Withdrawals

From request to arrival

The steps are much the same at most books. You choose a method and an amount in the cashier, and the request goes pending, waiting in a queue; at many books you can still cancel it at this stage. Then someone, or something, reviews the account. Once approved, the money leaves the book, and how long it takes to arrive depends on the method, not on the book.

Every method has its own timetable and its own fee, and they differ from book to book, so I won't quote any here. Read the cashier page for the method you plan to use, on the day you plan to use it.

What the book is checking

From the book's side a payout request is the one moment when it can lose money to a fraud, so that is when it looks hardest. If the account has not been verified, it will be now (see KYC). It checks whether a bonus is still open, because an unfinished rollover blocks the payout or costs you the bonus, and whether the deposit was bet: most books want a deposit wagered at least once before it can come back out, bonus or no bonus.

It looks at how the money came in, too. Books usually send money back the way it arrived, at least up to the amount you deposited by that method, so I'd use one method in and out where you can and give the book less to query. And it looks at the bets themselves, since patterns that look like bonus abuse, or two accounts working together, get a second look.

All of that is reasonable. A book that paid out without checking would be robbed every week, and I'd send my documents when I opened the account, not on the day I won.

Payout limits, in numbers

A book can cap how much you take out per request and how often. The page on how payout limits work explains the kinds.

Put numbers on it before you need to. Say you win $6,000 and the book pays $2,000 a week by your method. That is three requests over three weeks, and if each one carried a fee of, say, $40, you would pay $120, which is 2 percent of the win. Neither figure is unusual enough to be a scandal. Both are better learned before the deposit than after the win.

Many books give one free payout in a set period and charge for the rest. If yours does, fewer and larger requests cost less.

Slow pay and no pay

A slow book and a stalling book look alike for the first few days. After that they don't. Ordinary delay means the book tells you the timetable in advance, asks for its documents once, and the status moves. Stalling looks like this:

• A new document is requested each time you send the last one.
• Support gives a different reason on each contact.
• The rules quoted at you can't be found in the terms, or were changed after your bet.
• You are offered a bonus to cancel the request.
• The payout is approved and then goes back to pending.

One of those can be clumsiness. Several together are a pattern, and that is when you stop betting there and start keeping records. The dispute handling page takes it from that point.

The cancel button

Most cashiers let you reverse a pending withdrawal and put the money back in play. The button is there on purpose. A fair share of pending money gets bet again before it is sent, and bet money mostly stays with the house (nobody in the cashier's office ever complained about that button).

I would treat a withdrawal as gone the moment I asked for it. If a book offers to lock the request so that it can't be reversed, take the offer.

Habits that get you paid

Test the book with a small withdrawal in your first few weeks; you are checking the book, not collecting a profit. Finish or decline any bonus before you ask, because a good many of the payout arguments I have seen were bonus arguments. Keep records of the request date, amount, method, reference number and every chat with support.

Then withdraw on a schedule. A balance sitting in a book is an unsecured loan to the book, so keep in the account what you need to bet with and take the rest home. Decide at what figure you take money out, and do it when you get there. A player who only ever deposits has no idea whether his book pays, and will find out at the worst possible time.