Visa Offers Deposits and Withdrawals for Casino Players

Perhaps you have been around long enough to remember the "good old days," when credit cards were the primary way to go when opening up an account with an online casino gaming establishment, and it was virtually painless to do so.

In some places, like the United States, those days are, for the most part, long gone.

But credit cards are alive and well in other parts of the world as far as deposits (and in some cases, even withdrawals) into online casinos are concerned, and the world leader in that regard is probably Visa. In effect, it is a network; in fact, Visa is the world's largest electronic payment network.

So what is Visa, anyway?

Well, it actually evolved out of the original BankAmericard that was distributed, of course, by Bank of America in 1958. These were credit cards, to be distinguished from charge cards like Diners Club, and later, American Express, which required that the entire balance would be paid off at the end of each month.

Bank of America soon began to license this card to financial institutions across the United States, and also made its way into Canada, where it was known as "Chargex."

The banks licensing the card eventually took control of their credit card programs, and in time it was determined by the banks who were involved that it was in their best interests to get together and re-brand the card itself. Thus, all versions of the card transformed into the "Visa" brand.

Thus, Visa is not a credit company itself, but instead a company that creates the actual branded product that is used by its member institutions.

The reason we point this out is to say that whenever you attempt to make an online casino deposit with Visa, and are, for some reason, refused, you are not being refused by Visa itself, but by the financial institution to which your card is attached.

Visa assigns a "merchant code" to online casinos for purposes of identifying the transaction. Many casinos have designated the transactions as something else, in order to escape being tagged with the code for the gambling category. This generally happens with transactions with United States customers, but in other jurisdictions, like Canada, for instance, this is not a big problem.

And for those customers, Visa is a very convenient and fast option indeed. This is especially the case for customers who do not already have an account with an electronic wallet company and are making an impulse decision based in clicking an affiliate link, visiting, and linking, an online casino. If you already have a credit or debit card, you can very easily do the transaction. Visa has debit cards, of course, which are attached to the customer's bank account balance. In Europe, Visa issues a debit card that is officially known as the "Visa Debit." In a number of other countries (though not Canada or the U.S.), Visa issues the "Visa Electron."

Visa transactions are also safe, in that they require you to confirm with a Personal Identification Number. This can cut down on anything fraudulent that affects you card. And a big advantage to Visa, as opposed to its counterpart and chief rival, MasterCard, is that in many cases, you can make withdrawals to it. There are few things as convenient as that for someone playing at online casinos.