What is UnionPay?
UnionPay is a card scheme, like Visa or Mastercard: it issues no cards and holds no money, it runs the network between the bank that issued your card and the bank of the merchant you pay. The cards carry the UnionPay logo and come in three kinds: debit cards drawing on a bank account, credit cards (“a credit line product with the added functionality of Purchase Now and Pay Later”, in UnionPay’s words) and prepaid cards, reloadable or not, which issuers may sell with or without identity checks. Online you type the card number and a mobile number, plus the expiry date and the CVN2 code on the back for a credit card, and a code arrives by SMS to confirm the first payment.
China UnionPay Co., Ltd. was set up in Shanghai in March 2002, with the consent of the State Council and the approval of the People’s Bank of China, by 85 institutions including the five major Chinese banks; it is the national bankcard association of China, with more than 2,600 member institutions. Its business outside the mainland is run by UnionPay International, a wholly owned subsidiary created in 2012: cards accepted in 183 countries and regions, 66.4 million merchants outside the mainland and, by January 2024, more than 230 million UnionPay cards issued in 81 countries and regions beyond China.
For a bettor one rule comes before any fee. UnionPay’s card-using tips state that, according to UnionPay Business Regulations, “all UnionPay cards are prohibited from making direct or indirect payment at gaming merchants”. A bookmaker cannot be a UnionPay merchant, so the card never appears in a cashier; what a UnionPay card can do for betting is load an e-wallet that takes it, and the fees and exchange rates below matter for that step.
What it costs
UnionPay publishes no fee table for cardholders. Its card-using tips say that “no commission fee is charged for swiping UnionPay card in participating merchants”, and everything else, annual fee, foreign-transaction fee, cash-advance terms, comes from the bank that issued the card. The scheme’s own part of the cost is the exchange rate it applies to a payment in another currency, which it publishes in a query tool without any figure for a mark-up.
What a UnionPay card costs a bettor
| Operation | Fee |
|---|
| Pay a merchant with a UnionPay card, online or in a shop | Free: “no commission fee is charged for swiping UnionPay card in participating merchants” |
| Deposit at a bookmaker with the card | Not possible: UnionPay’s rules bar every UnionPay card from gaming merchants |
| Load MiFinity with a UnionPay card | 1.8% (fee page of mifinity.com) |
| UnionPay’s own fee to the cardholder | None published on unionpayintl.com |
| Issuer’s fees (annual fee, foreign-transaction fee, cash advance and interest on a credit card) | Set by your bank; UnionPay publishes no figures |
| Currency conversion | UnionPay’s rate of the transaction date, set Monday to Friday (Friday’s rate at the weekend); “additional fees charged by Issuers (if any) are excluded” |
| Card issued in mainland China used abroad | Spending “directly converted into that of RMB based on the market exchange rate” |
| Cash at an ATM abroad with a mainland-issued card | Issuer’s commission plus any surcharge of the ATM owner; cap of 10,000 yuan equivalent per card per day; a credit card also pays overdraft interest |
| Withdrawal from a bookmaker to the card | Not possible: the payout goes to the wallet, and from there to a bank account at the wallet’s fee |
| Refunds and chargebacks | Nothing published for cardholders: UnionPay sends account errors to the issuing bank |
Read on 19 October 2026 on the card-using tips, the exchange rate query and the help centre of unionpayintl.com, and on the fee page of mifinity.com for the wallet load. UnionPay’s exchange rate page says the rates come from the UnionPay system, are “composited data from multiple market sources”, are updated on working days (European currencies at 16:30 Beijing time, the others at 11:00) and are “for reference only”, because the rate billed on a single transaction may differ with issuer fees and rounding. For the fees of the card itself, read your bank’s tariff.
Keep the conversions to one
A card from a mainland Chinese bank is billed in yuan at UnionPay’s rate, so a wallet held in euros or dollars already costs one conversion on every load. Open the wallet in the currency of your bookmaker and the second conversion disappears: on a €1,000 load, MiFinity’s 1.8% is €18, and its own mark-up on a currency change would come on top.
Deposit and withdrawal times
A UnionPay payment online is confirmed at once: the first one on a site waits for the SMS code, the next ones go through in one click on the UnionPay Omnichannel Platform. The wallet load is credited when the payment is confirmed, and the deposit from the wallet to the bookmaker is immediate as well; the minimum and maximum are those of the wallet and of the bookmaker’s cashier.
