Saudi Arabia Betting Payment Methods

Is online betting legal in Saudi Arabia?

No. Saudi Arabia has no betting law, no gambling licence and no authority that could grant one: no bookmaker, lottery or casino is licensed in the Kingdom, online or offline. The statute that names gambling is the Anti-Cyber Crime Law, Royal Decree No. M/17 of 26 March 2007. Its Article 6 punishes with imprisonment of up to five years and/or a fine of up to three million riyals, in the English text published by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, “the preparation, publication, and promotion of material for gambling sites which violates public morals”, in the same list as the production or transmission of material “impinging on public order, religious values, public morals, and privacy” through the information network.

Access is filtered at the network gateways. The Communications, Space and Technology Commission says it applies “regulations and requirements for internet filtering in cooperation with (Permanent internet security committee)”, “for the purpose of protecting the Saudi Society from the harmful internet content”, and that it “provides filtering lists to data service providers to apply on internet gateways”; requests to block or unblock a site go through its online form. The page does not list the categories filtered.

The Saudi Central Bank publishes its rules in a public rulebook, and none of the texts read for this page on 19 October 2026 names gambling: not the licensing guidelines for payment service providers, not the prepaid payment rules of 2 May 2012, not the rules for e-commerce payment providers of 24 July 2024, which confine technical providers to linkage and support and oblige banks to deal only with licensed payment companies. What the Central Bank has said in public concerns crypto: on 12 August 2018 the standing committee it sits on with the Capital Market Authority and three ministries stated that virtual currencies “are not regulated inside the kingdom of Saudi Arabia”, that Bitcoin and the like “are not approved as official currencies in the kingdom”, that nobody is licensed to trade them, and warned “all citizens and residents about drifting after such illusion and get-rich scheme”. There is no tax on winnings, because there are no lawful winnings.

Which payment methods work from Saudi Arabia

Of the 48 bookmakers open to Saudi Arabia, 39 take Visa and 36 Mastercard, 38 take Bitcoin and 35 Ethereum, 35 list Neteller and 32 Skrill, 23 Paysafecard, 16 each Google Pay and Payz, 15 Jeton, 14 MiFinity, 12 Apple Pay, 10 each MuchBetter and Revolut Pay, 7 USDT and 4 PayPal; 22 list a bank transfer. None lists mada or STC Pay. These are the rules that decide what a Saudi card or wallet can do with that list.

• Cards. Visa and Mastercard publish no Saudi rule, and the Central Bank’s rulebook names no merchant category; what the law targets is the site and whoever prepares or promotes material for it. American Express and UnionPay exclude gambling merchants under their own rules and appear in none of the 48 cashiers.
• Apple Pay and Google Pay. Saudi Arabia is on Apple’s list of countries that support Apple Pay (30 September 2026) and on Google’s list of countries where Google Pay works with websites and apps, so a card held in either wallet pays in the 12 and 16 cashiers that offer them, for deposits only; withdrawals go back to the card or by bank transfer.
• Paysafecard is sold in the Kingdom. Saudi Arabia is one of the 48 countries in Paysafecard’s country table, and betting sites accept the voucher only from a registered PaysafeCard account, never from a bare 16-digit code.
• Wallets that refuse Saudi residents. eZeeWallet lists Saudi Arabia among the 30 countries and territories where it opens no account; Revolut opens personal accounts only to residents of the UK, the EEA, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, the United States and Brazil, so the 10 cashiers with Revolut Pay are out of reach; PayPal admits gambling only with its approval and only where it is legal for operator and customer, which excludes the Kingdom.
• Crypto. Virtual currencies are unregulated in Saudi Arabia and nobody is licensed to trade them, in the words of the 2018 statement; the 38 cashiers that take Bitcoin receive coins from a wallet, and buying them involves an exchange outside the Kingdom’s supervision.
• Currency. 17 of the 48 bookmakers offer a riyal account; the rest run in dollars or euros, and a riyal card payment or wallet load into them is converted by the issuer at its rate or by the wallet (Skrill 3.99%, Neteller 4.49%).

Local payment methods

The Kingdom pays with its own card scheme and, since 2021, with a telecom-born digital bank; none of the 48 bookmakers lists either.

• mada. The national payment scheme, whose operating rules the Saudi Central Bank issues: launched in 1990 as the Saudi Payment Network (SPAN) for cash machines, accepted across the Gulf through the Gulf payments network since 1994, renamed mada in 2015. Its own figures for 2023 are 47.7 million cards, 1.7 million point-of-sale devices and 8.9 billion transactions worth 613.9 billion riyals. mada cards have paid online through the scheme’s e-commerce service since 2018, work in Apple Pay since 2018 and in the scheme’s own mada Pay since 2019, and Discover cards have been accepted on the network since 2022.
• STC Pay, now STC Bank. The wallet of the telecom group became a digital bank: STC Bank, formerly Saudi Digital Payments Company, licensed by the Council of Ministers under decree 671 of 22 June 2021 and by the Saudi Central Bank to carry out digital banking, says it “has now transformed from an E-wallet account to a digital bank account”; a wallet not converted into an account stays open ten days after the notice. It is a Saudi bank account, subject to the same law as any other.
• Apple Pay and Google Pay. Both list Saudi Arabia, and mada’s timeline dates Apple Pay support to 2018. In a foreign cashier they carry whatever card sits behind them, for deposits only.

What a Saudi player sees in an offshore cashier is therefore the international set: Visa and Mastercard, Neteller and Skrill, Paysafecard, the smaller wallets and crypto, with no riyal-only route.

How to deposit and withdraw from Saudi Arabia

• The law comes first. Gambling is prohibited and unlicensed in Saudi Arabia, and the Anti-Cyber Crime Law punishes preparing, publishing or promoting material for gambling sites with up to five years in prison and/or three million riyals. The counts on this page describe what foreign cashiers offer, not what is lawful.
• Currency. 17 of the 48 bookmakers offer riyal accounts; the others convert every riyal payment at the issuer’s or the wallet’s rate, in both directions.
• Identity checks. A bookmaker verifies name, address and date of birth before it pays out, and a Saudi payment account is opened only after the customer verification the Central Bank’s rules require; bookmakers treat a deposit from a card or account in another name as a breach of their terms.
• What the network does. Filtering lists from the Communications, Space and Technology Commission are applied by the data service providers at the internet gateways, and the Commission takes block and unblock requests through its form.
• Crypto. No exchange is licensed in the Kingdom and the Central Bank’s committee has warned residents off virtual currencies since 2018; a coin sent to a bookmaker cannot be recalled.
• Vouchers. Paysafecard is sold in Saudi Arabia, but a bookmaker takes it only from a registered account, so the voucher gives no anonymity.