Poker Strategy - e-cash

By the time you begin to really make money at online poker, you'll have a great understanding of how the ecash system works.

But if you are new, here's a quick primer.

Don't use your credit cards at these websites. If you are a US citizen, chances are your credit card company has blocked online gambling purchases. Even if you are not, there are much more efficient ways to deposit/withdraw money. The best one is Neteller, though FirePay is decent as well.

Anyways, here's an explanation of the more popular ecash options.

Neteller

This place acts as an e-cash middleman. It is a Canadian company with no direct ties to any government or pokerroom/casino.

How to deposit into Neteller: After you sign up at Neteller.com, you have two good options for depositing money. First, just deposit with a credit card. That's what I've always done. They charge you a small fee, but who cares. The second option is transferring money from your bank account. You should register your bank account with Neteller. The process takes about 3 days. What happens is you put in your bank account information, and they verify it by sending you two small deposits of less than a dollar. When your bank account is verified, you can transfer money through an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), which takes about 3 business days. So, if you're new to Neteller, it takes about 15 min to deposit with a credit card, but about a week to deposit straight from your bank account.

How to withdraw: There are two good ways. After you credit back any credit card deposits, they can just send you a check or they can EFT you the money to your bank account. This is why it's good to register your bank account with Neteller; once you do so, you simply transfer your poker room winnings to Neteller (about 1 day) then you transfer your Neteller money to your bank account (2-3 days). I've never used an EFT to deposit, but I've made many EFT withdrawals.

FirePay

Sign-up at FirePay.com. This place acts as an online debit card.

How to deposit: You can't with a credit card. You must verify your bank account with them and then you write them an 'e-check.' In other words, you tell them how much to deduct from your bank account and they do it. The process is instantaneous (unlike Neteller, where it takes 3 days to send them money from your bank account).

How to withdraw: You can have them EFT you the money back to you. They charge you 10 dollars to do this and it takes several days. One problem though is that you must wait 6 business days after your last deposit to withdraw any money.

I heavily recommend Neteller over FirePay or any other ecash account for several reasons:

1. FirePay accounts sometimes take longer to credit back. I'm not exactly sure why this is, but a pokerroom that takes 1 day to credit back my Neteller account will sometimes take a week to credit back my FirePay account.

2. Some poker rooms will only send you as much money to your FirePay account as you put in. They then force you to redeem your other winnings by check (which takes about a week) or Neteller.

3. FirePay's only advantage over Neteller is that you can send them cash from your bank account instantaneously for free.

However, with proper planning, you can avoid any major credit card fees with Neteller (either deposit a little with Neteller through credit card or just wait the week and deposit with an EFT.) Yet, there is no way around that 10-dollar fee to EFT your winnings from FirePay to your bank account.

So, in brief, create a Neteller account. It takes maybe 20 minutes to create it and fund it through credit card. You can withdraw your winnings to it easily and quickly. Once your money is in your Neteller account, you can receive it quickly through an EFT or check (the checks take about a week unless you have them fedex it to you).