How has the integration of PayPal changed online casinos?

Is there a person who is not familiar with PayPal? Even if they don’t have an account, the Pay with PayPal icon is on so many online shopping platforms, and you can hardly miss any of their advertising.

PayPal has been the leading digital payment platform since its creation. It has gone through many iterations — and nearly as many name changes. However, one thing has remained constant: PayPal has steadily grown and diversified to offer more services to more users.

One industry where PayPal’s history hasn’t been entirely straightforward is online casinos. The relationship between the two has had its major ups and downs. Today, PayPal is one of the preferred payment methods for online casino deposits, and most of the leading sites have PayPal integration to facilitate these payments.

PayPal was founded in 1998 under the name Fieldlink, which was quickly changed to Confinity. The original owners were Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek. It was initially a cybersecurity company with a focus on Palm Pilots, which would have doomed the company to obscurity if it hadn’t changed direction. Within a year, their focus had shifted to creating a financial services platform.

The step that put PayPal on the map came in 2002 when it became the default payment method for eBay. From 2002 to 2014, that relationship gave PayPal a solid foundation, which it used to grow. PayPal expanded from only offering digital payment services to becoming a more complete financial services company. During this period,  it was also able to expand into other regions.

In 2014, PayPal regained its independent status from eBay. The last decade has been spent building the business in more regions, adding new features, and improving the company's existing services. In 2023, PayPal launched its own cryptocurrency to complement its cryptocurrency investing platform.

As of 2022, PayPal had over 425 million users in 202 markets. It supports 25 currencies and has acquired more than a dozen smaller companies, which have allowed it to offer services like international money transfers, peer-to-peer payments, and buy now, pay later. 

PayPal has become one of the standards around the world. Since it is an international platform, it is perfect for casinos that operate across multiple regions. It has also had time to work through all of the bugs and minor issues that plague most new tech companies.

One of the reasons PayPal has been so successful is security. While the company has made some missteps in banning the accounts of legitimate activists working to improve the world, it has also taken steps to combat extremism through partnerships. This helps governments mitigate threats from extremists since funding is so key.

This extra security and reliability is popular with online casino brands. Such high security standards have put pressure on new payment processors to reach the same level, which has had a generally positive impact on players, who now have more secure payment methods to choose from.

PayPal integration has streamlined the payment process for casinos and players. The platform has a well-established system for processing payments and verifying recipients, so players know exactly how long it will take for their withdrawals to appear in their PayPal accounts. This makes online casinos take more accountability over their processing protocols. Again, this has a net positive effect for players.

Lastly, PayPal integration with online casinos has shown smaller digital payment brands that this is a valuable revenue stream. Along with other economic factors, this has sparked a payment revolution. More and more independent financial services companies have emerged to provide people with ways to make payments online.

However, this competition might not be in PayPal’s best interests. As a result, most online casinos accept payments from a selection of digital payment processors alongside PayPal. The most common ones to see are Skrill, Neteller, Revolut, MuchBetter, Zelle, and Trustly.

Looking at all of these impacts together, PayPal's integration into online casino platforms has been beneficial for players, who now have more options and higher security standards.

PayPal has a historic role as the first truly digital payment method to succeed. In the almost three decades since its launch, it has grown from a small idea to a full financial services company operating around the world. Part of that success is its role as the preferred payment processor for many online casinos. 

Yet, we may see PayPal become the victim of its success. Smaller, younger payment apps have emerged. They have learned from PayPal’s successes and missteps. They are more agile since they offer fewer services and have smaller regional footprints. With so many competitors, each taking a small part of PayPal’s market, it may be impossible for PayPal to ever dominate the digital payment sphere like it once did.

This article was written in cooperation with Casino Tops Online