There is many forms of online poker,one of the most popular is texas hold em online. Find more about the game at pokerlistings.com
Credit cards are the primary method used by most players to fund their online accounts. Credit cards are recommended because it gives you a form of protection against potential problems that might occur, such as being overcharged, scammed or having your money taken.
However, as of 2002, there has been an industry wide credit card for online gambling. Banks have stopped allowing transactions for online gambing and online poker sites. The way they have done this, is to block charges to your credit card from companies using a 7995 service code, which represents the code for online gambling transactions. To workaround this service code, online gambling providers have been switching over to calling card systems or 1-900 numbers that can charge your credit card or phone bill instead. Other sites have even simply tried recoding their transaction codes, but Visa and Mastercard both got wind of this pretty quick.
The other payment options that emerged for most sites are the following:
Global Calling Card / ePassport (PartyPoker)
These are the workarounds that the Internet casinos are using to circumvent the ban on the 7995 transactions. Instead of directly paying for Internet gambling, your are instead funding either an "Internet calling card" or a pre-paid Internet Visa card. Since these cards can be used for legitimate purposes (at least that is the idea), these transactions will not be banned by your credit card issuer. These cards are then used to fund and create your poker accounts with your respective site. The good part about these cards is that it offers you the most convenience and protection. The bad part is that there is usually a 5% fee for purchasing the card.
Neteller
Neteller was the answer to Paypal's withdrawl from the transaction market for most players. Neteller is similar to Paypal in many ways, with the ability to fund a Neteller account via credit card, bank account and wire payment. There is a 3.9% fee for credit cards deposits that they charge however. In order to make large charges on your credit card, you'll also need to verify your account, which involves registering your bank account with them. This is scary for a good reason, more on that later however.
The good thing about Neteller is that they are fast on payments and most users report that they have no problems with their withdrawls. They are also the most popular payment site on the net and based in Canada, so they shouldn't be going down anytime soon. The bad part about Neteller is that they require your social security number, which should raise eyebrows. According to Neteller, this is used solely to verify your identity and then discarded. However, from my own research, I did find this quote from Gord Herman, chief operating officer of Neteller:"Right now, we operate in a regulated environment and we are compliant with all Canadian and U.S. reporting regulations," he [Herman] said. "By eliminating organized programs such as ours, where everything is very trackable and accountable, you will cause a black market that will create opportunities for less-than-scrupulous individuals and companies."
- "Net gambling bill fans e-cash fears", msnbc.comIn this quote, when Herman says Neteller is compliant with all reporting regulations, what this means to me is that they are reporting all major transactions to the U.S. and Canadian governments. In order to do this, they need your social security number. This tells me that they are infact, keeping social security numbers on file for purposes other than simply verifying your account.
All this said, I have to say that I use Neteller myself, knowing all of this. I do however, pay taxes on all my winnings too.
Firepay
Another Canadian based company that is publicly traded, Firepay another Paypal/Neteller clone and is also fairly popular with gamblers. The word is that Firepay is pretty reliable, with the main problem being slower payments than other services. The good part about Firepay is that they do not require your social security number, but do require you to validate your account. The bad part is they do not take credit cards and only allow you to transfer money directly from your bank account.
Central Coin (Poker Stars)
Something like the Global Calling Card meets Firepay. They take credit cards payment with a 3% fee and then use a PIN system to transfer the funds to the site. Name and address are required, but no social. You can also register your bank account and transfer funds, but the site seems to imply that it may be a slow process because they have an "instant eCheck" function that adds on a 8% fee to it. I would imagine the normal transaction probably takes 1-2 days then? In any case, I've heard less than steallar things about their transaction time on the messageboards.
iGM-Pay (PartyPoker)
This is a proprietary system that iGlobalMedia (PartyPoker, Empire Poker) use which is a lot like Firepay. You register your bank account with the site directly and fund your account via an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).
Pre-paid ATM
Just like it says, you're basically funding an ATM card that you can use online. The "advantage" is that you only need to reveal your information to the ATM site (although in my personal opinion, some of these look less than reputable). The disadvantage is that they usually charge a decent fee 3-10% on your method of deposit.
Western Union / Money Transfer
Western Union is one of the oldest institutions in terms of quickly transferring money. Some sites make it easy to do Western Union transfers, where you can pay Western Union online, get a MTCN code in return from them and use this code to fund your account. (Note: The code isn't actually worth cash, but is just a receipt/key of sorts to show they will be getting the funds in time.) Other sites make it a bit more difficult by requiring you to actually go down to your local Western Union store to transfer the money. The good part about Western Union is that it offers great privacy and decent protection. The bad part is that the fees are usually high, ranging from 10-20% of the deposit.
Citadel
I honestly don't know much about Citadel other than they're yet another provider for online payments. My guess is that they are like Firepay and will perform EFT transfers for you.
Wire Transfer
This is a more popular form of money tranfer for large sums of money, usually used by stock brokers and bankers. The fee is usually not cheap ($35-$100) so I don't recommend this option unless you know what you are doing and/or are transferring a large sum of money.
It's up to you to chose what deposit method you find works best for you, but I whole-heartedly recommend credit card deposits for the sake of protection. If you chose to transfer money from your bank account, you need to know some important things first. For starters, even though sites say that they cannot debit money out of your bank account without your authorization, this is absolutely untrue. Once a site or payment provider has your routing number and checking number, they can take money out of your bank account anytime they wish. Obviously, most sites aren't in the sole business of screwing their customers over, but this is one risk of giving away your banking information.
A good way of preventing your account from being depleted without your authorization (through EFTs), is to go to your bank and open a free checkings account for the purposes of internet transactions. Put the minimum amount of money into this account and then use that money to fund your iGM / Neteller / Firepay / Citadal account. It's also good to use when you cash out your winnings, since you'll have an account solely dedicated to poker or gambling. It's also good because if you're a losing player, it'll be harder for you to simply keep pulling money out of your bank account as if you were using your primary bank account.
Also, if you do deposit, check my PartyPoker Bonus Code page, as I usually post PartyPoker deposit bonus codes there if Party Poker is offering them at the time.
NEXT: I have a PayPal account, can I use that to fund my PartyPoker / etc account?

There is many forms of online poker,one of the most popular is texas hold em online. Find more about the game at pokerlistings.com