Online casino gambling may seem like a piece of cake, as it is so convenient and straightforward. Simply key in your credit card details, fill in some personal information, and just one click is all you need to deposit. Within a few seconds, your bank account would get deducted and your casino account will appear loaded. However, this may seem so easy up till you reach the point of cashing out.
For newbies at gambling online, this requires some getting used to as online casinos do not work entirely the same as retail stores where you could get an instant deposit or chargebacks. Online casino operators just simply prefer to make customers wait and the reasons behind that shall be explained by us in this article today. Although the reasons may vary from operators to operators, here are the three main reasons why online casinos take a long time to payout. For the best experiences, be sure to play with licensed operators such as Wink Bingo.
Red Tape and Regulations
Technically, going by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006, the federal government has imposed a ban on poker rooms and online casinos. However, this only applies to operators, hence players are left in a realm of ambiguity and they could take their chances on “unregulated” websites. Although we might use the term “unregulated”, this term is often applied incorrectly as these online casinos have obtained licenses from governments outside the United States. Of course, if you’re in the UK, online gambling is completely legal so long as the provider has a license from the Gambling Commission.
A few notable authorities in regulating online casinos include the Curacao e–Gaming Licensing Authority, Canada’s Kahnawake Gaming Commission and Antigua’s Directorate of Offshore Gaming. As such, with the different policies laid out by the different regulatory authorities, there would be variations in the specific transaction time frame for withdrawals.
On top of that, those who use debit or credit cards to cash out may face an unsuccessful transaction as it would have been blocked by their banks. This is because financial institutions are afraid of violating federal law. Therefore, the preferred way to go about it would be to use paper checks, since online casinos can pass off as companies issuing payments to their employees. However, such paper checks should be sent via a third-party financial banking institution, instead of the casino directly.
As such, the hassle of moving money from an online account to your bank and back to your mailbox would naturally consume time. We suggest visiting reputable sites to ensure your check arrives securely.
Players being kept in the room: The next reason lies in the phenomenon called “hit and run”. Applying simple economics, operators are trying to prevent occurrences where players accumulate a big bankroll to pull out every single cent and not come back ever again.
Therefore, policies such as “processing windows” and confirmation periods” are implemented to retain players, as they are forced to wait till their withdrawal request is approved. During this frame of time, which could span three days, players succumb to temptations and continue gambling, leading them to cancel the request for withdrawal to use those funds.
Furthermore, several online casinos have adopted the latest practice, in which players are allowed to offset their subsequent deposits with an ongoing withdrawal request.
So for example, a player has submitted cash out a request of $1000 and he has to wait about two weeks to receive the check. Meanwhile, the player got bored with the wait and decided to fire $100 back to the site to go for another round of stake. However, this would not be reflected in your credit card at all as the casino would immediately allow you to deduct that $100 from the pending withdrawal request. Simple and quick like that, the casino has successfully stalled time to pull back $100 into the play.
Unscrupulous Business Practices
Finally, the truth is, most online casinos are fraudulent in their business practices and this explains why pay-out times can be so long, as they do not intend to pay you back at all. They are more than willing to see you lose and take your money. However, when it comes to your bucket of winnings, somehow a load of problems would just surge up for no apparent reason.
They would try to reason their way by claiming that your funds are not eligible for withdrawal unless you meet their “playthrough” standard. One common scenario would be them offering you a generous bonus for your first deposit, by adding an extra $100 to your account. As you use up those funds and wind up with larger stakes, you would find out that such bonuses had in fact, strings attached. This bonus offer requires you to put in a “playthrough” amount between 20x and 40x. As such, using the example above, a $100 + $100 amount with a 20x playthrough would mean that you have to wager $4000 first to hit the playthrough requirement.
While this scheme has been called out for its unscrupulous nature already, and most of the online casinos have ventured away from this model, there are still some that would attempt to rely on this method. In worse cases, some casinos even lie to their customers outright, telling them that their check is in the mail. Thus, it is useful to be aware of such practices and make sure you stay as far away from these sites. Once again, we cannot reiterate enough the importance of doing research. After all, what is the point of having fun gambling away, suffering losses before finally making some wins to only realize that it is all fruitless in the end?
Conclusion
With that said, we have wrapped up the three main reasons why online casinos take such a long time for payouts. As seen from above, most of the operators only have the best intentions for themselves and not the players. They simply just want you to keep gambling and have the money remain in play. Hence, we recommended players research and source out online casinos with the fastest payout time.