When it comes to online gambling, everyone is excited about the potential winnings that can be won by just playing and enjoying the games. But when it comes to practical stuff like actually making an account and sending the money for making bets, many questions arise.

People start asking what banking methods they can use for depositing, what methods are legally available in their jurisdiction, whether it is secure enough to send the money to casinos, etc. Many stop on the idea of using the oldest and most well-known payment systems for online payments, like Mastercard, Visa, Skrill, Paypal, and others.

While landing on some Visa casinos Canada is definitely reasonable, it makes sense to compare the payment methods available, for example, comparing Visa and Mastercard. The more you know, the more informed choice you can make about your deposits and your winnings.

Safety & Reliability

Visa has been in this business since 1958. It is a US financial corporation that works with almost any bank in the majority of countries. Visa processes around 100 billion transactions annually, it is reliable and safe and is used by many customers, from individuals to huge companies. It uses all the modern data protection methods available.

Being the strongest competitor to Visa in the industry, Mastercard was founded in 1966 as an actual competitor to undermine Visa’s monopoly, and it had huge success. Mastercard works with over 25,000 banks globally. Its products are protected with PIN codes, CVC, and chip technologies; many of the products have additional security mechanisms like two-factor authentication, etc.

Both methods are safe and secure enough to trust them with your money, so in terms of security, you can rest assured that neither Visa or Mastercard can create or miss a threat to your funds or your data. So, to understand which one may be better for you, let’s check the convenience.

Convenience

In terms of convenience, it seems that both Visa and Mastercard offer pretty much the same conditions to their individual customers (not merchants, that is).

Both companies collaborate with different financial institutions in different countries, so to get a Visa or Mastercard card, you need to find out what banks in your jurisdiction issue those cards.

Visa and Mastercard alike have debit accounts/cards, credit accounts/cards, and prepaid cards. The customer has to find out which of the products meets their needs and fits the type of payments that are to be made and order the corresponding products from the bank or other financial institution. For this, it is necessary to send a request and provide all the necessary info, and then wait for the approval. The cards can be used online and offline.

Mastercard and Visa alike support mobile payments and have official mobile applications. If you prefer playing casino games for real money on your smartphone, you can keep both mobille apps – the casino and the payment method – at hand.

The minimum and maximum transactions may vary depending on the product and the rules of the financial institution that issued your card, but the average range is from $5 deposit to  $20,000.

The one real difference that may be a decisive factor for some players is the transaction fee. Visa applies a 1,5% fee and Mastercard has a 1% fee.

Deposit & Withdrawal Conditions

The waiting time for depositing when using any of the two methods is from instant to 1 business day, depending on many aspects. But it must be said that 1 business day almost never happens because Visa and Mastercard are interested in supporting fast payments to online merchants.

However, when it comes to withdrawing the funds from online casinos, the waiting time can be from 1 to 5 business days, and this is because of the internal companies’ rules and also the banks’ rules.

In certain countries, Visa and Mastercard do not allow or are very suspicious about transactions from merchants that look like online casinos to individuals.

The banks may also be very reluctant to accept transactions from casinos to individuals, so they will check those really thoroughly and it will take time. All financial institutions try to prevent any money laundering operations via online casinos, so the customers should be patient and also choose reputable casinos.

Another important thing to keep in mind about deposits and withdrawals via Visa and Mastercard is that many online casinos actually limit or do not allow withdrawals via those methods. Deposits are accepted but withdrawing the winnings to a Visa card or Mastercard may be impossible. This limitation exists exactly due to the risks of lengthy transactions or suspended transactions from casinos to the banks.