If you haven’t heard of Boku, you just might have spent some time residing under a rock. Or, maybe you’re just not a big mobile shopper. Either way, it’s time you get to know this fast, convenient payment option, especially now that it’s become a trending method for making purchases in Canada. Although Boku is a brand, it is part of a much bigger umbrella of deposit options, which form a new vertical altogether : the ability to pay via mobile phone bill (either through prepaid credit or via the upcoming bill, a bit like a credit card).
In Canada, Boku is well integrated into the financial ecosystem (as you’ll see below) but does not yet power many (or any) iGaming payment solutions. This is likely due to industry setbacks in the UK (with the ban on credit card iGaming deposits, and the argument that ‘top-up in advance’ is similar to using credit) and in the USA with the UIGEA, which restricts payments from financial institutions to casino operators (except in legal states). As a result, it’s very difficult to find pay-by-phone casinos in 2024. Although Canada is likely to be your best bet, since the offering in the UK seems to be dwindling, and there are no UIGEA-like restrictions in Canada. However, for now, we can only list alternatives that offer similar phone banking options.
Recommended Casinos with Phone Banking for 2024
- Mobile Banking Options
- Mobile Compatible
- Credit/Debit cards
- eWallets
- www.jackpotcity.com
- 90%
- Unlocked
- Yes*
- Mobile Banking Options
- Mobile Responsive
- Interac via Mobile
- Gpay / Apple Pay
- www.captaincooks.com
- 85%
- Instant
- Yes*
Boku is a mobile payment intermediary based out of San Francisco, California. The platform was introduced over ten years ago to give mobile internet shoppers a wholly secure way to pay for goods and services, using nothing more than their phone. Instead of supplying all of your personal and financial information, all you need is your mobile phone number. The cost of your purchase is then tacked right on to your monthly phone bill. Due to the way this payment system works, there are some limitations and restrictions, which talk more about later in our review. First, here are some Boku company stats and figures with appropriate citations.
Boku Company Overview At a Glance:
• Founded in 2009, headquartered in San Francisco, California.
• Provides mobile payment solutions, including carrier billing, digital wallets, and account-to-account payments.
Key Statistics:
• Global reach: Over 7 billion payment accounts, 200+ local payment methods, 60+ countries with live operations.
• Processes over $9 billion annually
• 475% growth in Monthly Active Users since 2018
• 55 million+ newly acquired users in the past 12 months
Source
Financial Information (as of latest available data):
• Revenue: £63.18 million
• Net income: £7.70 million
• Publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange (BOKU.L)
• Incorporated in 2008
• 305+ employees
Source
Notable Boku Clients:
• Netflix, Spotify, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Sony, Tencent
Company Milestones:
• 2009: Founded and pioneered carrier billing for web gaming in 70+ markets
• 2017: IPO on London Stock Exchange
• 2018: Acquired Danal for mobile identity & authentication capabilities
• 2020: Acquired Fortumo, expanding European presence
• 2023: Launched partnership with Amazon for mobile wallet payments
Source
Boku Leadership
Stuart Neal was the newly appointed CEO on January 1st 2024, replacing Jon Prideaux, who is now appointed as the Non-Executive Director of Boku. Keith Butcher is currently the Chief Financial Officer.
Source
Global Presence of Boku:
• Offices in the US, UK, Germany, India, China, France, Latvia, Brazil, Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan.
Source
It’s interesting to note that they don’t currently have a Canadian office, which might not fare well for Canadian pay-by-phone deposits, however there are a number of alternatives, as we will see.
Canadian Mobile Carriers Compatible with Mobile Billing & Boku
- Telus: Telus has officially partnered with Boku to bring carrier billing to Windows 10 users throughout Canada.
- Rogers Communications: Rogers offers direct carrier billing for certain services, such as Google Play purchases.While there’s no longer any specific mention of Boku on their site, it seems they may have supported the mobile payment option in the past. You can see from their helpdesk, but for select brands, more exactly: Facebook, Sony and Wargaming. However, we are linking to archive.org which means this is likely deprecated. We then ran an internal Google search inside Rogers (the website) to find “Boku” and could find nothing. This likely shows that Rogers is no longer an option to use Boku. It may have only been briefly compatible with a narrow set of brands, and certainly not with in iGaming.
