Echeck Poker Sites
Electronic checks are a quick and easy way to make an online poker deposit directly from a bank account. These transactions are often called echecks for short. Another terms for this process is automated clearing house (ACH).
Echecks are not available to U.S. players at offshore sites as a deposit option. Some sites have a debit card withdrawal option that works in a similar fashion. That option is not always available.
Players in Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey may use echecks to deposit at poker sites that are licensed to operate in these states. These include WSOP.com, 888, Party Poker, and Borgata. These regulated online poker rooms also process withdrawals by electronic check. This is a fast and easy way to get paid winnings.
Echecks are available to players in most countries outside the U.S. It is also a common way to fund ewallet accounts such as Neteller, Skrill, Moneybookers, Click2Pay, and UKash. This is also a common way to receive a withdrawal from an ewallet.
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How to Make an Echeck Deposit
Making an echeck deposit is simple. Click the option in the deposit screen, if available. That deposit page will ask for the routing number and account number. The routing number is on the bottom left of a check related to the account. If there are no checks associated with the account you wish to use, you may contact the bank or search an ACH site to get that number.
The account number is printed in the middle of the bottom of a check. Some ACH deposits will require a check number. If there is no checks associated with this account simply make a number up that will not get used again. This is really just for record keeping.
Echeck deposits show up in a poker account instantly. It may take several business days for it to clear the bank account. Make sure to leave enough funds to cover the electronic check in the bank account until it clears. A bounced echeck will cause the poker site to close your account until it gets paid. The site will also refuse to allow echeck deposits from a player that already bounced one.
Some players create a secondary account for poker deposits and transfer money back and forth between them. This is because processors have been known to make errors by double charging or act outright shady. This is simply a precaution and is not necessary.
Electonic Check Scandals
There have been two poker sites that had echeck scandals. World Sports Exchange, referred to as WSEX for short, accepted echecks in 2007 and 2008. This deposit method worked great for a while but then WSEX lost access to the U.S. banking system. Players continued to make echeck deposits and received credit directly to their WSEX account even though the funds were never removed from their bank. It is believed that this situation help bankrupt the site. It closed in 2013 owing more than $1 million to players.
Full Tilt Poker ran into similar problems. It had issues collecting echecks in late 2010. It continued to accept them hoping to collect one day. It never did and this behavior caught up with the site.
It is believed that Full Tilt accepted $128 million in electronic checks that it never collected. This ultimately put the site out of business. The fraud was exposed after Full Tilt was charged in the Black Friday indictments. Full Tilt lost its gaming license in June 2011 and immediately closed. PokerStars bailed the company and its players out in 2012 after an agreement it made with the U.S. Department of Justice.