IBAN
An IBAN, or International Bank Account Number, is the standard code that identifies one specific bank account for payments across the Single Euro Payments Area. In Ireland it is always 22 characters long and starts with IE. For a player, it is the number a casino or bookmaker asks for when you choose a bank transfer withdrawal, and the one detail that decides whether the money reaches your account or bounces back to the cashier.
How an Irish IBAN is built
The format is set by the international standard ISO 13616. Every IBAN opens with a two-letter country code, follows it with two check digits, and ends with a domestic account number of up to 30 characters, so no IBAN anywhere runs past 34.
Ireland fixes the length at 22. Take the common textbook example IE29 AIBK 9311 5212 3456 78 and read it left to right.
IE is the country, 29 are the check digits, and AIBK is a four-letter bank identifier taken from the start of the bank’s BIC. Then comes 931152, the six-digit National Sort Code for the branch, and finally 12345678, the eight-digit account number you already know from your card or statement. In other words, an Irish IBAN is your old sort code and account number with a country tag, a bank tag and a checksum wrapped around them.
The spaces are only there to help the eye; in a cashier field you can usually type the 22 characters straight through.
What the check digits calculate
The two check digits are what let a form spot a typo before any money moves. They come from the MOD 97-10 scheme in ISO 7064, and the arithmetic is simpler than it sounds.
Validating a number
Move the first four characters to the end, so IE29AIBK93115212345678 becomes AIBK93115212345678IE29. Replace each letter with a number, where A is 10, B is 11 and so on up to Z at 35. Divide the resulting long integer by 97. If the remainder is 1, the IBAN is valid; any other remainder means something was mistyped.
Creating the digits
A bank issuing the number does the same rearrangement with 00 in place of the check digits, takes the remainder after dividing by 97, and subtracts it from 98. A result below ten gets a leading zero, which is why check digits are always two characters.
One limit matters here. The checksum catches a swapped or wrong digit, but it cannot tell whether a correctly formed IBAN belongs to you, so a valid number typed from the wrong statement will still pass.
Where players meet the IBAN
You will rarely need an IBAN to deposit. Cards, Apple Pay and e-wallets cover that side, and the IBAN usually appears when you request a bank transfer withdrawal, or when a card payout is not possible and the operator switches you to a transfer instead.
Most cashiers then ask for the IBAN, the account holder’s name and sometimes the BIC. The name is where a payout tends to stall. Operators generally require the receiving account to be in the same name as the verified player account, and many ask for a bank statement or screenshot showing the IBAN during KYC or source-of-funds checks, which can hold the request in pending until the document is approved. Exactly which document they want, and whether a joint or Revolut account is accepted, varies by operator and is set out in each one’s payment terms.
Do not confuse the IBAN with the BIC, also called the SWIFT code. The BIC identifies the bank itself, eight or eleven characters long, while the IBAN identifies your individual account inside it. Within SEPA, euro transfers generally need only the IBAN.
Revolut and some other app-based accounts issue IBANs from countries other than Ireland, such as LT. That is legitimate: the Central Bank of Ireland’s consumer guidance explains that refusing a valid SEPA IBAN because of its country code is known as IBAN discrimination, and sets out how to report it.
Before you request the payout, compare the IBAN in the cashier against your banking app character by character.
