PayPal Online Casinos

Even though PayPal is an American company with headquarters in California and Nebraska, it does have a South African connection. South African born entrepreneur Elon Musk is one of the founding fathers of PayPal.

When it comes to electronic wallets, PayPal is arguably the most popular worldwide. PayPal is available in over 200 countries across regions such as Africa, Asia Pacific, Americas and Europe. It supports over 25 currencies. At the time of writing, PayPal claims more than 200m active users around the world.

PayPal was launched in 1998 and became a publicly traded company via initial public offering in 2002. PayPal underwent a stint as a wholly owned eBay subsidiary before becoming an independent company once again. As per the 2021 Fortune 500 rankings, PayPal was the 134^th largest US corporation in terms of revenue. In 2020, their annual revenue was US$ 21.45 billion.

In their own words, PayPal is for everyone who pays or gets paid. Whether you are an individual or a business, PayPal can be set up as per your needs. Online casino players looking for a safe and reliable way to make deposits to their online casino accounts and to withdraw their online casino winnings ought to certainly consider PayPal at the top of their list.

In this article, we are going to scrutinize PayPal from the perspective of an online casino player based in South Africa. Some of the topics that we will cover include – the best SA friendly casinos which support PayPal, how PayPal works, the registration process, using PayPal in SA, and how to make deposits and withdrawals using PayPal. We also address some frequently asked questions about this world-famous e-wallet and its many intricacies.

The online casino industry is a highly competitive playing field and there are thousands of online casinos hosted across the globe fighting for market share at any given time. As a South African national or resident, you’re going to find several hundreds of options when it comes to choosing an online casino.

One of the main factors to consider when choosing an online casino for your gaming needs is the banking options the casino provides. To play real money games, you are going to need to transact real money from your bank account to your casino account back and forth. Therefore, having access to an inexpensive, secure and fast banking option to carry out your casino activity is a high–priority item. PayPal is a perfect solution for South African players when it comes to online gambling activity. This e-wallet offers fully encrypted transactions which are private, secure and processed within seconds.

There are a lot of online casinos which accept South African players and also support PayPal as a valid deposit and withdrawal method. However, when compared to e-wallets like Neteller and Skrill, PayPal casinos are rarer to find for SA players. This is primarily because PayPal only integrates with licensed and regulated online casinos. In our list below, only the cream of the crop has made the cut. In curating this list, we have considered various factors of every casino and fastidiously tested the casinos to ensure they meet our stringent quality standards in terms of game library, banking options, licensing, data privacy, promotions, etc.

How does PayPal Work?

PayPal is a standard electronic wallet. In order to use it, you simply visit the PayPal website and register for an account. Once you’ve provided basic details and signed up for a PayPal account, you can add funds to your PayPal wallet by using a credit card, a debit card or bank wire transfer.

You can even use PayPal to make online payments when your PayPal balance is zero, as long as you have a valid credit or debit card linked to your PayPal account. When your PayPal balance is zero and you are making an online payment, you can simply choose to pay with the linked card instead of your available PayPal balance. This way, your credit card info is not shared with the merchant. They can only see your PayPal account email.

In our list above, there are plenty of online casinos offering PayPal to their customers, including their South African customers. However, technically speaking, using PayPal for online gambling in SA lies within a legal limbo. It is not licensed or regulated. However, PayPal itself is fully legal and available across South Africa. It is perfectly legal and okay for a South African national or resident to open and use a PayPal account for making online payments or even for receiving online payments.

Between 2006 and 2011 the US DOJ came down hard on online gambling websites. Prior to this, PayPal was widely available at virtually any online casino. After the US Department of Justice shut down unregulated online casino and poker rooms, PayPal took a more conservative approach in terms of which casinos they partnered with. As of today, PayPal only integrated with online casinos that are licensed and regulated.

Therefore, in EU nations and the United Kingdom where online gambling is legal and regulated, approved casinos will offer PayPal payments. The same holds true for US states where online casinos are legal (such as New Jersey), you will find PayPal offered at such casinos.

In South Africa, online casino gaming is in a legal grey area and is not distinctly defined as legal or illegal since it is simply not regulated. A few local sports betting websites have been licensed by various South African gambling control boards, but not offshore online casinos. Therefore, these casinos cannot lawfully offer PayPal as a banking option to players based within South Africa. In addition, it certainly hasn’t stopped offshore online casinos from providing PayPal support to SA players on the basis that the laws of South Africa have no bearing on casinos which are located outside the South African jurisdiction.

It is perfectly legal for a South African resident to open a PayPal account and use it for a variety of purposes. Depending on what they are going to use their PayPal account for, the player may need either a personal PayPal account or a business PayPal account.

PayPal has simplified the registration and verification process for South Africans over the years. Essentially, you can sign up and open a new PayPal account within a few minutes on PC or on mobile.

To open a PayPal account in South Africa, below are step by step instructions

Visit the PayPal website from PC or mobile, the website address is – https://www.paypal.com

Click on the sign up for free button

You have two options – personal account or business account

(If you are only going to use PayPal for shopping online and making payments, a personal account will suffice. However, if you are looking to use PayPal to receive funds and to send invoices to your customers, etc. you will need a business account)

For business accounts

• Enter your email address

• Enter a password

• For a business account – enter your legal first name and last name, business legal name, business phone number, business address and choose your primary currency (this is the currency you use most often for sending and receiving money). Unfortunately, South African Rands (ZAR) is not a listed currency, but USD and other major currencies are available.

• Check the box to accept the PayPal user agreement and privacy statement

• Click on agree and continue

• Select your business type from the drop-down menu, enter your business website (optional) and click on continue

• Enter your date of birth, nationality, choose the identity document you want to use for account verification, enter your home address and click submit.

• Your account is now opened; however, it is not yet verified.

• In order to verify your PayPal business account, click on the ‘collect additional information’ link from the notifications and upload the required documents for verification. The documents will be verified and then your account is approved.

For Personal accounts

• Select your country from the drop-down menu and click on Get Started

• Enter your mobile number and click on Next

• Enter the code which is sent to your mobile number via SMS

• Enter your email address, create a password and type the password again to confirm, Click on Next

• Complete the security challenge

• Enter address and other details as requested on the registration form

• Confirm that you agree to the terms & conditions and the privacy policy and submit the form to open your account

• In order to verify your account, you will have to upload certain documents and the verification team will review and approve your account usually within 24-72 hours.

Documents required for verification may include National ID, Passport or Driver’s license for ID proof and a copy of the SARS document for the income tax number.

Once you have registered your PayPal account, you will need to do the below to activate the account and get started

• Link your PayPal account to your bank account (FNB is an official PayPal partner and linking is automatic for FNB account holders)

• Upload your ID and income tax documents and get your account verified

• Link a valid credit or debit card to your PayPal account

• Login to your online casino account

• Click on the cashier and then go to deposit

• Ensure your PayPal account has sufficient funds or that it is linked to a credit or debit card

• Choose PayPal as the deposit method and enter the deposit amount

• Enter your PayPal credentials to authorize the transaction

• Your PayPal balance is deducted by the amount you approved for deposit

• If your PayPal does not have the sufficient balance but is linked to a credit/debit card, you may need to further authorize the card transaction to complete the deposit

How to cashout online casino winnings with PayPal?

• Login to your online casino account

• Make sure you have sufficient real money balance to support your desired withdrawal

• Go to the cashier section and choose PayPal as your withdrawal method

• Enter your withdrawal amount and other information as requested

• Follow on screen prompts to complete placing the withdrawal request