Whenever you make a withdrawal from your betting account, you’ll find that it takes time before the money reaches your account. Unsurprisingly, this isn’t something that bookmakers and casinos tend to advertise in terms of how long it will take before your money becomes your own. Instead, this is something that you’ll have to find out by trial and error, but it’s certainly worth making a note of when you find out.
Realistically, there’s no reason why such transactions can’t be done quickly, so betting companies that take a long time to get your money to you are worth avoiding. Some bookies can take as long as ten days process your payment, with such things taking more time at weekends or on public holidays. The amount of time taken is up to the betting site, so anything longer than 48 hours is worth avoiding.
Processing Times Explained
When you make a request to withdraw money, the company that you’re withdrawing money from needs to authorise the withdrawal. Theoretically, this could be automated and happen immediately. As a result, there’s no reason why the authorisation can’t happen pretty much straight away. Obviously betting sites may want to keep hold of your money for as long as possible, so they will delay the withdrawal for a suitable amount of time. Some of this may be a legal requirement, to prevent fraud and such like, especially if the withdrawal is large or uncharacteristic.
This means that your funds remain in their accounts, allowing them to earn some interest when they have large amounts of such money of customers delayed from being withdrawn. Most customers accept that it will take a few hours to process a transaction, but it’s difficult to understand why it would take more than 48 hours or so. It’s simply a matter of the time it takes the betting company to instruct their bank and the bank to authorise the instruction.
Most people are willing to accept some delays over weekends and holidays, as naturally less staff will be available to process withdrawals. Slow processing times outside of this are really just poor customer service more than anything.
No More Reverse Withdrawals, No More Excuses
In the past one of the reasons that betting companies would have longer processing times was because punters and players had the facility to reverse withdrawals with some operators. The idea being you decide to withdraw but change your mind before it is processed allowing the balance to be returned to your active betting funds.
Reverse withdrawals were banned as part of emergency measures brought in during the 2020 corona virus pandemic, to help reduce problem gambling. These changes were then made permeant shortly after.
Therefore, there is now ultimately no reason why a betting company should take longer than a day or so to process a withdrawal. Any that do are simply not good enough and you should consider moving to a company that offers you a better service.
Payment Methods Can Influence The Outcome
Another thing that customers need to bear in mind is that the method that they have chosen to get money into their account will influence how long withdrawals take. Using a debit card can take anything up to five or even seven days to process, whilst International bank transfers might take even longer. It’s why so many people recommend the use of eWallets, because transactions are usually same day.
Of course, customers rarely think about how long it will take to transfer their payments when deciding upon the payment method that they’ll use. Those that have set up an eWallet will have done so to use it regularly, whilst others will always use their debit cards because that’s the thing that they use to make the vast majority of their payments online. If you want a quick transfer of funds then investigate which method will give it to you.
Why It Matters
The length of time taken to process payments might not seem all that important, but in reality it can be influential for bettors that use several different accounts. Imagine, for example, winning a bet with one company and realising that a different company offers significantly better odds for the thing that you wish to bet on next. Not everyone will either want to lock in more funds or be able to afford to, so they’ll want to get said funds from account A into account B.
A withdrawal of money from account A taking a long time to process might result in the funds not being able to reach account B. Consequently, some people might miss out on being able to place their next set of bets in time, simply because to takes so long for the bookmaker to give you your own money. This is the sort of thing that can influence certain punters when it comes to betting with a certain company.
Looking at a more dramatic example, someone may genuinely need that money back in their account to make a payment. Long processing times could lead to the account holder seeing their bank account go overdrawn and that could result in charges.
Avoiding Having To Wait
The key thing to do when it comes to figuring out the companies that should be avoided is to keep a record of how quickly or otherwise they process your withdrawal requests. Anything longer than 48 hours really should be avoided if you wish to be able to get your money moving around with speed and it’s fair to assume that a company taking longer than that is mostly just taking the Mickey out of their customers.
One of the best things that customers can do is open an eWallet. This is the payment method that is transferred the quickest by bookmakers, allowing you to move funds between accounts as quickly as possible. The combination of avoiding slow paying companies and using an eWallet is the best thing to do if you want to be in charge of your own funds as much as possible.
There are other benefits to eWallets, of course, and we’ve written about them elsewhere on this site. In terms of payment speed, though, eWallets are the quickest method. Most companies accept their usage, so it means that you can move money around relatively easily and quickly, which is helpful when you’re trying to take advantage of the best odds and offers that are commonly put in place by bookies. Although, it is worth noting that some sign up and retention offers are not available to customers who use eWallets, so check first.
Given this speed is why most people use eWallets, it’s frustrating to have to wait for longer than a few hours to get your own funds paid out to you. What is the point of doing everything you can to speed things up if a betting company is then going to slow it all down? That’s the kind of thing that you need to bear in mind when settling on a betting company and a payment method to use with them.
If you mix and match your payment methods, such as by using a debit card to make one deposit and an eWallet for another, the betting company that you use is well within its rights to ask you to withdraw some money to one payment method and other money to the other one. This can result in your payments being processed much more slowly than if they’re all to the same method, which is worth beating in mind before making your deposits.