Gambling in Online Casinos: Sofort vs PayPal
A wide range of payment methods can be used for real-money online gambling. At a typical online casino, around a dozen or so are listed on the cachier page.
Many internet casinos let you use Sofort and PayPal. In Germany, these two are particularly popular. If you’d like to find out how the two compare, carry on reading this article.
What Do Sofort and PayPal Have in Common?
Fast deposits
What Sofort and Paypal have in common is that they offer fast deposits. When you use either one to fund your casino account, the money should reach it almost immediately.
Safe & Secure
Both payment methods are also very safe and secure. They use sophisticated software to keep everything protected at all times. What’s more is that they let you fund casino accounts without having to supply your banking details. Many online gamblers prefer not having to do this as it reduces the risk of the details being compromised.
Trustworthy and reliable
Sofort and PayPal are both trustworthy and reliable. Each one has a great reputation and is known for offering a top-quality payment service. Use either one and you shouldn’t have any major problems.
Sofort vs Paypal differences
There are actually more differences than similarities between Sofort and PayPal. This is because they’re two different types of payment methods. Sofort involves bank transfers, while PayPal is an e-wallet.
With Sofort, the money for your deposit is taken directly from your bank account. Sofort essentially acts as a middle-man. As for PayPal, the money is stored in your PayPal account, i.e. the e-wallet. When you make a deposit, the money is transferred from this account to your casino account.
Deposit procedure
When using Sofort to make online casino transactions, you’ll be taken to your banking page. Here, you’ll have to enter your bank details and possibly a TAN (transaction authentication number). For PayPal, you just have to enter the email address and password linked to your PayPal account.
Cashout speed
While the two offer near-instant deposits, withdrawals made with PayPal can be very fast. In fact, PayPal is one of the fastest options for withdrawing money from online casinos. Once the casino has processed your withdrawal request, PayPal should get your money to you on the same day; usually this takes just a few hours. For Sofort, however, you may have to wait a few working days for your money to reach you.
Comparison Table
The table below summarises some more key differences between the two payment methods:
Sofort | PayPal | |
|---|---|---|
Monthly transactions | Over 3 million | Approximately 3 billion |
Users | 85 million | 429 million |
Employees | 120 | 30,900 |
Currencies | Euro | More than 20 |
Countries | Germany and a dozen other European countries | More than 200 |
Online Merchants | 35,000 | Millions |
Popularity & accepted Countries
As you can see, PayPal is by far the most widely used of the two. It’s an international payment solution with a huge customer base. Sofort, on the other hand, is still international but it’s available in far fewer countries.
Even though Sofort isn't as widely used, this doesn’t mean that it should be overlooked. It’s still a very well-respected payment option in its own right. While it’s not as worldwide as PayPal, it’s still the go-to payment method for many millions of people.
Many German online casinos accept both payment methods. What you may find is that of the two, PayPal is more widely accepted. This is simply because PayPal is used in more countries and has a greater number of customers.
Sofort, of course, was developed in Germany and has been around since 2005. While it was developed with the German market in mind, its success has resulted in it being launched in other European markets. PayPal, on the other hand, is an American company that was created in 1998. It was intended for the PayPal service to be global and its rollout was very fast indeed.
Fees
It’s also worth talking about fees. When you use Sofort, a fee of €0.25 applies along with a charge of 0.9% of the transaction amount. When you use PayPal for online casino transactions, there aren’t usually any extra costs involved. There may be some charges for things like currency conversion, withdrawing from PayPal to certain bank accounts and having an inactive account.
Limits
Finally, we’ll look at transaction limits. Both Sofort and PayPal have limits on how much money can be transferred at any given time. This should only affect high rollers and anyone lucky enough to land a big win.
If you’re using Sofort, the maximum transaction amount per 24 hours is €25,000. For PayPal, it’s €5,000, or €15,000 per month. These upper limits may be reduced by casinos. A casino may, for example, let you withdraw less than a payment method’s upper limit.
Summary of Sofort vs PayPal
Sofort and PayPal are trusted payment methods that are suitable for funding casino accounts. Lots of online gamblers use these - especially PayPal - because of their reliability and convenience.
Both offer very fast deposits and a high level of security. PayPal has the edge, however, in that its withdrawals are much faster. That being said, Sofort has higher transaction limits which may appeal to some players more.
Overall, both options are well worth considering for online gambling in Germany. Some may prefer Sofort because it’s from a German company, though others may choose PayPal because of its faster withdrawals.
