One of the biggest attractions of gambling online, as opposed to inside a land-based-casino, is the fact that – for the most part – your gaming experience is customisable to your preferences. You don’t have to adhere to a dress code and you can play night and day. You can also play at stakes that are affordable to you and with some land-based-casinos imposing high minimum bets to boost profits, it can be demoralising to see, for example, a Blackjack table with a £100 minimum. Thankfully, online this isn’t the case.
However, a common problem some players find online is that online casinos use a high minimum deposit – sometimes as much as £50 – in an attempt to boost their profits! Not all players are looking to play high-stakes, and if you want to enjoy a relaxed, low-stakes online gambling experience, then it’s well-worth reading this post in full. We’ll have a look at online casinos with the smallest deposit limits, as well as looking at the different games and their minimum play limits. Let’s get started by looking at the best online casinos with small deposit limits.
Payment Methods at Minimum Deposit Casinos
A common misconception with players is that the payment processors simply won’t work for small deposits of, say, £10 or less. This is, largely untrue, and thankfully, almost all of the major deposit and withdrawal methods are accessible to players looking to deposit smaller amounts of money.
EWallets, such as Neteller, Skrill, and PayPal, for example, can process payments worth as little as £0.01, and while online casinos will usually instate a £5 or £10 minimum using these methods (due to fees), it’s still relatively low. So, if you use one of our recommended online casinos seen in the table above, you’ll find yourself able to deposit in much smaller amounts than at some other online casinos.
Credit & debit cards are also available readily at our recommended minimum deposit casinos, and you can deposit as little as £1, making them viable for players on all budgets!
Playing Low Stakes: Casino Table Games
While five or six years ago you would have been hard-pressed to find a game of Roulette or Blackjack with a minimum bet of at least £5, online casinos now offer a large variety of low-stakes games, some of which are playable from as little as £0.25. At many online casinos you’ll even find Roulette with as little as a £0.50 minimum stake with individual chips available for as little as £0.05. This obviously means you’re not tied into betting at limits higher than you’re comfortable with and ensures you can game in a way that suits you.
Blackjack can also be enjoyed at lower stakes with various games offering minimum bets of £1 and sometimes even lower. Below, we have put together a table of low-stakes Blackjack and Roulette games, so you can see exactly what the minimum bets, and individual chips (in the case of Roulette) are.
Playing Low Stakes: Video Slots
Video slots, generally, offer players even more flexibility when it comes to staking options with the possibility of playing individual spins for as little as £0.01. There is, however, usually a downside in doing so. This is because video slots use a payline system to work out the total cost per spin. For example, if a video slot has 20 paylines, you’ll usually find the minimum bet is £0.20 (or £0.01 stakes per line). On a fixed-payline slot – where you are unable to change the number of lines – this means the minimum stake is actually £0.20. If the game allowed you to change the number of lines, however, you could, for example, play just 5 paylines for a total stake of £0.05.
In general, it’s best not to mess around with the paylines, as generally, you’ll want to play with the maximum number of lines available in order to ensure you maximise your chances of hitting a win. In fact, some slots – notably progressive jackpot games – offer decreased odds of winning if a lesser-number of paylines are played.
If you’re only looking to deposit small at an online casino and want to extend your gaming experience, then rather than looking at changing the number of paylines in order to lower the cost of spinning, you should consider looking at low-variance games, instead. A low-variance slot is one that pays out regularly – meaning you get wins fairly often – which means you’re less likely to go through long dry spells without winning. The caveat of low-variance slots, however, is the fact that bigger wins are harder to come by, so unless you get lucky and hit it big, you’re unlikely to see wins larger than 100X+.
If you’re looking to play a riskier game, then you’ll want to check out either a medium or high-variance game. As you can probably guess, these are the opposite of low-variance games and pay out much bigger wins at a less-frequent rate. Below, you’ll see some common game-examples that are low-variance and high-variance.
Low Variance Video Slots
Software providers NetEntertainment and Play ‘n Go, are often well-known for their games’ low-variance nature, ensuring regular wins – albeit smaller wins than other software providers titles. Popular NetEntertainment low-variance games include: Blood Suckers, Starburst, Twinspin and Koi Princess. Play ‘n Go’s lower-variance games include: Hugo, Superflip, 7 Sins and Grim Muerto.
High Variance Video Slots
Some software providers are known for producing largely high-variance games with one of the best examples being Novomatic – a popular game developer favoured for creating games where maximum wins can be as much as 10,000X the players’ stake! Some of the their popular high-variance games include: Captain Venture, Book of Ra Deluxe, Beetlemania and Pharaoh’s Tomb.