You’ve just won your first big online poker event! Congratulations! You’ve taken your bankroll and made it grow exponentially and bested hundreds of other players to get the top spot and a big payout that you want to divide between your poker bankroll and your bank account. So how do you get that money? We’re going to use the popular online poker site UltimateBet as an example of how the best poker rooms make it easy and painless to get your money from them.
The minimum amount needed to qualify for a withdrawal depends on the method and you’re going to need to have made a deposit previously to request a withdrawal. In other words, you can’t take out money you’ve won in a freeroll until you’ve actually funded your own account with real money. UltimateBet offers lower minimums than most, because their poker room has a lot of traffic. To have a check cut or to use Instadebit, ewalletXPress, Netelller, CLICK2PAY, or Moneybookers you’ll need to have at least $50 that you are withdrawing To get the funds in your Visa account, $100 is the minimum. A wire transfer directly to your bank account requires $500.
There are maximum amounts that can be transferred per transaction with each method, with wire transfers, Moneybookers, click2Pay, and Neteller each allowing you $100,000-$150,000 per transaction. A check, ewalletXpress, and Instadebit have a maximum of $5,000, and finally there’s Western Union, which has the odd-looking figure of $2350 that is their maximum that they allow to be transferred in a single transaction.
As you can imagine, there are fees associated with many of these methods — after all, if a company moves money from place to place, they probably should get paid for it. UltimateBet charges the withdrawal fees they charge from the poker account balance, not the withdrawal amount. A check that is mailed to you costs $8; a couriered check is $25 because of the extra service required. Western Union has a $25 fee they charge, and a bank wire transfer is $50.
There’s also some limitations: many of these services will only allow you to make a weekly withdrawal, but Instadebit, Neteller, Click2Pay, and Moneybookers each give you unlimited transactions. There’s also regional limitations on which service you can use, but these are matched by the deposit methods available, so it’s fairly easy to sort them out.
Each site has specific identification requirements for players. In UltimateBet’s case, they require payers who have reached $10,000 to provide identification verification documents. UltimateBet’s restrictions are easy to meet and their individual quirks seem to be minor compared to many other sites. They’re a great example of a site that makes it easy and fast to get and deposit funds and other poker rooms should look at their offerings.
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