Already valued at over €300 million and expected to continue to grow over the next five years to over €350 million, the online sports betting market of Ireland is bustling right now. Betting on sports has long been a popular activity in Ireland, particularly around horse and greyhound racing, but now, with the number of online options expanding and becoming extremely competitive, there’s an even greater incentive to try out the convenient digital offerings.
Also helping to spur online betting is the increased number and security levels of online payment methods. For a long time, people were rightfully skeptical of putting their card details into a website, and while there are protections in place for this kind of data now, there are far safer and faster options available. With that in mind, these are the best payment methods for sports bettors in Ireland in 2024.
A Protected Way to Pay
Forged as a way to protect user payment data online while still facilitating speedy transactions, PayPal has fully shrugged off the bad PR of a couple of decades ago to become an online payments behemoth. The service that once had Elon Musk involved in its rise to prominence has rapidly grown in popularity in Ireland to the point that PayPal might eventually be as commonplace here as it is in the United Kingdom.
In the UK, particularly for online gambling, PayPal has become popular because it’s fast and easy. Naturally, its security measures are another big selling point, but when we’re talking about online activities in a mobile-dominated space, convenience will always be among the top reasons for popularity. Right now, 65 per cent of UK gamblers prefer PayPal, with its fast withdrawals that take less than 24 hours often cited for its usage.
Irish online gamblers are getting there with PayPal. It’s not quite the two-thirds of the user base hit that it is in the UK, but steadily, digital wallets with PayPal at the front are eating away at more traditional payment methods. Some stats indicate that in 2020, 21 per cent of all online shopping transactions involved PayPal in Ireland, and that adoption is expected to grow by around 15 per cent each year.
The Future of Online Payments
Like many people across the world, in the run to the 2020s, people up and down Ireland became excited by the prospect of cryptocurrencies – particularly because of their heavily advertised price rises. Since, many people have sold off their crypto, opting to go back to more conventional forms of payments and investments. As a result, Ireland has fallen out of the top 100 countries for crypto ownership, and yet, it’s still a sound payment method.
Now, the decline in crypto adoption has still left some 50,000 people with one form of cryptocurrency or another, which means that 50,000 people in Ireland can make use of its many perks as a payment method right now. Those people get the additional benefits of near-instant transactions and incredible levels of security and privacy by virtue of the wallet and blockchain systems that underpin all cryptocurrencies.
In our increasingly digital world, easily the best, most reliable, safest, and most secure payment methods are digital wallets like PayPal and cryptocurrencies that put brick walls between your bank details and the vendors.