Visa Poker Sites
How to Deposit and Play Legal Poker with Your Visa Card
Visa has the biggest financial network, settling millions of transactions daily around the world. Almost all poker sites legally accept Visa credit, debit or prepaid cards. What you will find is that some countries – notably the US and Canada – restrict the use of these cards if they know that the money is going to a poker site.
This page gives you all you need to know to play legal poker online with Visa card payments. First below I have covered the law in relation to this deposit option. After that are some pros and cons, which will help you to decide whether this is the right method for you. Finally, a practical guide of the steps needed to make that first online poker deposit with Visa.
Are Visa Poker Payments Legal?
Law depends on where you are located. For much of the world, poker is regulated and Visa deposits are the most commonly used payment method. In the USA, many people incorrectly think that playing online poker is illegal. There is no federal law, and very few state laws, which actively ban real money online poker. For the individual player, depositing at offshore sites with Visa is absolutely legal. Since it is illegal for the banks to knowingly fulfil these financial transactions, they will try to block the offshore payments. Sometimes they succeed, though the majority of the time you will get your deposit through.
Canada is affected by the US poker laws via their overzealous banks. To avoid issues with their US branches, many banks block Visa card poker deposits even though these are expressly legal north of the boarder.
Fortunately for both US and Canadian poker fans, there are plenty of alternative methods to get your money on board. These include prepaid Visa cards, Bitcoin, money transfer – and in Canada, Interac.