Online Casinos - It It Tragic if You Can't Use a Credit Card?

It is safe to say that the most convenient method to open up an account at an online casino, or at least one of them, is through a major credit card. It's kind of simple at most places - you simply fill in your information, which includes the account number, your name, the zip code corresponding to the billing address, the expiration date and then that strange, mysterious three-digit number on the back (you know what we mean) and you can have an account open within minutes. Depending on what jurisdiction you're in, the transaction will show up on your statement as one related to gaming, or it may not.

But what happens if the option of using credit cards is NOT available? Is this something that should make you think less of the gaming establishment? Should it be a 'red flag," as they say?

No, not necessarily. While it is certain that if a casino has been refused a merchant account for its business practices, that may be something to be concerned about, in general we would say that there are probably some good reasons if credit cards are not offered as an option. Remember that credit cards allow the purchaser to refuse transactions for a specified period of time, sometimes up to 120 days to open up a dispute over it. There are some online casino customers who lose and aren't very good sports about it, and they exercise this option, at which point the position of the casino isn't seen so favorably.

This is called a "chargeback" and there are many casinos who have had very big problems with them over the years. What happens when companies get hit with chargebacks? They get passed onto the consumer. And that is the invariable result.

Some online casinos offer other options that are less prone to chargebacks and the way they look at it is that it allows them to maintain a policy of offering bonuses that are as liberal as possible, because the possibility of having a bookkeeping nightmare months down the road is minimized. There are other ways to use a credit card to open up a casino account. You could utilize an electronic wallet (or e-wallet) as a conduit of sorts between yourself and the casino, with purchases routed from your card through the e-wallet and then onto the merchant. You can also do the same with Western Union and MoneyGram.

And besides, if you are the kind of person who likes to have as much security as possible when it comes to your financial information, direct credit card transactions with an online casino may not be your preferred way to go anyway.