Skrill Casinos

Skrill: a widely used payment provider in the online gambling sector.

If you were born in the 90s or later, you may not remember what banking was like before modern technology made transfers and payments incredibly convenient. In the past, quickly sending money to someone was often difficult, especially if you and the recipient had accounts at different banks. You might have had to physically go to their bank branch or use an expensive wire transfer service.

Today we can easily enter card information online to make purchases. But before 2000, online payments were a challenge due to limited internet use, weak 40-bit encryption, and general mistrust of security. The first online gambling sites emerged around 1996 but moving money to and from them was complicated because of outdated banking systems.

Skrill (originally called MoneyBookers) was not the first digital wallet for online payments. That concept already existed, with US companies like PayPal and Neteller developing similar products. But despite being a small British startup, Skrill managed to catch up and compete with these rivals. If you want to learn more about Skrill’s history and how it kept pace with larger competitors, keep reading.

Skrill: the history of the company

PaySafe is a major payments company that owns Skrill, Neteller, and Paysafecard. Skrill began as Moneybookers, founded in London in 2001 by Daniel Klein and Benjamin Kullmann. They obtained one of the first licenses for an electronic money business as digital payments were emerging. The founders realized online gambling sites had issues processing payments, so they focused on that market while building their customer base.

Moneybookers quickly partnered with online casinos, poker sites, and sportsbooks, offering higher bonuses for depositing and withdrawing compared to banks. Gamblers liked withdrawing winnings fast to their Moneybookers accounts, fueling rapid growth. In 2007, Investcorp acquired the company, now one of Europe’s largest e-wallets.

The next step was making it easy for users to transfer funds from their e-wallet to bank accounts. Although Moneybookers arranged these transfers, they were slow, taking days in some cases, and costly for gamblers. Their solution was a debit card linked to the e-wallet balance, allowing immediate access to winnings.

When most online gambling left the US, Neteller lost its largest market and shifted focus to Europe. This led to its acquisition by Skrill, though both brands still operate independently today.

In February 2013, Skrill acquired the Austrian prepaid card company Paysafecard. The acquisition turned out to be beneficial for Skrill, which also bought the prepaid voucher business in 2015. The previous company had a unique idea that allowed users to purchase paper vouchers at stores like grocery stores, gas stations, or supermarkets and use them to deposit money into online gambling sites, similar to how people would add credit to mobile phones at the time.

The predecessor was a more difficult acquisition for Skrill, as accusations of widespread money laundering led Paysafe (the new name of the company) to merge its predecessor with paysafecard to create a safer alternative to the paper voucher system that was less vulnerable to fraud. Nevertheless, Skrill’s expansion continued almost uninterrupted and the company was eventually sold for $1.1 billion in 2015.

With the exception of PayPal, all of Europe’s major e-wallets were now owned by the same company. To continue expanding, Paysafe knew it needed to explore markets beyond online gambling. While Skrill is still only supported by a limited number of online merchants, this number is slowly increasing. The company has experienced more success in the areas of forex trading and cryptocurrency, where it has seen impressive year-on-year growth as of 2022.

Unsurprisingly, Skrill’s success has not gone unnoticed. In 2019, the company received the “Best Digital Wallet” award from Juniper Research. Additional awards from the Future Digital Awards and the American Gambling Awards and Consumer Payment Awards that same year helped raise the company’s profile even further.

Currently, it seems that the future is bright for Skrill and the Paysafe Group. However, PayPal has reentered the online gambling market in a big way in recent years and has the profile and subscriber base to potentially challenge Skrill’s dominance in the industry.

Skrill deposits

Originally, one of the most enticing characteristics of MoneyBookers/Skrill was the ease of registering and utilizing an account. At that time, no “Know Your Customer” (KYC) checks were performed on new users, allowing the company to rapidly expand its customer base. However, this decision later led to problems when many online gambling platforms realized Skrill permitted widespread “multi-accounting,” so they prohibited new signups from utilizing the service to claim bonuses and promotions for new players.

Nowadays, the situation is quite different – financial regulators in many countries have mandated Skrill to implement KYC checks on new registrations for several years. Still, numerous casinos have rules barring new users from claiming a first deposit bonus when depositing through Skrill or Neteller. If you want to use Skrill now, you’ll need to follow the same steps as at most online casinos – you’ll need to provide government-issued ID like a passport, driver’s license, or national identity card (a photo alone is insufficient) and have it available. Therefore, it’s easiest to complete the signup using a smartphone, tablet, or laptop with a webcam.

In the past, it took a few days for Skrill to manually verify new users, but now AI-based image processing analyzes photos submitted by new users, allowing most new registrations to be instantly verified.

Once you open your account, you have two options for depositing at an online gambling platform: you can deposit an amount directly into your Skrill wallet or deposit directly from your bank account. Some users prefer depositing directly into their Skrill wallet to keep their regular bank unaware of their online gambling activity. You can add a large bankroll to your Skrill e-wallet in one transaction, then use it to deposit and withdraw at any site you want and spend your winnings with your Skrill debit card.

Alternatively, you can simply choose the “Skrill” option when depositing at an online gambling platform. If your e-wallet lacks sufficient funds to complete the deposit, you’ll be prompted to add more funds from a debit card, credit card, or bank account. These options are all instant and typically free for the user – any fees linked to these transactions are usually covered by the online casino or gambling platform.

Skrill deposits will appear in your online casino, sportsbook, or poker account instantly. If this is your first deposit at a particular platform, confirm that using Skrill won’t disqualify you from any promotions you want to participate in before completing the deposit. It’s usually not possible to access these promotions if you’ve already deposited using Skrill.

Skrill withdrawals

In years past, Skrill provided some useful features for those looking to take money out from gambling websites. For instance, users could previously make a deposit using one type of payment and then withdraw to a completely different payment method – a handy option since there was no other way to directly transfer money between e-wallets. However, this became an avenue for fraud and money laundering by cybercriminals.

Nowadays, if you want to take out your winnings from an online casino, you’ll need to withdraw to Skrill if it was the payment method you last deposited with. Many gambling sites also require you to withdraw the same amount back to your last deposit method before letting you use something else. So if you deposited €100 via Skrill, you’ll have to withdraw €100 back to Skrill first before you can pick a different withdrawal method. Additionally, you might not be allowed to withdraw any extra funds to another e-wallet – those would have to go to a regular bank account.

Despite certain limitations that have decreased their utility for some, e-wallets like Skrill still provide numerous advantages for online gamblers. One benefit is the speed of Skrill payouts, which are often processed instantly for small sums as soon as you request them. Even larger withdrawals that need manual review by casino staff can be faster than debit card or bank transfers.

About E-wallets

Mobile payment services like Apple Pay and Google Pay have become widely used in recent times. These digital wallets let you use your existing bank cards through your phone. However, unlike some other e-wallets, these services still require a traditional bank account to work.

Cryptocurrency wallets for Bitcoin and Ethereum allow people to store digital assets and make private, secure transactions without banks or other institutions. These differ from wallets for platforms like Skrill, though some online casinos use cryptocurrency technology.

Originally, Skrill and Neteller were designed to facilitate gambling transactions online. While they’ve considered expanding to general e-commerce, they still mainly serve gambling sites.

An e-wallet is a secure app or website connecting bank accounts and cards for transferring funds. E-wallets charge fees and can be slow when interacting with banks. But for gambling sites, e-wallet transactions are often instant with no fees.