If you live in the United States, you can legally bet on sports online.
And best of all, you can do this whether or not your state has actually legalized domestic online sports betting!
While there are two exceptions (the states of Connecticut and Washington have laws against all forms of online gambling, although historically they have not been enforced), residents in 48 out of 50 states can legally place real money on sports betting over the internet.
The only caveat is that if there are no local options, they must use legit online sports betting sites that operate outside of US jurisdiction and have legitimate licenses in their own home countries.
Still, there is usually one particular hurdle that prevents many US gamblers from signing up with these operators and that is the online sports betting banking methods that they support.
Credit and debit card deposits are sometimes declined due to the UIGEA gambling law, which prohibits domestic American banks from knowingly processing payments to and from non-US regulated gaming establishments.
While a declined payment doesn’t mean you’ve committed a crime or that your card has been flagged or deactivated, it’s an inconvenience no sportsbook wants to face – especially when the day’s game starts in minutes and you need your account ASAP funded.
Many bettors think that an easy way to quickly fill up their bankroll is to use P2P money transfer services like PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, and Zelle Pay.
However, due in part to the UIGEA and other restrictions, these companies do not allow such international transactions.
In the case of Venmo and Zelle Pay, these services are only available in the US, meaning there is no way to send or receive money to or from your offshore betting site of choice.
In the case of PayPal and Cash App, the former can be used for international transfers that are unrelated to gambling, while the latter – although available in many countries – can only be used by parties physically located in those individual countries. International Cash App transfers are not allowed.
Since these services are by far the most popular means of person-to-person transactions and since tens of millions of Americans use these services on a daily basis, international betting sites open to US gamblers are at a distinct disadvantage as they cannot process such payments.
However, that is no longer a problem!
Bovada, the most popular online betting site in the United States, has a brand new deposit option that allows bettors to use PayPal, Venmo, Cash App and Zelle to make quick sports betting deposits.
How is this possible given the international restrictions described above?
Because, as befits an industry leader, Bovada is now supporting the new MatchPay betting deposit service, which allows online gambling enthusiasts from the US to finally deposit using the aforementioned P2P services.
What is MatchPay?
MatchPay is a third-party money transfer service that works in a unique and ingenious way.
Essentially, MatchPay allows members of online merchants and merchants to sell their account balances – partially or in full – to other members in the same internet shops.
While businesses must choose to participate in the MatchPay program, below is how MatchPay works for those who do. And since Bovada is the first online gambling site to support the platform, we’ll use Bovada MatchPay for our example below.
This is how MatchPay works
Let’s say you want to sign up with Bovada but your credit or debit card has been declined and you don’t want to make a bitcoin gambling deposit because you’re not on the whole cryptocurrency scene.
However, you have a PayPal account and would prefer to make a PayPal bet deposit to fund your online betting.
Normally you would be unlucky. SOL even.
But with MatchPay, you can now use PayPal to transfer money to another Bovada member who has chosen to transfer part of their account balance to the MatchPay Trader service.
Once that player receives your PayPal (or other supported P2P) payment – which is monitored and guaranteed by both Bovada and MatchPay – your account will be credited with the amount you sent.
In short, MatchPay enables Bovada players to make easy account transfers using the world’s most popular payment platforms.
How to deposit with MatchPay
While this is covered in detail on our MatchPay page linked above, the basics of depositing with MatchPay are easy to grasp.
First of all, of course, you need an account with Bovada, as Bovada Sportsbook is the only legal online betting site that currently offers support for the platform.
Once you are a member of Bovada, simply log in, go to the deposit section of your account portal and select the MatchPay option. (Alternatively, new members can select this deposit method themselves during the signup process.)
There you will be asked to enter your MatchPay Merchant ID and you can use the site’s plugin to sign up for MatchPay if you haven’t already. The service is free and it takes about two minutes to join.
Then just enter the amount of money you want to add to your account through the MatchPay service.
Next, MatchPay will automatically match you with a Bovada member who is also a MatchPay merchant to whom you can send the required funds using any of the following P2P services:
- PayPal
- Venmo
- cash app
- Cell Pay
Once your funds are cleared and the Bovada member has received your funds, Bovada will transfer the relevant balance from their sportsbook to your sportsbook and you can bet.
The entire deposit process at MatchPay takes 10-15 minutes and these deposits come with the standard sportsbook bonuses and membership benefits you’ve come to expect.
Ultimately, MatchPay is a real game changer in a market where there are few. A bit like Patrick Mahomes.
And while we still believe that crypto deposits (Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, etc.) are the way to go in the long term, there are potentially millions of sports betting fans out there who will benefit from MatchPay making it possible for them , PayPal to make sportsbook deposits, Venmo sportsbook deposits, Cash App sportsbook deposits and cell sportsbook deposits.
Additionally, since MatchPay opens the door to a whole new clientele who were previously unable to deposit and wager, it is only a matter of time before the entire industry adopts MatchPay or similar services for their customers.
If you’ve always wanted to bet on sports using PayPal or any other popular P2P instant pay app, now you finally can!