Skrill Online Casinos

Contrary to many other sites say, canadians have NOT been able to use Skrill or Neteller for online casino transactions for several years now. In this article, we’ll let you know how that came to be, as well as what the best alternatives are today.

If you are in Canada and want to find the best online casino payment methods, please visit our Casino Deposit Methods page.

Our top suggestion is Interac e-Transfer which has been growing in popularity as the fastest and most secure way to play at online casinos.

Skill pulls out of Canada Market

In December 2013, Skrill announced that they would stop processing gambling transactions for Canadian customers. The announcement didn’t contain many details beyond the effective date of January 31, 2014, and a note that they had come to the decision after reviewing operations.

About six weeks prior to the announcement, it was learned that Skrill had won approval from the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) to become the first digital wallet services in the state after NJ legalized online gambling.

Pulling out of Canada was not a regulatory necessity and more than a year earlier, New Jersey had removed the ‘bad actor’ clause from their gambling legislation. However, DGE has been quite serious about not mixing gray or black market operations with its white list of licensed providers.

At the time of the pullout, Skrill was the largest online gambling wallet by volume, far surpassing Neteller. Neteller suffered legal, financial, and civil complications after not exiting the U.S. market quickly or cleanly enough after America’s Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. That, in itself, may have been enough to hasten the exodus from Canadian online gambling, coupled with what can only be imagined as possible pressure from New Jersey.

At the time of their pullout, Skrill operated with “40 different currencies and 100 payment options including debit cards, credit cards, peer to peer transfers, merchant payouts and automated clearing house (ACH) services,” around the globe, according to a press release. While they were a big provider in Canada, safer, fully regulated markets may have seemed preferable to the private equity company that owned Skrill at the time.

Now, both Neteller and Skrill are owned by Paysafe Group. Canadians can use prepaid Paysafecard vouchers to deposit but have no way of retrieving their funds through the company.

Taking into account that people in truly regulated markets can still use Neteller and Skrill to deposit and withdraw from online casinos and betting sites – the answer to why Skrill is no longer available to online gamblers here is that we have a gray market. Citizens can legally play at offshore casinos, but the government prefers that we keep our online activities confined to PlayNow, PlayOLG, and Espacejeux, etc.

While our focus here is still 100% on Canadian players and Canadian online casinos, we realize that some ex-pats and others have relocated, and we do get some traffic from other countries. With that in mind, we bring you…

Skrill for Players Residing Outside of Canada

Variety is the spice of life which can apply as much to mundane depositing methods as to video slot games. Most casinos know that players are looking for options other than credit cards and bank wire. This is where easy to use e-wallets such as Skrill come in.

Skrill casinos, sometimes known as Moneybookers casinos (before they were re-branded), offer players outside of Canada and the US a secure, anonymous and instant way to fund their casino accounts and withdraw their winnings. There are still a large number of online casinos that accept Skrill. See our list of the best Canadian online casinos that also accept Skill if you are not in Canada

Best Canadian-facing Sites that Accept Skrill from Other Countries

Why deposit with Skrill at an online casino?

1) Anonymity: When using a Skrill web wallet you’re not giving a casino any personal banking details whether it’s your credit card or bank account number. Whilst casinos are 100% secure with regards to their financial data some of our players still prefer this extra level of anonymity. By using Skrill, unlike a VISA casino, there’ll be no record on your bank or credit card statement of your gaming activity

2) Instantaneous: Depositing at a site which offers Skrill such as Gaming Club casino is instantaneous, once you’ve gone through the very simple depositing process (see below), the funds from your Skrill account will appear on your casino cash balance immediately. Similarly, Skrill offers one of the quickest ways to withdraw money from a casino, with the funds appearing straight bank on your Skrill account after any withdrawal pending times or account verification procedures have been completed.

3) Convenient: To make a withdrawal or deposit at a Skrill casino, you just need to enter the email address associated with your Skrill account – no need to start looking for bank account numbers, addresses, etc.

4) Security: Skrill employs the latest encryption methods to keep your funds and meets the highest standards of the payment card industry data standards (PCI-DSS Level 1)

5) Bonus: Another perk of using Skrill is that as it’s a cost-effective method for the casino themselves in their financial processing they like to reward players who use it with a preferred payment method bonus. Royal Vegas for instance rewards players who deposit with Skrill with an additional 10% bonus on top their main welcome bonus (see our Royal Vegas review for more details)

6) Reputable: Skrill is one of the world’s leading e-wallets and is regulated by the U.K Financial Services Authority, one of the world’s strictest financial authorities.

Skrill Fees

Like any other payment method, skrill has payment and withdrawal fees. They are conveniently listed below. Please note that with some casinos there will be an additional cash advance fee which is detected by the casino (or its payment processor). These are additional payments which are not in Skrill’s control and are not a part of their fee structure.

Please note the Skrill is also part of Paysafe and that it is not recommended to move money from Skrill to Paysafe as it incurs an astonishing 7% fee. However, Paysafe can be a good way to deposit if you plan to withdraw to your bank account.

How to deposit with Skrill at an online casino?

1) Open a Skrill account, if you haven’t already opened a Skrill account you will need to do so via their website (www.skrill.com). It takes 5 minutes to register an account, which is free and requires just a valid email address.

2) Add funds to your Skrill account, once you’ve opened a Skrill account you will need to add funds, you can add money to your Skrill account via credit card, online or regular bank transfer, other e-wallet accounts, etc. The amount of time it takes before the funds appear on your Skrill account itself will depend upon and the method you choose – for example, regular bank wire transfer always takes longer than other methods.

Using Royal Vegas casino as an example you would then follow these steps to make the transfer from your Skrill account to your casino account:

3) Go to banking
4) Click on the withdrawal button
5) Click on the deposit button next to the Skrill button
6) Enter the amount you wish to deposit
7) You will then be re-directed to the Skrill Moneybookers) website where you will have to log-in
8) Follow the instructions to complete the process – entering your email, password and randomly generated number.

How to make a withdrawal at a Skrill casino?

This will often follow the same simple process as depositing. Using Royal Vegas again as an example here’s the walk-through of the steps you’d make

1) Go to Banking
2) Click on the ‘Withdrawal‘ button on the Main Menu bar
3) Enter your withdrawal amount and click ‘Next‘
4) Select ‘Skrill‘ from the drop-down menu
5) Complete the necessary financial details to complete the process.

Once your winnings are back on your Skrill account you can take advantage of another benefit that Skill offers, using a MasterCard linked to your Skrill account. This will enable you to withdraw cash from any ATM machine displaying Mastercard as well as make payments wherever Mastercard is accepted at both online and offline points of sale.

Bottom Line on Skrill Casinos

That’s really it, once you’ve set up a Skrill account and funded it, the only process which takes a bit of time, there really is no quicker and secure method for funding your gaming activity or transferring your money after you’ve won. Sign with one of our top Skrill online casinos today!