At some point you might have experienced some inconvenience with withdrawals at online casinos. One of these is when they ask you to withdraw using a method you didn’t request your cashout to. The usual reaction is that the casino is doing this just to mess with you.
But let me tell you the truth and what it’s really about as even the casinos think it’s annoying. It’s all about preventing fraud and keeping their gambling licenses.
Every legal online casino and online gambling site that operates under a gambling license has certain obligations that they need to follow in order to keep their license. One of these obligations is to prevent fraud, money laundering and other eco-criminal activities.
In order to do so there are a few necessary standard routines in place that, under some circumstances, can impact players. One of these routines is known as closing the loop. This means that any money deposited by a player has to go back to where it came from.
Let me give you an example.
Ishan deposits ₹10,000 with his VISA card that ends with **1234. He plays for a while at the casino and ends up winning ₹20,000. When he withdraws, he requests his cashout to Neteller.
In this case, the casino will most likely decline his request and ask him to withdraw at least ₹10,000 to his VISA card ending with **1234. If Ishan has never used Neteller for deposits before, the operator will ask him to withdraw the full amount to his VISA card.
This is all because the license issuer (like Malta Gaming Authority, UK Gambling Commission or Curacao Gaming Control Board) requires the casino operator to take measures to prevent money fraud.
You might ask, how could this possibly be a fraudulent activity? Shouldn't I be able to withdraw my own money to whatever account I'd like to?
Let's make the assumption that Ishan has stolen the VISA card and just claimed it to be his own by entering his personal details for it when making a deposit at the casino. Let's also assume that the casino does allow him to cash out to Neteller.
In this scenario, Ishan could just keep on depositing with the stolen card and withdraw all of its money to his Neteller account. For organized criminals who are looking to launder money, this is an everyday thing.
Because of this, casinos cannot allow you to withdraw as you please.
There are scenarios when it isn't possible to withdraw back to the same method you deposited with.
Let's say that Ishan buys an AstroPay prepaid card worth ₹10,000 (see; casinos that support Astropay deposits here), deposits it to the online casino, plays a bit and then wants to withdraw his winnings. In this case, the casino can’t ask him to close the loop as it’s not possible to cash out to a prepaid card. Thus, they will allow him to withdraw using a different payment method.
However, there will be security checks done from the casino's side to ensure that no fraudulent activity is going on. The first thing the casino would do is to investigate Ishan’s player account to see if they could find any strange pattern that would indicate of a fraudulent behavior. They would look at things such as games played, casino bonuses claimed and amount wagered.
A regular player isn't normally aware of strategic playstyles such as the amount of money they would have to wager in order to qualify for a withdrawalAll legitimate online casinos have a general rule that require players to wager their deposits a certain amount of times; which games are most efficient to wager onGames with a high RTP and low volatility are most likely to keep your balance intact. Perfectly played blackjack is a great example.; or when to claim a bonus to get an optimal ROI. However, a fraudster who is looking to launder money is usually well familiar with these tricks. Such patterns can be important clues for the risk and fraud agents' investigation.
Let's for instance assume that Ishan makes a substantial deposit and only plays through this amount once, which allows him to request a withdrawal. This would have warning bells ringing with the casino's risk department as a playstyle like this could very well mean that the AstroPay prepaid cards have been stolen.
In addition to looking for playstyle patterns, the casino will also run checks on IP addresses and device IDs to see if these have any connection with already confirmed fraud accounts or suspicious accounts in their database.
Once the casino has done the full background check, they will ask Ishan to verify his casino account. These are the verification documents they will ask of him (assuming he is a new customer and hasn’t already verified his account):
If they suspect fraud they might ask for proof of deposit as well. If it's a prepaid card he will need to send in supporting documents for it. This could be a photo of the prepaid code or a receipt of the purchase.
These security checks might sound scary for an inexperienced user so let me clarify them for you.
Every legitimate casino has a trained Payments and Fraud department that is working around the clock. In most cases, there isn't any issue with either deposits or withdrawals. This means that you won’t even notice that they exist.
It is in the casino's best interest to give its customers the best experience possible, including hassle-free and fast casino cashouts. They are fully aware that these procedures have to run smoothly in order to achieve this. They are simply balancing user experience with the money laundering laws they are required to follow.
This is why withdrawal methods are almost always bound to the methods used for deposits at online casinos.
There are a few things you can do to make sure payments are never a problem.
Make sure you sign up at a casino using correct personal details, such as name, home address and phone number. Never fake any details or provide old ones.
At some point, the casino will ask you to verify your account. When they do, they will ask for documents that support the details you have entered upon registration. Make sure you have these documents ready. You can read more about this here.
Always withdraw back to the same method which you deposited with. Under some circumstances, it won’t be possible (depending on which method you used). In these cases, withdraw using a method you've previously deposited with or have already verified.
