Bookmaker fees: what they are and what they cost a sure bet

The five kinds of fees

• Deposit fees. Rare at the bookmaker itself. More common at the payment provider: some e-wallets and prepaid cards charge for loading. Some card issuers treat gambling payments as cash advances.
• Withdrawal fees. Usually free, but some operators charge from the nth withdrawal in a month or below a minimum amount. Minimum withdrawals are a related trap: if your balance is below the minimum, you can't withdraw at all.
• Foreign currency. If an account is not in euros, or you pay with a card in another currency, someone converts, often with a mark-up on the exchange rate. Your bank may add a foreign transaction fee.
• Inactivity fees. Many terms allow an administration fee if an account is unused for a long time. For bwin, a review site reports €5 a month after twelve months without a real-money bet. Logging in alone usually doesn't count as activity.
• Charges passed on. In Austria every stake carries a 5% betting duty. The bookmaker owes it, but some deduct it from you. For sure bets this is the most expensive item.

Which deposit methods tend to be free is covered in bookmaker deposit methods.

The Austrian betting duty passed on

Since 1 April 2025 the Austrian betting duty (Wettgebühr) is 5% of the stake. Most bookmakers absorb it. If one passes it on, your real price falls. With a deduction from the payout, calculate with odds × 0.95: 2.00 becomes 1.90.

According to comparison sites, Interwetten deducts the duty from the payout in Austria. In a balanced two-way market that costs about 2.5 percentage points of margin, which turns a 1.5% sure bet into a loss. All the variants are explained in the Austrian betting duty guide.

Slovakia: is anything withheld from winnings?

For Slovak residents, winnings from operators licensed by the gambling regulator ÚRHH are fully exempt from income tax under § 9(2)(l) of the Income Tax Act. Nothing is withheld from your slip; the operator pays its levy out of its own revenue. For Slovak players the relevant costs are therefore payment fees, inactivity fees and any handling fee on the stake, which some operators in the region have charged in the past. With operators without a Slovak licence the tax position is less clear, and banks must block payments to operators on ÚRHH's list of prohibited offers. Details are in the Slovak betting tax guide.

Overview by bookmaker

The table shows only what we could find reliably in official sources, operator pages and review sites. Where we found nothing reliable, it says so. Fees change; the cashier section of your account shows the current values.

As of October 2026. Sources: Austrian Business Service Portal and BMF (duty), gambling.com Austria (which bookmakers pass the duty on), wettbasis.com (bwin inactivity), wettfreunde.net (minimum amounts), ÚRHH licence list as of 1 January 2026, Slovak Income Tax Act. “No pass-on known to us” and “no reliable figure found” mean we found no reliable statement; they don't mean that no fee applies.

Honestly, the picture is messy. Many operators publish their fees only in the logged-in cashier or deep in long terms. Before your first withdrawal, check the fee and minimum amount in the cashier, and read the section of the terms on inactive accounts.

Exchange commission

A betting exchange has no margin built into the price; instead it charges a commission on your net winnings per market, usually a few percent. With a 2% commission, a lay or back win of €100 pays €98. For Austria and Slovakia this is mostly theory: according to our research, Betfair Exchange and Matchbook don't accept customers from Austria, and the best-known exchanges hold no Slovak licence. How exchanges work is explained in the betting exchange guide.

What fees do to your margin

Calculations with rounded figures. Real results can differ and can be negative: odds move, bets get voided and accounts get limited.

Fees also affect whether a paid tool makes sense for you. In the week above, the €45 would cover a €97 monthly fee after a little over two such weeks in this example; with €15 of fees a week it takes more than three. The guides to whether arbitrage software is worth it and good arbitrage percentages go through that sum with your own numbers.

How to avoid fees

• Choose a free method and stick to it. Withdrawals usually go back to the method you deposited with.
• Withdraw rarely, in larger amounts. Once a week rather than many small withdrawals. How to plan this is in distributing your bankroll across bookmakers.
• Everything in euros. Account currency and payment method both.
• Don't forget accounts. If you stop using a bookmaker, withdraw the balance and close the account before an inactivity fee applies.
• Price in any duty passed on. With such bookmakers, use the price after the deduction, not the price shown.

How withdrawals work and what to do if one stalls is covered in bookmaker withdrawals.

For bookmakers we know pass on the Austrian duty, ArbVantage automatically uses the price after the deduction. Payment fees are only known to your account; log them in Tracking as a transaction so your result stays accurate.

Frequently asked questions

Do bookmakers charge fees for withdrawals?

Most large bookmakers pay out free of charge by the usual methods. Fees appear more often for very small amounts, after a certain number of withdrawals in a month, or at the payment provider. The cashier section of your account shows the current terms.

What is an inactivity fee on a betting account?

An administration fee some bookmakers deduct when an account has not been used for a long time, for example after twelve months without a real-money bet. Logging in alone usually doesn’t count, so withdraw and close accounts you no longer use.

Which fee costs the most with sure bets?

In Austria, the 5 percent betting duty when a bookmaker passes it on. Deducted from the payout, it lowers your price by 5 percent and turns a typical sure bet with a 1 to 2 percent margin into a loss.

Is tax withheld from betting winnings in Slovakia?

Not with operators licensed by the Slovak regulator ÚRHH. For Slovak residents those winnings are fully exempt from income tax and nothing is withheld from the slip; the operator pays its levy. This is not tax advice.

Sources

• Austrian Business Service Portal (USP): betting duty return (in German)
• Austrian Ministry of Finance: form Geb 6, betting duty, 5% since 1 April 2025 (PDF, in German)
• Slov-Lex: Act No. 595/2003 on income tax, § 9(2)(l) exemption of winnings (in Slovak)
• ÚRHH: list of legal gambling websites and licence numbers, as of 1 January 2026 (in Slovak)
• gambling.com Austria: betting tax in Austria and which bookmakers pass it on (in German)
• wettbasis.com: inactivity fee at bwin (in German)
• wettfreunde.net: minimum stakes and amounts at sports betting operators (in German)

As of October 2026. The calculations are illustrations under the stated assumptions. Not betting, financial, legal or tax advice. 18+.

Betting involves risk, sure bets included: odds move, bets get voided and accounts get limited. Only stake money you can afford to lose. If betting stops being fun, our responsible gambling page lists free help in Austria and Germany.