Pay by mobile betting sites: which UK bookmakers accept phone bill payments?

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How to read this comparison

The table lists every bookmaker we cover and whether its UK payment pages list a phone-bill method, under any name: pay by mobile, pay by phone, Boku or charge to mobile. At our last check every row read “Not listed”. That is the finding, not a gap in the table: we checked each bookmaker’s own deposit and withdrawal pages, and the date of each check is on its bookmaker guide. “Not listed” means the method does not appear on those pages. It is not a statement about what any cashier might show in future, and we will update the table if a bookmaker adds it.

Pay by mobile at UK bookmakers

What pay by mobile is

Pay by mobile, or direct carrier billing, means paying with your mobile phone account instead of a card or bank account. On a contract the charge is added to your monthly bill; on pay-as-you-go it is taken from your credit.¹² You usually confirm with a one-time code sent by text,¹ and O2 describes a two-step confirmation followed by a free receipt.³

Boku is one company that handles these payments. It describes itself as a payments facilitator that connects merchants to payment methods, and says that if Boku appears on your bill, it usually processed the payment for the merchant you bought from.⁴

In the UK, anything charged to a phone bill is a premium rate service, regulated by Ofcom since it took over from the Phone-paid Services Authority on 31 January 2025.⁵⁶ Ofcom says these services can be used to gamble, only by people over 18, and that the Gambling Commission sets extra rules for gambling services.⁵ EE lists gambling among its Charge to Bill services.⁷ So phone-bill gambling payments exist in the UK; the bookmakers we cover simply do not list them.

The £40 and £240 limits

The Payment Services Regulations 2017 exclude certain phone-bill purchases from payment services rules only while no single transaction exceeds £40 and a subscriber’s total stays within £240 a month.⁸ The networks build their limits on this:

• EE caps premium rate spending at £40 a transaction and £240 a billing period across all such services, says the caps cannot be raised or removed, and refuses any Charge to Bill payment that would go over them.⁷
• O2 applies the same two limits to certain Charge to Mobile charges, and says pay monthly allowances depend on how long you have been a customer, your usual spend and whether you pay on time.³⁹
• Vodafone applies £40 a transaction and £240 a billing period, says some merchants set lower limits, and says new pay monthly customers may wait up to three months before they can charge items to their bill.¹⁰
• Three calls its £40 and £240 Spend Limit a legal requirement that cannot be removed or changed, and blocks transactions above it.¹¹

How charges, refunds and blocks work

Phone bills often do not name the company you paid. Ofcom says charges may appear as Charge-to-mobile, Operator Billing or Direct Carrier Billing, which are payment mechanisms rather than the provider’s name.¹² O2 says purchases appear in your online bill within 48 hours.³

Refunds are a matter for the company that charged you, not your network. EE says it cannot refund Charge to Bill payments and that requests go to the service provider, and Ofcom says it has no power to mediate individual cases or get you a refund.¹²¹³ Boku’s help centre says content bought with Boku is non-refundable.¹⁴

You can stop phone-bill payments altogether. EE can bar online purchases, O2 can add a Charge to Mobile bar, and Vodafone can bar all charges.³¹⁰¹³ Boku lets you block your number from further Boku payments, but that blocks Boku only, not other carrier billing providers.¹⁴¹⁵ Vodafone’s Spend Manager does not cover Charge to Bill purchases.¹⁶ We found no network page describing a gambling-only bar; the bars cover phone-bill purchases in general.

Phone-bill payments are not Apple Pay or Google Pay

Searches for “pay by mobile” often mean paying with a phone, which is a different thing. Apple Pay pays with a card stored in the Wallet app, and Apple says it is not a bank: any card used in Apple Pay is offered by the card issuer.¹⁷¹⁸ Google Wallet likewise stores your cards and pays with them.¹⁹ Nothing goes on your phone bill: the money comes from the card, and because credit cards cannot be used for gambling in Great Britain, that means a debit card at a bookmaker.²⁰

These wallets are widely listed: 24 of the 24 bookmakers we cover list Apple Pay and 15 list Google Pay. Deposit and withdrawal support differs between them, so compare Apple Pay betting sites and Google Pay betting sites separately.

Related questions

Can winnings be paid back to a phone bill?

We found no provider, network or regulator page that describes paying money back to a phone bill or pay-as-you-go balance; every official description covers charges only. What bookmakers do publish is where withdrawals go when the deposit method cannot take them. bet365 pays by bank transfer if it cannot pay back to the deposit method.²¹ William Hill issues withdrawals from a non-withdrawable method by bank transfer.²² Betfair points customers whose method does not accept withdrawals to bank transfer, and Sky Bet to Pay by Bank.²³²⁴ LiveScore Bet notes that some methods, such as prepaid cards, may be deposit-only.²⁵ Withdrawals also go only to methods in your own name under these bookmakers’ closed-loop rules.²⁶²⁷

Does any bookmaker mention Boku at all?

Only in passing. BoyleSports’ terms list BOKU among deposit methods “accepted … in some countries”, depending on country of residence, without naming Great Britain, and BOKU is not on its deposit methods list.²⁸²⁹

Is a paysafecard voucher the same as paying by phone?

No. paysafecard is a prepaid code you buy in a shop or online, not a phone-bill charge, although a UK payment made with codes alone is also capped at £40 per transaction.³⁰³¹ Which bookmakers take it, and how withdrawals work, is in paysafecard betting sites. Published minimums by method are in minimum deposits compared.

What if phone-bill charges from a gambling site appear that I do not recognise?

Contact the company that charged you first, since networks and Ofcom do not issue refunds, and ask your network to bar phone-bill purchases.¹²¹³ If gambling is causing you concern, free self-exclusion through GAMSTOP covers gambling websites and apps run by businesses licensed in Great Britain.³²

Bookmaker guides and help

Each bookmaker guide lists every payment method that bookmaker publishes, with sources and the date checked. For how withdrawals return to the method you used, see declined or returned withdrawals, and for charges and limits, withdrawal limits and fees.