Withdrawals cannot reach a UnionPay card. The scheme bars gaming merchants, so a bookmaker has no way to credit the card, and UnionPay publishes no time for credits to cards in any case. The bookmaker pays the wallet after its own approval, from a few minutes to a few days depending on the operator and on whether your betting account is verified, and the wallet then sends the money to a bank account in your name, with the times and fees given on the MiFinity page.
Where you can use it
UnionPay cards work in 183 countries and regions, at 66.4 million merchants outside mainland China, and are issued in 81 of them; UnionPay International publishes the acceptance rate for many markets, from 50% of merchants in the United Kingdom to 95% of card terminals and 99% of ATMs in Australia and more than 1.3 million merchants in Japan. None of that reaches a bookmaker, because the scheme’s rule against gaming merchants applies everywhere. The rules that matter for a bettor:
- Mainland China. The People’s Bank of China counts cross-border gambling among the “illegal financial activities” that it reports as forcefully contained, with illicit fund-raising and underground banks, in its Financial Stability Report 2021. UnionPay adds its own limits to cards issued in the mainland: no property purchases abroad, insurance capped at the equivalent of $5,000 a transaction, cash abroad capped at 10,000 yuan a day with an annual ceiling set by the foreign-exchange regulator, and every overseas payment billed in yuan. Regulator and scheme treat a gambling payment as something to block, not to price.
- Hong Kong. The first market outside the mainland: UnionPay cards have worked there since 18 January 2004, with the approval of the People’s Bank of China, and local issuers offer them.
- United Kingdom. UnionPay says its cards are accepted at half of British merchants, but the Gambling Commission has banned credit cards for gambling since 14 April 2020 and asks operators that take e-wallets to check that the money was not loaded from a credit card. Load the wallet with a UnionPay debit card.
- Australia. Acceptance at 95% of card terminals and 99% of ATMs, by UnionPay’s count; since 11 June 2024 a betting account cannot be funded with a credit card or with “funds linked to a credit card (including digital wallets)”. A UnionPay debit card behind the wallet is the only option.
- Cards with two logos. A card that carries UnionPay and another scheme may run on either network; UnionPay’s FAQ advises asking the cashier for UnionPay, and online the payment page decides.
The wallet route depends on the wallet’s own country list as well, which is on the MiFinity page.
UnionPay and welcome bonuses
Check the bonus terms first
Card deposits normally qualify for welcome offers, unlike e-wallets, but with UnionPay the question never reaches the cashier: the card is not offered. What the bookmaker sees when you load MiFinity with a UnionPay card is a MiFinity deposit, and some operators exclude e-wallets from the first-deposit offer. Read the payment clause before you deposit, and remember that a credit card earns no bonus in the United Kingdom or Australia because the deposit itself is refused.
Questions and answers
Can I deposit at a bookmaker with a UnionPay card?
Not directly. UnionPay’s business regulations prohibit all UnionPay cards from making direct or indirect payment at gaming merchants, so no bookmaker offers the card in its cashier. The route that works is an e-wallet that accepts UnionPay as a load method: MiFinity charges 1.8% on a UnionPay load, and the bookmaker then receives a wallet deposit.
Does UnionPay charge fees to cardholders?
UnionPay says no commission is charged for paying at participating merchants and publishes no fee table for cardholders. What you pay is set by the bank that issued the card: the annual fee, any foreign-transaction fee, the commission on ATM cash and, on a credit card, interest. UnionPay’s own contribution is the exchange rate it applies to a payment in another currency.
How does UnionPay convert a payment in another currency?
At the rate of its own system on the transaction date, published in the exchange rate query on unionpayintl.com and updated Monday to Friday, with Friday’s rate applied at the weekend. The page says the rate is built from several market sources, that issuer fees are excluded, and that the figure billed on a single transaction may differ because of those fees and rounding. A card issued in mainland China is billed in yuan.
Is online betting with a UnionPay card allowed in mainland China?
UnionPay’s rules settle the card side: all UnionPay cards are barred from direct or indirect payment at gaming merchants, and cards issued in the mainland carry further limits abroad on cash, insurance and property. On the authorities’ side, the People’s Bank of China counts cross-border gambling among the illegal financial activities it reports as contained, with illicit fund-raising and underground banks, in its Financial Stability Report 2021. Those are the published positions of the scheme and of the central bank.
Where are UnionPay cards issued and accepted?
Accepted in 183 countries and regions, at 66.4 million merchants outside mainland China by UnionPay International’s count of January 2024, and issued by banks in 81 countries and regions outside the mainland, which had put more than 230 million UnionPay cards in circulation by then. The first market abroad was Hong Kong in 2004; Switzerland became the 70th issuing market in 2021.