Neteller is one of the most popular ewallets around but the majority of online bookmakers exclude those making their first deposit using Neteller from any welcome offer or promotion – although many accept Neteller deposits.
First we’ll show you a list of Neteller friendly betting bonuses and promotions and then after that we’ll explain why so many choose to exclude Neteller depositors from their bonus offer.
Best Neteller Bonuses & Free Bets
The following is a list of the best Neteller friendly bonus offers:
What that list reveals, therefore, is that there are comparatively few bookmakers and online casino providers who do offer their bonuses to Neteller users. That begs the obvious question, then, of why do many bookmakers prevent bonuses for Neteller deposits?
Why Do Bookmakers Exclude Neteller Deposits From Bonuses?
If you look at the terms and conditions of the vast majority of bookmakers’ welcome promotions, you will find a stipulation that states that the offer is not open to those customers who deposit via Neteller.
What you will not find, however, is any explanation of why that is the case and that’s why we’re going to offer as comprehensive an explanation as we can right here.
Multi-Accounting Fraud
The main and principle reason why bookmakers do tend to exclude Neteller customers from their bonuses is because of multi-accounting fraud.
Multi-accounting fraud is when one individual or organisation sets up numerous accounts with a bookmaker or online casino in order to fraudulently benefit more than once from any bonus offered by the site.
Unfortunately for genuine and law abiding Neteller users, there have been significant historical instances of large scale multi-accounting fraud rings which use the e-wallet service to quickly and easily fund their numerous fraudulent accounts. As such, to clamp down on this fraud, bookmakers and online gambling sites have simply excluded accounts funded by Neteller from their bonuses.
Why the Drastic Response?
Entirely banning Neteller as a deposit method that can trigger a bonus may well seem like an over-zealous response, but bookmakers will tell you that they had little choice. The kind of multi-accounting fraud which was taking place, after all, was both difficult and expensive to police and to prevent.
In order to identify accounts perpetrating such fraud, for instance, a bookmaker would need to employ skilled cyber-security staff to comb through many thousands of transactions. That quite clearly would take a considerable amount of time, effort and expense, and as such it made more sense for bookmakers to simply introduce a more draconian ban.
What’s more, introducing an exclusion from bonuses for Neteller funded accounts was also made necessary by the fact that current account verification procedures are not fit for purpose when it comes to prevent multi-accounting fraud.
Introducing more stringent and exacting ID checks, then, might have provided an alternative to the Neteller bonus ban. Customers, however, already tend to despise the account verification procedures that are in place and making them more strict would likely have been even more unpopular than preventing Neteller funded accounts from taking part in promotions.
Why Isn’t Neteller Banned Everywhere?
As evidenced by the table at the top of this page, Neteller free bets and bonuses are available with some bookmakers. That begs the question, then, of why it is that some gambling providers don’t feel the need to entirely exclude Neteller users from their promotions.
There are, generally speaking, two possible answers to that question…
Firstly, it is possible that those bookmakers who haven’t banned Neteller users from their bonuses simply haven’t recognised or haven’t themselves yet suffered from the problem of multi-accounting fraud via the e-wallet service.
Secondly, and more likely however, the bookmakers who don’t exclude Neteller deposits likely run promotions which are less attractive to fraudsters. Bonuses and offers, for instance, which have more difficult or more extensive wagering requirements attached to them are proven to be less at risk from multi-accounting fraud rings.
What are Neteller Doing About it?
Unfortunately, the simple answer to this question is that at the moment Neteller themselves are doing very little. That, furthermore, is another reason why bookmakers have found it necessary to prevent Neteller funded accounts from receiving bonuses.
Whilst it is largely known and accepted that multi-accounting fraud rings have generally used Neteller as one of their deposit methods of choice, the e-wallet service itself has done very little to combat the problem. Their regulatory requirements, after all, are generally simply to ensure that accounts are operated by the named account holder and don’t tend to stretch to ensuring the legality of what that account holder ultimately does with their funds.
It is also fair to say that there is little commercial compulsion for Neteller to act either. The company, after all, have very few competitors and as such are not really fearful of losing the custom of those users who may be banned from bookmaker bonuses. Bookmakers, therefore, had little choice but to implement their strict Neteller bonus ban.
What Can Neteller Users Do?
If you’re both a Neteller user and a betting or online gambling fan, all of the above is likely to have left you feeling pretty upset and frustrated.
What’s more, it’s likely to have left you wondering whether there’s anything you could possibly do to get around your exclusion from bookmakers’ promotions and bonuses.
Fortunately, whilst there aren’t a huge number of potential solutions available, the following are a handful of possible routes you could take to try to solve your problem:
- You could head over to one of the sites listed in our Neteller friendly betting bonuses table above and give them your business.
- Make your first deposit using a different payment method to claim the bonus and the make all subsequent deposits using your Neteller account (list of bookmakers that accept Neteller).
- Get in touch with customer support before you join to see if they will make an exception for you – if you live in the UK this is sometimes possible.
