Life always seems to rear its head and find ways to make the day to day that little bit harder, but we as a people have used technology to try and curb the daily issues that we find ourselves up against.
Every issue we face has people working hard somewhere in the world to solve it.
For gamblers, it was first the desire to want to gamble outside of the bricks and mortar casino hours or simply to be able to avoid going into the casino house to be able to gamble in general. The age of the internet began and soon after, the online gambling scene was born.
The next issue was portability, we wanted to have the freedom to travel and still play our favourite online slots game, mobile slots were the answer.
Whilst we were playing on the go, sometimes we needed to top up our accounts, but away from our computers, this simply was not possible.
Enter pay by mobile casino Bill Services!
What is Pay By Phone Bill?
Pay by phone bill services are the solution to our aforementioned problem.
A collection of companies realised there was a way to make things easier for customers across the globe, both in the gambling world and outside of it.
There are people in the world who don’t have bank accounts or the ability to pay for things online, but nearly everyone on the planet has a mobile phone, because of this, these companies realised that it would be a great solution for those who couldn’t pay online. It also acts as a great convenience for so many others.
The way that pay by phone bill services work is that we make accounts with one of the pay by phone bill service providers. They will keep a tally of the amount we spend through their service, then at the end of the billing period for our mobile device, they will add on the charges that have built up.
This gives us a great ability to be able to engage with ease and for the most part, a much greater level of security than a bank card.
Which Companies Offer Pay By Phone Bill Services
There aren’t a great deal of companies out there that offer pay by phone services in the UK, particularly companies that allow us to top up our gambling accounts.
The main service provider out there is Boku who have garnered some serious acclaim in the tech industries. Not only do they provide pay by phone bill services to most of the gambling communities, but they also provide services for big name companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Apple and even further a field into the gaming world with companies like Xbox, PlayStation and Blizzard as well as the financial sectors.
Aside from Boku there are also the following providers, which you can use to play free uk slots:
- Zimpler
- Siru Mobile
- EE
How To Get Signed Up
As we should expect, the process of getting set up with pay by phone bill services is a simple and smooth one.
So let us go through it step by step.
- The first thing we need is to be registered to an online casino; making sure they are fully registered and licenced with the Gambling Commission.
- The following information will be required:
- Name
- Address
- Postcode
- Account Password
- Mobile Number
- Once we have registered, we need to select our deposit method. To do this, go to the payments section in our account.
- Select the pay by phone option
- This can have a few different names, it could also be called any of the following:
- Direct Carrier Billing
- Pay By SMS
- Pay By Phone Bill
- Charge to Mobile
- After finding the correct option, enter in the amount you would like to deposit and confirm the deposit request
- Bare in mind that there is a £30 per day deposit limit
- To verify the deposit, the tethered mobile device will be sent an SMS with a unique code,
- Enter this code into the online casinos website to verify the transition.
Pay By Phone Bill Shortcomings
So we have gone through everything that is great about pay by phone bill services, but with all things, there are downside.
Network Limitations
One thing that is worth knowing, is that not all mobile carrier offer the ability to be able to use this service, although most UK providers do offer it.
Here are the provider that support pay by phone bill services:
- O2
- Virgin
- EE
- Three
- Vodafone
Daily Spend Limit
We have touched on the daily limit issue a little, but it is worth expanding on this to understand the further ramifications it can cause.
Not only could this restriction be an irritation, but it can also prevent players from being able to take advantage of deposit based bonuses.
For instance if there a 100% deposit match with a maximum of £100 we are missing out on a potential £70 bonus cash.
However, it must be said, that there is a justified reason that this limitation is put in place. The £30 day limit is there to protect us from the slim chance that our accounts are violated and we have money stolen from our accounts.
Pay By Phone Bill PayForIt Scandal
That brings us to this one fairly significant issue. Payforit has faced some serious backlash due to their lack of security measures, which caused a collection of users to have money stolen from their accounts.
This occurred because PayForIt oversimplified the verification process to a single click of a button.
The tech savvy among us will understand that simple actions such as pressing a button can easily exploited through simple JavaScript injections. This is when hackers use simple lines of code to make our device think that we have made an action when we have not.
How To Protect Against Account Exploitation
Whilst the PayForIt situation might sound like the pay by phone bill situation is till in the wild west, Boku and other services have done a great job at ensuring our safety.
Even though they have some of the tightest security systems with their text verification system, that does not mean that it is without its flaws.
The only thing that is truly required to make these transactions is the phone itself, which means that if someone were to take our phones, we could potentially be exposed to having our money stolen as well, this one reason why there is that pesky £30 daily limit.
We are able to create further roadblocks to protect us against this potential exploitation.
Make sure that our devices are secured with complex passwords, using multiple character cases (lower and capital letters) as well as extended characters and numbers.
If the option is available, it is also a good idea to have a fingerprint as a password or to use facial recognition.
Withdrawing Funds Via Mobile Phone
Another thing that some people might view as a downside to this innovation is that we are unable to use this service to withdraw funds.
That is because it is a billing service, not a digital bank. That being said, Boku are working on creating wallets, which currently allow us to pre-pay, but could have the potential to allow for transactions both ways.
Aside from the potential of this advancement, any withdrawals will have to be made using different transactional avenues.
Alternatives To Pay By Phone
So however good pay by phone bill services may be, there will be people who want to use other services instead.
Obviously there are the well known standard methods such as using Visa or Mastercard, however for those of us looking for methods more akin to pay by phone bill. Methods where we don’t necessarily have to have a bank account and that gives us ease of use, here are a few different options.
PayPal
One great option that has had years of tweaking to make sure it is easy to use and secure is PayPal. Originally designed by Elon Musk, this software has become a stable in the financial industries.
Their attention to the importance of security is the reason that it has become the service that is used most in sales and purchases with Ebay.
Netller and Skrill
These are two examples of online wallets. This software is heavily popular with retail stockbrokers. It allows companies to make international transactions whilst avoiding fees. More often than not, this will mean that customers can avoid facing withdrawal fees, although this is not guaranteed, so make user to check before making any withdrawal.
Crypto Currencies
Crypto currencies are receiving greater levels of integration to the mainstream financial industries with every passing month.
There was recently a significant spike in the amount of gamblers that used the ability to withdraw in crypto currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or Litecoin to place their winnings into what was a hugely spiking market.
The one thing to keep in mind when choosing to withdraw money through this method is that the crypto market is highly volatile and means that we are making an investment with the withdrawn money. With any investment, there is a chance that we could end up losing money with this option.
