Visa Card Casinos

Visa Cards

Right now, the credit cards industry is dominated by three big firms – Visa, MasterCard and American Express. Although they all share some characteristics, there are also some notable differences between the services they offer. Most importantly, American Express is the only one that directly issues its credit cards.

We are going to focus solely on Visa in this article, however, with the focus being on how useful Visa products are for those who like to play online.

About Visa

Visa was founded way back in the year of 1958 under the name of BankAmericard. Its history actually started with a bang, as the company sent out 60,000 unsolicited credit cards (not just application forms, but actual working cards that could be used from the get-go) to middle-class Americans.

Since then, Visa has grown into one of the biggest companies operating in the financial services industry, although it’s been a while since it stopped issuing cards and setting the rates and fees for customers. Instead, Visa provides other companies with branded products that they can then customize and offer to their clients. It’s those companies that set what you’ll be able to get – Visa gets its profits from the fees it imposes on the processed transactions.

Nowadays, Visa has its headquarters in Foster City, California, although it runs operations all over the world, with its European branch being run independently as an exclusive licensee. The company is also publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange as a part of both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index.

How It Works

Visa credit and debit cards work just like all the other credit and debit cards you’ve heard about, which means that it’s incredibly easy to use them for whatever transactions you need to make.

Apart from getting the actual card, there’s nothing else that you need to do before you can start paying for goods and services – the only thing that you need to do in order to make a payment is enter your credentials, the number of your card and the unique security code that’s associated with it. Payments are instantaneous, so you won’t have to wait long hours for your purchases or deposits to be processed.

Visa has also recently started to offer contactless cards that make paying small amounts offline more tolerable than ever before. Gone is the need to enter your PIN just to pay for your groceries – and the small default payment limits minimize the risks in case you ever lose your contactless card.

Additional Features

Like MasterCard, Visa isn’t a direct issuer of its cards, which means that you’ll have to check with your issuer in order to see which additional features are available for the Visa cards you can get. Just to give you an idea – most banks offer reward programmes for loyal customers, but you may also be able to get interesting insurance deals at many of the more prestigious ones.

Banks are not the only issuers of Visa cards, however. Those who appreciate additional layers of privacy and security, for example, can get a virtual Visa card at a provider like EntroPay, which allows you to get as many prepaid cards as you wish. Such prepaid cards can be ideal for those who want to use subscription-based services without the risk of paying more than they want to.

Privacy and Security

Visa credit and debit cards don’t add a lot of privacy and security to your payments on their own, but that can naturally change depending on the issuer you’re going to pick. Visa cards issued by banks will always stay tied to your bank account, but the aforementioned virtual cards can be much more private, which can certainly come in handy in case you don’t want your transactions to show up on your bank statements or affect your credit score.

In terms of security, Visa is constantly updating its security protocols, so you can sleep soundly knowing that hacks and security breaches are only a very remote possibility. Moreover, Visa has recently also started to offer a two-step payment authorization system to make its services even more secure.

Known Issues/Problems

Although Visa certainly deserves a lot of praise, we think that it’s only fair to also note some of the issues that you might have when paying with Visa cards. First of all, there’s the issue of privacy, which can be especially thorny when it comes to bank-issued cards.

Some online casinos and sportsbooks also charge fees on deposits made by credit and debit cards, although it seems to us that the situation is constantly improving on that particular front. Finally, not all online casinos and bookmakers like to process withdrawals back to Visa cards, which means that you’ll sometimes have to give them your bank account details in order to get your money back.

With all this in mind, you may sometimes prefer to use your Visa card to fund one of your online wallet accounts and only then use the uploaded funds to make payments or deposits. This will solve many of the aforementioned issues – for example, you’ll never have any issues getting quick withdrawals back to your online wallet – but it will also probably bring additional fees into the picture.

Summary

At the end of the day, Visa offers a nice range of products that you’ll be able to use even away from the world of online gaming payments. What’s important for us, however, is that Visa credit and debit cards are accepted by virtually all online casinos and bookmakers, making them very appealing for everyone who wants to be able to make instant payments and deposits, both online and offline.

Since it’s incredibly easy to get a Visa card, there’s probably no reason not to own one, be it a bank-issued credit card or a virtual prepaid card. There might be a few hassles to deal with here and there, but that can be said about all the different online payment methods.

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