Why e-wallets are gaining popularity amongst online casino users
Image source: Pixabay
When it comes to everyday finance, the vast majority of us do as received wisdom tells us to do – we keep our money in the bank. In return for our cash being secured, banks use our money to make investments, loan and, well, do the things that banks do.
They’ve even successfully adapted to the internet age thanks to services like SagePay – something which hasn’t always been true, especially early in the history of the world wide web. However, there is one industry where the dominance of the traditional banks is falling fast, and that is the online casino industry.
Worth a whopping $44 billion in 2016 and boasting hundreds of thousands of transactions every single day, it’s a huge market for the banking industry and one which generates significant income.
Nevertheless, online casino customers are turning away from the traditional bank (or “wire”) transfer in their droves and towards digital-only e-wallets like those offered by the likes of PayPal and Skrill – relative newcomers to the finance sector.
But what’s driving this shift? Here are a few of the reasons behind this trend:
Faster withdrawal times
Perhaps the largest driver for growth in online e-wallet usage for online casino users is the fact that traditional banks and wire transfers aren’t nearly as quick as transfers in and out of e-wallets.
Thanks to the significantly higher levels of checks between banks and casinos and the sheer volume of inward and outward transactions, traditional wire transfers with casinos are achingly slow, sometimes taking between two and three days to go from request to arrival in your bank account.
It’s a situation which is driving customers away from banks and towards e-wallets which offer near-instant access to winnings.
Image source: Pixabay
Improved e-wallet support
Casino Professor estimates that there are dozens of casinos which support e-wallet deposits and withdrawals, but it’s not just casinos which are getting on board. With money in their e-wallets, customers are no longer forced to move that money to their bank. Instead, it can sit in their e-wallets and be spent on any number of online retailers, whether you’re picking up your weekly groceries or that making big-budget tech purchase you’ve been eyeing.
Today, the vast majority of online retailers accept e-wallet payment and, thanks to the likes of Google Pay, it’s increasingly possible to pay with your e-wallet using contactless in many stores around the world. It’s a serious threat to the banking establishment.
Keeps betting money separate from the bank
There’s an interesting thing that happens when money goes from “money” to “credit” – we stop treating it like the former, even though it still is.
It’s why “free-to-play” mobile games get you to buy gems, which are then converted to “coins”, an in-game currency. At that stage, we’re treating our money as little more than a plaything.
It’s a dose of psychology which applies equally to e-wallets and winnings from casinos. Instead of feeling like real cash, it’s ever-so-slightly abstracted. That encourages users to keep their money in the system, depositing more cash and, potentially, winning even greater sums. For this reason, casinos are pushing e-wallet usage to their customers, helping to further drive growth.
By Heather Dean
