In order to fund a player account at an online poker site with real money, a play generally uses an online poker payment service. These services act as mini-banks and are usually situated outside the United States. A player opens an account with one of these services, funds that account with cash, then transfers money from the account to their account at an online poker site. The latter transfer is usually instantaneous, though the first transfer (the funding of the player's mini-bank account) may take a number of days.
The more popular online poker payment services include:
- Neteller
- Firepay