.

Take the trouble to check the licence, which most sites offer a link to.

And have a good idea of how to spot a good quality, legitimate site.

Good sites give you lots of information before you sign up and hand over payment details. Good quality sites have a range of games and let you look around.

Legitimate sites will be members of industry bodies, show that they have good encryption on their front page, and provide the legally-mandated information on safe gambling. And they won’t offer credit card payments. It is legitimate to accept Bitcoin payments, but a site that offers only Bitcoin payments should be examined carefully.

Offers that look too good to be true may well be too good to be true.

All of these checks really only take a moment, but neglecting them and getting signed up at a scam site is extremely dangerous.

How to Assess MasterCard Payments at an Online Casino Site

If you find a safe site you can then go about seeing what payment method you want to use. If you only have a MasterCard debit card or MasterCard prepaid debit card then the choice is made for you. But most sites offer a wide range of payment methods and you should take a look at what each one offers.

This can usually be done via the FAQs page or the about page. A lot of sites list the payment methods they offer and the terms attached to them on a dedicated page. If the site you’re interested in doesn’t then maybe you should look elsewhere – there are literally thousands of UK online casino sites so you have plenty of choices.

A good guide to payment methods will tell you:

• What payment methods are accepted?
• What charges are made for depositing with each payment method?
• What charges are made for withdrawing with each payment method?
• The time taken to process withdrawals with each payment method. (Also deposits, but almost every deposit method is instant.)
• What deposit limits apply to each deposit method?
• What withdrawal limits apply to each deposit method.

 

That gives you a great start in working out which payment methods you want to use at any online casino website.

You need to remember that the charges described in these guards are ONLY the charges that are applied by the casino site itself. If there are charges applied by the payment processor – as is the case with PayPal for example – then you need to factor those into your decision making too.

The good news is that MasterCard debit cards should be accepted instantly, they should be accepted and processed instantly, they should also be amongst the fastest pay-out methods, often crediting your account instantly.

Before you accept any payment from an online casino site you should be asked to prove your identity to a high standard. Until you have done so you may well find your payments stuck in a pending state.

The documents needed to prove your ID are likely to be passports, driving licences, birth certificates and utility bills. This process is just one of the reasons that you need to use casino sites that take your security and data protection seriously, as these are the sorts of documents you want floating around the web.

With a debit card, you may need to provide a scan of the physical card as part of the ID process. Normally, you will be asked to blank out the central numbers of the long card number as a security measure.

Pending periods are the bane of the online casino customer. Players often feel they are unjust and unfair, but it’s important that casino sites stick to the law and keep an eye out for money laundering and other nefarious practices. Because MasterCard and other big debit cards are widely trusted there’s no need really for long-pending periods once you have proved your ID.

Keeping your MasterCard Debit Card safe at Online Casino Sites

A safe site is a good start. And now we’re onto your responsibilities.

Because a debit card is a way into your bank account you want to be very careful with it.

This is one of the reasons why some players prefer to use e-wallets or other online payment processors as their casino payment method. This puts a buffer between your bank account – which is likely to be how you pay your rent and your bills – and the online world.

There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to use your bank account safely if you take the right precautions though.

This means keeping your device up to date, using the latest antivirus, and making sure that all the programmes or apps on your device are up to date.

There are simple, physical things you can use too. Be careful how you show your device or screens around. Don’t use shared Wi-Fi. Make sure you log out of your accounts, especially if you are using a shared computer.

No password is safe if you lose it. No site is safe if you’ve used passwords across multiple sites and you then get hacked at the one site you don’t really care about.

You know all this stuff I’m sure, but you need to remember to actually do it!

Why MasterCard prepaid Debit Cards might be the Best Online Casino Payment Method

No article at this site would be complete without a long lecture on safe gambling. Sorry, it’s just the way we are. Gambling should be a fun pastime, but for some people, it becomes a genuine problem, and you want to make sure that you don’t fall into this category.

Safe gambling is the best way to keep your payment methods safe because unsafe gambling is one of the easiest ways to make your payment methods unsafe.

Chasing after money or ending up in debt and desperate for money is a sure way to start to cut corners. Scammers know this, so they target people who are after easy money or money that can be accessed without going through some of the safety processes that can feel like a drag but actually keep you safe.

Following the rules in the best way to stay safe!

Prepaid debit cards can be a useful tool in the service of safe gambling because they cut out one of the risks of online spending – a bottomless pit of money.

The reason why credit card gambling is now illegal in the UK is that it is too risky. Having access to money that you don’t yet need to fund is dangerous. This is one of the reasons why pay by phone apps that put charges onto a future telephone bill always come with the lowest payment limits.

While debit cards and e-wallets do not involve paying on credit generally, they can do. It’s very easy to pre-arrange an overdraft with your bank that means they will honour payments that put you in debt.

This could be one of the biggest advantages of using prepaid cards. Prepaid cards can put a hard limit on your spending, or on the spending of someone else. If you have a big red line over which you cannot pass then that’s a real positive for some players.

Should you Use MasterCard at Online Casinos?

We think there are a lot of good, positive reasons to use MasterCard casino sites.

MasterCard is a big protected brand and comes with a lot of security built-in. It is widely trusted.

MasterCard is instant or all but instant in the vast majority of cases.

MasterCard prepaid debit cards come with extra safety precautions. Might be a useful way to monitor or control your spending.

MasterCard is accepted at the vast majority of casino sites.

You can use MasterCard in conjunction with other payment methods and get the best of all worlds. Some e-wallets allow you to link your bank account to the payment processor and ask you to choose which payment method you use to make a payment.

MasterCard is a great payment method for online casino sites, but it is not foolproof. The safety and security and responsible gambling choices you make also contribute to how MasterCard will work for you.

Make sure you know how to find safe sites, using our guide above. Make sure you know how to keep your own accounts and devices safe. And make sure you know how to play the slots you love safely.