- Bell: Bell also provides direct carrier billing options for some services. However, specific information about Boku compatibility is not readily available from official sources. We ran an internal site search and tried to find press-releases, but ended up empty-handed.
- Freedom Mobile: Freedom Mobile’s website doesn’t provide specific information about Boku or other mobile billing services Their focus seems to be primarily on traditional payment methods and plan options. So they don’t seem compatible with mobile billing at the moment.
- Fido: As a subsidiary of Rogers, Fido supports similar mobile billing options, and as expected specific information about Boku is not mentioned.Hence Fido is compatible with mobile billing, but not Boku specifically.
- Koodo and Virgin Plus: These carriers, subsidiaries of Telus and Bell respectively, offer mobile billing options similar to their parent companies, but specific information about Boku compatibility is not readily available.
While these 7 carriers may offer some form of direct carrier billing, the availability of specific services like Boku or other branded services can change over time. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research. We have shared all we have found in good faith, but this information may not be 100% complete or accurate at your time of reading.
Boku Mobile Phone Billing Service
The developers of Boku based their entire concept on the exponentially growing popularity of mobile smartphones and tablets. As they smartly anticipated, we use mobile devices today more than ever before – especially for eCommerce purposes – and it’s a trend that’s surely going to continue over the coming years.
With this in mind, a group of IT professionals (including Mark Britto and Erich Ringewald) in California got together somewhere around 2003. The team’s collective experience came from backgrounds with financial institutions, telephone operators, and technology firms, including companies like American Express, Bank of America, Visa, Amazon, AT&T, Inuit and more. Their collaborative efforts resulted in the 2009 founding of Boku’s innovative mobile payment system.
Boku’s foundation was built by taking a mobile phone’s basic SIM card, and turning it into an individual ID mechanism, capable of identifying individual phone users. Under this protocol, Boku began as a pay-by-phone billing system. Over time, however, they were able to expand the service to conduct secure transactions over any mobile smartphone or tablet, as well as desktop devices.
What Makes Boku So Secure?
Today’s online payment processing platforms are all very secure in their own right, but Boku isn’t like the others. Boku works in tandem with mobile phone operators, and is thereby able to deliver an extremely secure payment processing environment. Not only are the usual high-tech SSL encryption technologies employed, there’s no need to share any banking information with Boku, the online casino, or any other online merchants you may need to send payments to.
Boku works by using the payer’s phone number as their ID. All payments are charged to the phone number, and will appear on the user’s monthly mobile phone bill. All of these features combine to give users one of the most fail-safe payment methods the iGaming industry has ever known.
Depositing with Boku Mobile Casinos Canada
Boku’s payment processing platform actually comes in two versions – Boku Direct and Boku Checkout. Boku Direct is a payment option that is accessible online (web-based), or as a mobile application. Users can sign up for and log into a Boku Direct account using their mobile phone number. Boku Checkout is a 100% web-based platform that facilitates transactions solely through mobile phone billing.
To begin making Boku casino payments, you’ll first need to register an account with Boku. Go to the website and choose to register an account. You will have to enter a bit of information, but you won’t be asked to verify your identity, since your mobile phone number is verification of your ID.
During registration, you’ll of course need to provide your phone number and email address. Boku will send you an authorization SMS (text message), which you’ll need to respond affirmatively to in order to complete registration. Once this is done, you can start making deposits at Boku casinos in Canada.
To do so, visit the casino you wish to deposit with. Create an account first, if you haven’t already done so. Then log in and navigate your way to the banking page. From the list of available deposit methods, choose to pay with Boku. If you don’t see the Boku logo, look for the “Pay by Phone” option. Next, you’ll be asked to choose your mobile phone service operator. You’ll be redirected to a Boku login page to verify the purchase. Finally, a confirmation message arrives, and your account is credited.
Note: If you do not see your mobile carrier on the list, or if your payment is rejected, you may not be eligible to deposit with Boku. According to the website, you will only be able to use the service if you have an “active mobile phone with Premium and Carrier Billing services enabled”.
Can I Make a Casino Withdrawal with Boku?
Unfortunately, no. being a mobile phone billing service, Boku is a one-way payment option. You can tack the purchase price onto your phone bill, but you can’t credit winnings back to it. This would require linking your account to a debit card or bank account, which kind of defeats the purpose.
