The development of the sports betting sector in the 21st century has gone hand in hand with the growth of online technology, which has allowed the development of ever more sophisticated online betting platforms and other new features to grab the attention of the modern sports bettor.
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At the same time, other sectors have also been undergoing a transformation and one of the most significant is the payment sector. New banking methods are being developed every year and for top betting sites it is vital to stay up to date on these methods and to meet the needs of demanding modern customers. Here are just a few of the trends in sports betting payments that have developed in the last few years.
Increasing Range of Payment Options
Most online bookmakers now offer multiple payment options to their customers. These features would not be possible without modern technology. The original range of payment options: bank card payments, and bank transfers, are still available, of course, but are no longer the only available options.
Depending on which sports betting site you use, you can now select your preferred payment method from a choice of up to 20 or more, including systems such as PayPal and other eWallets, prepaid cards, cryptocurrencies, phone payments and more. Sports betting companies that only offer three or four payment options are likely to find that they lose out on market share as customers are less willing to compromise on their preferred payment options.
You can say that a wide range of payment options is a huge advantage for a bookmaker, together with a wide range of sports and generous bonuses, for instance, like those listed at https://legalbet.uk/betting-offers/sets/free-bets/.
Instant Payments with E-Wallets
There are many advantages with betting online but one area in which retail land-based sports betting operations still have an edge is in getting hold of your money. At a betting shop, you can usually collect your money within minutes or even seconds of a sports event’s conclusion. But when it comes to online sports betting, there are inevitable delays. Some of those are due to the way that particular betting sites operate, but the development of the e-wallet option has sped things up considerably.
An e-wallet operator like PayPal or Skrill enables customers to make deposits and withdrawals instantly. A deposit with an e-wallet method will likely be in your account within a matter of seconds, and there is theoretically no reason why a withdrawal cannot go through just as quickly. Compared to some of the older methods, such as bank transfer, which takes up to five days, instant pay has many obvious advantages to the sports bettor.
Phone Payments
Many of us spend a huge part of our day on our phones, and it makes a lot of sense to be able to use a phone-related form of payment for online transactions. That has led to the development of ApplePay and GooglePay, the two most prominent forms of mobile payment. In the case of ApplePay, you can even make deposits and withdrawals through devices such as an Apple Watch. Not all sports betting companies accept this form of payment but that is changing fast.
Prepaid Card Payment
At the same time as new forms of payment have been entering the industry, there has been a renewed interest in an older form of technology that is proving useful to the modern customer.
Prepaid cards are purchased at many supermarkets or other retail outlets and come in various forms. Some are standard cards that are available in set amounts of currency, while others are cards that you can use more than once, by topping up online. Paysafecard is perhaps the best known of these methods, but there are others available, and all offer the advantages of speed and convenience, while not requiring customers to hand over any details other than the number on the card itself.
Faster Deposits and Withdrawals
As mentioned above, the speed of deposits and withdrawals, and in particular, withdrawals, depends partially on the method of payment used, but also on the speed with which the betting site is able to process the payment request.
The increasing efficiency and speed of payment methods have put pressure on betting companies to ensure that their own processing systems do not act as a brake on transaction speeds. The result is that betting companies are streamlining their processes and it is now more common to see sports betting sites claiming to process withdrawals within 24 hours.
Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency is not a universally popular form of payment, and the volatility associated with this payment option has been well documented. Nevertheless, it has some promise as a payment system in betting, as it provides a high level of security, combined with rapid transaction speed. We are seeing more sports betting companies offering cryptocurrency, particularly in the esports betting sector, and although cryptocurrencies are not authorized for use in many nations, that situation is likely to change over the next few years as the currencies are better regulated and understood.
