PayPal Payments at Online Casinos in Canada
It's likely that anyone involved in any kind of online purchasing will be at least partly familiar with the name PayPal. What started out at the tail end of the 20th century as mobile-only security software, has grown to become a giant of the financial world worth many billions of dollars.
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Learn about Paypal casinos
In PayPal Canada users have a payment method that creates a separate, distinct digital wallet which effectively acts as a barrier between your personal bank details and any stores you wish to buy from. Once a PayPal account has been set up and verified, the amount of personal or financial data an e-commerce or gambling site would need from you is drastically reduced: they can take payment simply via your PayPal account. This is a key factor in the take-up of PayPal, as internet users have grown more and more careful with their data over time.
Using PayPal, therefore, with its long history of secure and regulated operation, is a secure way to spend money online.
What is PayPal?
PayPal launched back in 1998 under the name Confinity, and was initially designed to provide online security specifically for mobile devices. The company soon pivoted to create a digital wallet product instead, which went live in 1999.
Shortly afterward, in early 2000, Confinity was acquired by Elon Musk's company, known as X.com. The product was renamed PayPal in 2001, with the company then going public in 2002, raising over US $61M in its initial public offering (IPO). Later that year, PayPal became a wholly-owned subsidiary of eBay, the online auction house, with a market value of US $1.5BN.
This link with eBay, which was experiencing a period of enormous growth, saw PayPal rocket in popularity – especially on the eBay site itself, where an estimated 25% of all transactions were believed to have been conducted using PayPal.
2015 saw eBay spin PayPal off into a separate, publicly traded company once more. Over the years PayPal has improved its security and bolstered its market share by acquiring many other payment providers and other companies including VeriSign, Venmo, iZettle, Hyperwallet and Honey. As a result, PayPal is one of the largest and most trustworthy online payment companies you could hope to find, with vendors accepting PayPal almost worldwide.
Where Can I Use PayPal?
PayPal Canada is a highly regulated company, and the payment method offered is accepted by a huge range of online vendors.
Links with eBay that were forged during the time PayPal was a part of eBay can still be felt, and many eBay stores are set up to use PayPal Canada by default. Likewise, many other online services default to PayPal as a payment method, given the wide take-up of PayPal Canada accounts.
Opening a PayPal Canada account is free, and in linking their bank account with PayPal Canada users are able to create a digital wallet that does not need separate management. This means that funds do not need to be 'pre-loaded' into a PayPal Canada account, but rather the account can be topped up automatically from a linked, verified bank account.
This added convenience makes PayPal a great choice when it comes to online shopping, and a relatively fuss-free experience when compared with many other similar digital wallet products available.
Unfortunately, at this time it is not possible to use PayPal Canada to make deposits or withdrawals at online casinos in Canada.
Can I Withdraw at Online Casinos with PayPal?
The answer to this question, for now at least, is unfortunately not.
The decision stems from an update to the PayPal user agreement back in 2010, in which PayPal Canada made the distinction between regulated and unregulated online gambling operators. The nature of the Canadian casino market, which allows offshore players, means that no Canadian online casino can accept PayPal deposits, or pay out withdrawals to a PayPal Canada account. Not even the most highly regulated and licensed online casinos in Canada are able to process PayPal payments, unlike operators in many other parts of the world.
Are there ways around this that could enable players to use PayPal Canada accounts to fund online casino play in Canada? Probably – with VPNs and evolving technology, so much is possible in this area. But we would never recommend using a VPN or any other method to work around any restrictions imposed by an online casino.
Restrictions such as these arise from legal issues and are non-negotiable, and any player found to be using anything at all to circumvent such a restriction is likely to face severe penalties, possibly including forfeiture of their online bankroll and even worse.
Alternatives to PayPal Canada are easy to find when it comes to funding a digital wallet or online gaming account, so while it would be great to have the option, at the moment it seems that PayPal Canada is not a good choice for online players.
Is PayPal Safe for Casino Gambling?
While we would definitely say PayPal is a safe service to use, its status on the blacklist of online casinos in Canada means we cannot recommend any readers attempt to use PayPal to deposit or withdraw to an online gaming account.
Check out our payments section for more options for making fast and convenient deposits and withdrawals at Canada's best online casinos.
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