If you’re using Boku for deposits, there are some other methods of cashing out that may interest you. A web wallet, or eWallet service, such as PayPal or Skrill, most closely resembles the superior security of mobile phone billing. Cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, also offer user anonymity with strict security.
Pros and Cons of Boku
Pros – The Good Stuff
- No bank account or credit card required
- Works with monthly plans and pay-as-you-go phones
- Boku is the world’s largest mobile payments network
- Accepted by dozens of online casinos (number has been steeply declining)
- Doesn’t share personal details, monetary transaction only
- Play and pay all on your mobile device
- When used as a prepaid service, there’s no fear of overdrafts
- 10+ years experience in mobile carrier billing
- Payments are instant
- Deposit now, pay later (w/ monthly phone plan)
- Partnered with world-renowned Google, Facebook, Spotify, Microsoft, Netflix and more
Cons – The Bad Stuff
- Some wireless carriers don’t support it (e.g. Rogers Wireless)
- Deposits have low limits; $30 is usually the max
- Not a viable option for casinos withdrawals
- An insecure phone makes for an insecure account
Any Other Disadvantages of Boku Billing?
Availability: Boku is not an easy payment method to find at Canada online casinos. It exists, but in very limited quantities. The problem is that online gambling sites that employ the strictest regulations – including Canada’s provincially regulated online casinos – require highly detailed identity verification. That means operators aren’t able to cater to ID-masking payment services like Boku.
Pay-As-You-Go Plans: If you have a mobile phone with a pay-as-you-go plan (as opposed to a regular monthly bill), you may not be able to use Boku. Most mobile carriers require a minimum balance in the account, and/or an account with monthly auto-pay. Auto-pay accounts are linked to a credit card, debit card, or bank account, to ensure the bill will get paid.
Small Deposit Restrictions: Because the price tag is being attached to your phone bill, mobile carriers aren’t too keen on permitting large transactions. Your deposits will be limited to smaller amounts, not just per transaction, but per month. If you’re an avid iGamer with a big bankroll, Boku isn’t going to provide you with much flexibility in deposit sizing. If you prefer to make lofty payments while maintaining anonymity, you’d be better harnessing Bitcoin or one the many other digital currency options.
Play Now, Pay Later : A Harsh Warning
We do not encourage or endorse the act of “gambling on credit”. The option to play now, and pay later, should not be undertaken without great caution. Many of today’s most reputable online casinos no longer allow credit card deposits. This is largely due to recent regulatory updates prohibiting gambling on credit in the world’s strictest iGaming jurisdictions.
The fact that it’s still possible through Boku’s Pay By Phone service (or other similar services) means that if you use this type of method, you need to remain aware of the potential harm. When a gambler bets on credit, they are statistically more likely to spend above what they can afford, especially in an effort to chase losses. There are no sure things in gambling. No one is ‘due‘ for a win, no matter how many times they’ve lost.
With that said, here’s what you need to know about Boku’s payment service, as it relates to this topic.
Using Boku with a Monthly Phone Plan
Only users with a monthly phone plan (not pay-as-you-go) are capable of gambling on credit. All purchases made with Boku, including casino deposits, are amended to your next monthly bill. You’ll have to pay this bill when it comes up. If you use Auto-Pay from your bank, the bill will be charged to your account, whether you’re prepared to pay it or not.
Using Boku with Pay-As-You-Go Phones
Pay-as-you-go phones are prepaid phone plans. You pay for the service each month before you use it. There are no contracts, no obligations to pay for the following month. This type of phone bill is entirely prepaid. Any Boku payments you make must also be prepaid. Thus, you cannot gamble on credit with a pay-as-you-go phone. This is the safer method.
Who Can, Can’t, Or Shouldn’t Use Boku
Not everyone in Canada is able to use Boku’s mobile billing service for online gambling. The most notable group excluded is Rogers Wireless customers. If your phone’s service is supplied by Rogers – as is about 33% of Canadian smartphones – you can’t use it. Rogers only permits Boku payments to select companies, including Facebook, Sony and Wargames. Everything else is off-limits.
All other Canadian mobile carriers, including major providers Bell Canada and TELUS Mobility, are potentially compatible. The technology is there, since they offer mobile biling (except maybe Freedom Mobile). The same goes for all major prepaid phone services. However, Boku acceptance is a separate issue and is much more limited than simple mobile billing readiness. It’s a case of services trailing the technology.
