There are several options for transferring funds into an online poker account. The first is to transfer funds directly from your bank account to the site. Be aware: Transfers such as this are known to trigger security alerts in some banks. Two other good choices exist, in the form of online financial service companies. They may be found at www.firepay.com and the one I prefer, www.Skrill.com (called before MoneyBookers).
PayPal, a well-known financial service provider, supported transferring funds to poker sites in the past but was forced to abandon the practice through legal pressure. When you first use these sites, there may be a delay of a few days while the company makes a small deposit in your bank account and waits for you to respond with the amount from your e-mail in order to verify it was indeed you who set up the account.
To help quell problem gambling (and, perhaps, money laundering), sites may and do place limits on how much a player is allowed to deposit and withdraw within a given time period. $600 per day and $1,500 per week are representative sums.
Cashing out has several options, but read each room’s policies carefully, as it will likely not be as simple as having a certified check mailed to you overnight. It could be that if you want to cash out $500, but your original deposit was $300 on a credit card, some sites have been known to pay the credit card the $300 and send the remaining $200 to you in the form of your choice. Read your room’s policy statement carefully, and don’t get caught short of money because you didn’t know how you would be paid back!
Be very careful about entrusting your money to a poker room with which you are not familiar. We strongly suggest that you do ג€due diligenceג€ research on each card room before you send your money to them. Go to the discussion forums we’ll tell you about later and see what, if any, criticisms are out there. These companies are not subject to U.S. laws, so there is little recourse if a company decides it needs your money more than you do. Many sites also go out of business because they cannot make enough income to pay the bills, so be careful; the gambling should be on the turn of a card, not whether the room’s good for what it owes you.
May we suggest that you play in one of our online card rooms partners listed on this website.
Summary
This chapter was what we needed to tell you so you could get set up for the next step: playing the game! Actually, this is a perfect opportunity to read the rest of the book while you’re waiting for your real money account to be established. Or maybe you’d prefer to mix in some free money play to get used to how the sites work. As you wish!