The History and Development of PayPal Casinos
PayPal is probably the most popular electronic payment method to use at online casinos. Not only that, it was also one of the first. The company responsible for its launch was first established as long ago as 1998, not long after the dawn of the internet. Called Confinity, it introduced its PayPal money transfer service the following year. Barely a year after that, it was snapped up by X.com, an online banking company led by the now multi-billionaire Tesla electric car and SpaceX tycoon Elon Musk.
So confident was Mr Musk about the future of this new online money service, he changed the name of his entire company to PayPal in 2001. It was launched on the New York Stock Exchange in 2002, raising over $60 million, with an opening share price of $13.
PayPal was already a success, but fate was to step in and launch the new service into the stratosphere when the premier online marketplace eBay noticed how practical and convenient the payment method was. Old school cheques and cash were not at all suitable for the fast moving world of online trading, where customer and vendor didn’t know each other: vendors had no brand name to inspire trust in their customers.
But equally, vendors had no way of being sure that their customers’ funds would reach them, unless they waited for them to arrive or clear before despatching the goods, which was hardly ideal when the whole point of internet trading was supposed to be speed and convenience. Swiftness, security and trust was essential, and PayPal was a means of providing it. Nearly three quarters of all eBay listings offered PayPal as a means of payment, and around 25% of listings were settled using the method.
So it was that mere months after its successful public share issue, PayPal was taken over. It was acquired by eBay for a cool $1.5 billion before the year 2002 was out. This represented a vast increase over its original listed value. eBay also paid almost double the value of the PayPal company at the time of takeover. Its shares were now valued at $23.
PayPal continued to grow, becoming the number one choice for payment at checkout. Indeed it was used for the majority of eBay transactions, and other similar services running at the time soon closed.
By the end of the decade, PayPal had more than 100 million active customer accounts, trading in almost every country across the globe. It was also operating in over twenty different currencies.
In 2015, PayPal was spun off from its previous owner. At the time of its separation from eBay, it boasted annual revenues of close to $10 billion with pre-tax income of well over $1 billion. It was also responsible for the employment of close to 17,000 employees. Although it no longer has priority status at eBay, PayPal remains a popular payment option. It is still preferred by a large proportion of e-bay users.
Meanwhile, the PayPal service has continued to grow. It is now a payment of choice in the wider world too, with many if not most online businesses accepting it as payment for goods and services. This includes online casinos, where it is one of the features many players look for when deciding which casino brand to spend their hard earned money with.
At the time of writing, PayPal operates in over two hundred countries across the world and has 305 million active account holders. These accounts can be held in any of 25 alternative currencies.
By the end of 2019, the last year for which full financial results were available at the time of writing, PayPal boasted worldwide revenues of nearly $18 billion. It was responsible for 12.4 billion payment transactions, representing $712 billion in total payment value. Both of these figures represented a 25% increase on the previous year’s results (2018). There was an average of around 41 transactions per active account.
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How does PayPal work?
Signing up is really simple, and it’s free. Just go to the PayPal webpage and give your e-mail address. You’ll also need to think of a secure password. Next you need to add your credit card or debit card, so that funds can be transferred from your nominated personal account when you make a PayPal payment.
And that’s it. Your personal banking details are stored securely at PayPal, so you don’t need to disclose them when making a deposit at a Betable casino. Instead, you will be re-directed from the online checkout you are using to PayPal, where you will be required to sign in. This could involve inputting your e-mail address and password, or mobile number and PIN, depending on the device you are using. PayPal will then authorise the sale with the casino site. Funds are then withdrawn from your nominated bank account into your online casino account. This means that you don’t need to keep a balance in your PayPal account – funds are uploaded automatically when you make a deposit.
PayPal is compatible with use on any kind of internet linked device. You can use PayPal whether you are using a desktop PC, Apple mac, laptop, tablet or mobile phone (Apple or Android). Download the app on mobile devices for even greater convenience.
You can also use PayPal to make personal payments. Using the PayPal app, you can make payments to friends and acquaintances just by inputting their phone numbers. If they don’t have a PayPal account, they will be invited to open one, for free.
It’s always free to use PayPal. There are no fees for making purchases online. Instead the casino site owner pays a small transaction charge for accepting your purchase. The only major exception is if currency conversion is involved. For purchases from most major European countries, the fee is 0.5%. For other European currencies and the rest of the world, the currency conversion fee is set at 2%.
PayPal is swift, convenient and secure. It’s widely available at online stores throughout the world. It can be found as a payment method at all Betable casino sites.
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