If your device is compatible, but you’re having trouble using the service, either contact Boku, or contact your mobile carrier. One of them will be able to figure out why.
Potential Security Risk
I’m all for ease of payments and minimal use of personal information, but if you don’t secure your smartphone, you should not use Boku direct billing. All you need to make a payment is the phone number, and access to the phone itself. If someone else has your phone, they can make a payment with Boku as easy as you can. It’s a matter of mobile security, as well as how much you trust the people closest to you.
First and foremost, your phone needs to be secure. You can use Touch ID, Face ID, fingerprint, or select a PIN or Pattern no one else knows or can guess. This way, if you lose your phone, or it’s stolen, no one can access it.
If you lend your phone to someone, they have the same level of access as you do. With enough time and lack of observation, anyone who uses your phone could make a quick mobile payment without you knowing it. So ask yourself this – how much do you trust the people who have access to your phone? If the answer isn’t 100%, Boku isn’t for you.
The Cost of Pay by Mobile Phone Bill (Psst…It’s Free !)
Boku is a free service for any customer that wishes to use it. The amount you choose to pay or deposit, is the exact same amount charged to your phone bill. There aren’t too many APMs you can say that about; certainly not ones that are this fast, safe and convenient to use.
Boku manages to keep its service free by charging merchants to accept its payments. For example, Boku’s first big contract was with Apple; a major deal that saw Boku facilitating mobile purchases for iOS uses in the Apple Store. Boku has since secured contracts with other big brands, including major subscription companies like Microsoft, Netflix and Spotify.
Why am I being charged a fee? (It can happen)
Even though Boku is free, it is possible for merchants to pass the cost on to customers by charging them a small fee to pay by mobile billing. Most merchants do not charge a fee. We have yet to come across a single Canadian online casino that charges customers to use Boku. But it can happen, so watch out for it. Just remember, most places won’t charge you. If a merchant or gambling site wants to charge a fee, you may want to consider buying or betting elsewhere.
Getting Started with Mobile Billing in Canada in 2024
You only need two things to make a deposit with mobile billing via Boku or a competitor. First, you need an online casino that accepts direct carrier billing payments. Second, you need a mobile phone with a prepaid or postpaid wireless service (not Rogers Wireless).
To see if your online casino accepts these payments, go to the Deposit section, under Banking. Boku (and similar services) go by a wide variety of names. You just have to know what to look for. You will be able to make Boku prepaid gambling deposits in CAD at any online casino that boasts any of the following payment methods:
- Boku
- Boku Direct
- Direct Carrier Billing
- Pay by Phone
- Pay by Mobile
- Pay by SMS
- Mobile Billing
Troubleshooting
If you’re experiencing problems depositing with Boku gambling deposits, try one of these solutions…
- Does your mobile carrier support Boku or mobile billing payments for online gambling? If your carrier is Rogers Communication, the answer is no. You won’t be able to use this deposit method.
- Are you spending more than $30 on your deposit? The maximum payment is $30. If you are trying to deposit more, or if there is a foreign currency exchange rate involved, try reducing the size of the deposit.
- Did you exceed daily/monthly limits for mobile billing? Every carrier service imposes a maximum limit on daily and monthly purchases. If you’ve reached the limit, you should get a message stating so. You’ll need to wait until the appropriate amount of time before making another deposit.
Boku Video Guide from Chipy
Frequently Asked Questions About Pay-By-Phone Casinos
Can I cancel a Boku Payment ?
Yes, but only subscription services paid for through Boku can be canceled (e.g. a monthly Boku Spotify subscription). Boku subscriptions can be canceled in the Boku Self Care portal. Log in, choose the subscription you wish to cancel, and click the link titled “Active”. A pop-up will appear with the option to Cancel your subscription.
One-time payments made to merchants and online casinos cannot be canceled through Boku once you’ve authorized it. You’ll have to contact the merchant or online gambling site to see about cancelling a payment. If you want to dispute a payment, you’ll need to contact your mobile carrier.
How does Boku (Pay By Phone) Work ?
Boku and other Pay By Phone billing services work by tacking the payment onto your mobile phone bill. Start by selecting a Pay By Phone billing service (Boku, Payforit, Direct Carrier Billing, etc.) from the list of deposit options. Then, enter your mobile phone number in the input box. You’ll receive an SMS text message. Reply to this message with the appropriate response (usually Y or Yes) to authorize the payment. The amount will be added to your regular monthly phone bill, or deducted from your pay-as-you-go balance.
How does Boku Make Money ?
Boku makes money by charging a fee to merchants and online gambling sites that accept Boku payments and subscriptions. Boku is a free service for those who use it, but the merchants and gambling sites that accept the payment method, either as a one-time payment or for a monthly subscription service, must pay the company a small fee. This is how Boku and other pay-by-phone billing services sustain their businesses. It’s no different than credit card companies who ensure a profit by charging merchants to accept their cards.
How Safe is Pay-By-Phone ?
Pay By Phone direct carrier billing is a PCI Level 1 accredited payment service (i.e. as safe as it gets for online payments). When it comes to safety and security in online and mobile payment systems, it doesn’t get better than PCI Level 1 accreditation. PayByPhone has been granted PCI Level 1 by Visa. It is the highest possible rating awarded by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards.
What Are the Different Types of Pay By Phone Deposit Options
The most common pay-by-phone billing services are:
- Boku
- Direct Carrier Billing
- Mobile Billing
- PayByPhone
- Payforit
A Day in the Life of a Boku User
7:30 AM: The alarm goes off. I reach for my phone, not just to silence it, but to check my favorite casino app. A quick Boku deposit of $10 while I’m still in bed – my morning ritual to kickstart the day with a few spins.
9:15 AM: Coffee break at work. While colleagues fumble for change at the vending machine, I browse my casino app. I’m tempted to make another deposit, but I remind myself of the relatively low daily limit of only $30. Instead, I play a few rounds with my morning winnings.
1:00 PM: Lunch hour. I deposit another $10 via Boku. It’s painless – no need to pull out my wallet or enter card details. I play a mix of slots and blackjack while eating. The small deposit keeps things exciting without overspending.
3:30 PM: Quick bathroom break at work. I check my casino balance – still going strong from lunchtime. I appreciate how Boku’s limit prevents impulsive deposits during these moments.
6:30 PM: Home from work. Time for some serious gaming. I make my final Boku deposit of $10 for the evening session, reaching my limit of $30 for the day. While I could do this every day, I choose not to. This is my designated gaming day for the week, a conscious decision to enjoy responsibly.
The beauty is, I know I can’t overspend with this method – Boku’s limits keep me in check. No other iGaming method, that I know of, has such a low ceiling for deposits. Personally I’ve spent much more on my iPhone using micro-transactions buying digital cards for strategy games like Magic and Yugioh, where there were never any limits imposed. We’re talking thousands of dollars per month on cards I will never own or use physically use.
8:45 PM: Dinner’s done, and I’m back to gaming. I’m out of Boku deposits for the day, but I’m enjoying some computer gaming now. I like playing adventure games to wind down, especially the old “point-and-clicks” from the 90s. It’s a good feeling knowing I can’t come back to the slots and impulsively add more money.
There is also another way to do this, and that it is to set spending limit caps with the casino, but I always worry I would eventually change that back, or just play on another casino. So having a hard cap with a niche payment method is always nice. I wish Paypal would cap my daily micro-transactions on the Apple store on any given day too. But obviously, they have other interests. They collect a fee from every transaction. Apple speaks about limiting iPhone usage in terms of minutes and hours, but if they were really sincere, they should also limit compulsive buying with hard daily caps on micro-transactions. This could also be implemented from the app designer side of things, but I’ve never encountered it thus far.
10:30 PM: Winding down for the night. I review my day’s gaming, pleased with how I managed my budget. I didn’t hit any major jackpots, but unlocked some fun and dynamic bonus rounds that I enjoyed. I mostly broke even for the day. I also like that these transactions will just show up on my phone bill – no separate credit card statement to worry about.
11:30 PM: Bedtime. As I set my alarm, I reflect on how Boku kept things simple and controlled today. But this isn’t about Boku, it’s about taking a balanced approach with responsible gaming principles. I’m looking forward to tomorrow, even though it won’t be one of those days where I treat myself to some iGaming. Doing it this is way, I’m always in control. That way life can be a nice balance of fun and responsibility.
As a closing thought, Boku doesn’t have to be associated with iGaming only (which seems to be accepting it less and less unfortunately). Personally I seem to use it more for eSports these days, ever since Boku partnered with Riot Games. I like buying from the League of Legends store and they have all the payment details here for new Boku users.
Last but Not Least, How to Avoid Mobile Phone Billing Scams
Study Proposes Novel System to Detect Illegal Mobile Gambling Sites
It’s a problem that poses a multitude of threats, far beyond that of ‘unauthorized access’, and one that a group of researchers are determined to solve. With funding from the Agency for Defense Development, Moohong Min (University College, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul), Jemin J. Lee (Center for Information Security Technology, Korea University, Seoul) and Kyungho Lee (Department of Information Security, Korea University, Seoul) have come up with a novel system, described in their collaborative study:
Detecting Illegal Online Gambling Services in the Mobile Environment
Illegal Gambling Sites are More Dangerous Than You May Think
If you’ve been following the industry as long as I have (mid-2000s), you may have a skewed perception of the true threat illegal online gambling poses to society.
In the early days of the internet, major countries like France, Spain, the United States, and others threw a blanket-ban over online gambling. They deemed it 100% illegal, despite having little resources to enforce such prohibition.
Many iGaming operators chose to access these jurisdictions anyway. Some of them were perfectly reputable companies, utilizing loopholes to circumvent the law. Players saw these websites as saviors for providing them with a service they believed they deserved access to, but were ultimately denied by government oppression. These illegal gambling operations are hardly the threats we’re talking about today.
The real threat comes from corrupt operators with rogue intentions; gambling sites that look to victimize their players by any means possible. These are the most harmful type. They might sell a user’s personal and financial information to the highest bidder. They could adjust the odds of their gaming software to ensure greater losses for their players. Or, they could simply refuse to pay out winnings, disappearing into the night with your bankroll in tow. They don’t care about underage gambling, addictive behavior, or the psychological harm it causes, imposing no preventative restrictions. They are the underbelly of industry, and the reason I’m highlighting this study today.
Systematic Detection of Illegal Mobile Gambling Sites
The idea behind the system is to identify the URLs of illegal gambling sites by algorithmic data mining of targeted SMS text messages. That’s a lot of big words, I know – bear with me and I’ll explain as briefly as possible.
Illegal online gambling (IOG) sites cannot advertise in any public forum. Traditionally, they would rely on word of mouth (i.e. existing members referring their friends). It’s effective, but only to a small degree. What’s proven much more effective is spam advertising through short message service (SMS); text messaging, as most of us know it.
Many authorities have set up reporting mechanisms that give mobile users the ability to instantly report spam messages. When a user taps the ‘report message’ button on their device, it sends a copy of that text to a government agency for investigation. But what these researchers are proposing is an AI system that could detect illegal gambling links much sooner.
“This study proposes a system based on artificial intelligence to sort illegal gambling messages from reported suspicious messages with a detection accuracy rate of 97%. Moreover, this study finds that illegal messages exhibit several patterns, including features that revise URLs to stop them from being filtered automatically. By reversing such patterns, the URL information can be reconstructed, and it will be easier for IOG websites to be automatically reported and taken down.”
Means of Blocking Illegal Online Gambling URLs
Detection is only the beginning. As the technology systematically identifies and reports IOGs to the proper authorities, several more steps must take place to eliminate the website as a public threat. It starts with proving that the URL truly belongs to an illegal gambling operation. That means screening the website for illegal activity and providing screenshots. Once enough evidence is collected, authorities can take action to block the website.
It’s a 6-step process, start to finish:
- Crawling URLs associated with illegal online gambling;
- Collecting suspicious URLs and any supporting evidence;
- Submitting URLs and evidence to the proper authorities;
- Authoritative review to verify designation;
- URLs verified to be illegal are forwarded to the internet service provider (ISP)
- ISP initiates block against URLs
Is The World Ready for AI Detection via SPAM SMS?
The easy answer to this question is, “No”. The study comes out of Korea, where laws surrounding the internet and mobile technology are much more strict than most regions of the world. For example, the researchers point out that, “Spam messages containing the term “gamble” are illegal in South Korea”. This makes it easy for AI technology to parse SMS for illegal activity.
That’s not to say every government should hold its thumb so tightly over its mobile-using populace. It’s simply a presiding factor in the potential success of the system in Korea and similar nations. Such laws would hardly fly in places like North America, where freedom of speech reigns supreme.
The same type of detection system could still be effective worldwide. The difference would be in the degree of challenge for the personnel in charge of weeding through a larger batch of messages for those with illegal online gambling URLs. Still, it provides a technological “cornerstone”, as noted in the researchers’ conclusion.
“This work provides a cornerstone for future researchers interested in detecting illegal gambling and other problematic content that employs spam mass marketing. In the future, we plan to identify optimal parameters (such as the number of hidden layers) centered on DNN and continue research on methods to improve performance. The results of these experiments are limited to text-based data, so further investigation is needed for image-based spam messages.”
Do you have an interest in reviewing the process for which their AI system algorithmically detects illegal mobile gambling URLs via spam SMS? If you’ve got the programming knowledge to make sense of it, be my guest. You’ll find it all right here.
The Bottom Line For the Educated Canadian Mobile Gambler:
What Canadian network providers (carriers) offer pay by phone bill ?
From our research, major Canadian carriers susceptible to being compatible with Pay by Phone Bill (now or in the future):
- Rogers Communications - Major national Canadian wireless services and cable provider
- Telus - Large national mobile and internet provider in Canada
- Bell - Another huge Canadian mobile network operator and telecom company
- Freedom Mobile - Canadian wireless provider and subsidiary of Shaw Communications, focused mainly in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Not available at this time, but likely at a later date.
We believe that Telus and Bell have the highest likelihood of supporting Boku out of the major Canadian network providers.
What are the deposit limits when using Boku ?
The maximum deposit amount per day with Boku is typically £30/€30 or equivalent in CAD, although limits can vary slightly by country and mobile carrier. The minimum deposit is usually around £10/€10. You can make multiple deposits per day up to the daily limit. This is certainly not high and caters more to a niche demographic of players who want convenience above all else.
What online casinos accept Boku ?
In the UK: MrQ, BoyleSports Casino, NetBet Casino, All British Casino, Lottoland Casino, Mr Vegas. Recent legal changes regarding credit card deposits may have affected this list, and we are unable to verify each brand one by one.
In Canada: Captain Spins Casino, CasiGo, PlayGrand Casino, 22Bet, Playzee and Vegas Lounge Casino are some of the top Canadian online brands that were shown by iGaming affiliates as accepting Boku payments in the past.
Additional Canada-friendly sites like JackpotCity, Spin Casino, Ruby Fortune, and Royal Vegas may support pay by phone banking on a case by case basis, though not directly confirmed.
It is worth nothing that Boku availability seems more limited compared to other deposit methods at Canadian casinos. This is likely due to Boku's smaller user base in Canada and daily deposit caps.
Why can't Boku be used for withdrawals?
Boku is designed only for depositing funds, as it charges payments directly to your mobile carrier bill. There is no associated e-wallet or bank account to withdraw funds to. You'll need to use an alternative method like a bank transfer, e-wallet, or debit card for withdrawals.
Will I be charged fees for using Boku?
Boku itself does not charge any fees, however some casinos apply small processing fees ranging from 0-15% on Boku deposits. In Canada however, we haven't found a casino that charges fees. Be sure to check the casino's banking T&Cs. Your mobile carrier may also charge premium SMS fees.
Can I claim casino bonuses when depositing via Boku?
Yes, Boku deposits qualify for welcome bonuses and other casino promotions in most cases (Ontario excluded). Just be mindful of wagering requirements, restricted games for bonus funds, and other applicable terms when playing with bonuses.
What is the difference between PayForIt and Boku ?
Payforit stands out as one of the preferred mobile payment choices within the UK gambling landscape. Here are some key differences with Boku:
- Availability - Payforit is focused mainly on the UK market, while Boku is available in 60+ countries globally, including Canada.
- Direct carrier billing - Boku integrates directly with mobile carriers for billing while Payforit relies more on premium SMS billing.
- Deposit limits - Payforit may allow for higher deposits, while Boku strictly caps at £30 per day.
- Withdrawals - Neither Boku nor Payforit support withdrawals. Players need an alternative payout method.
- Security - Both utilize SMS text messaging verification codes for secure transactions. But Boku has a more steamlined process while Payforit requires manually entering the code.
