I've been trying to get an answer out of stars support for a couple of days now to no avail wrt a couple of points, would appreciate any input...

I wanted to use the interac e-transfer method but by default as a Canadian it only allows me to use Canadian base currency, which means i'll be paying the conversion fee both when depositing and when withdrawing (since i'd have to use the same method).

I do have a US currency account (at a Canadian bank) though and it seems like it would be pretty straight forward to just deposit using that one. I spoke to their chat, I sent emails out twice and still no response... is this actually possible as a Canadian?

If not / also: which merchants are the best options for depositing in American funds in your experience? the only one on their list that seems to allow depositing in USD is muchbetter.com which, from what I've read, is a terrible and unreliable site that charges exorbitant conversion fees themselves.

there must be better options, no?

Create a Canadian cashier in Stars and deposit to that cashier, and then no exchange fees. Pokerstars does not charge fees on currency exchanges within their software, though they do have monthly limits on how much can be converted, which are not well defined (ie: is it calendar monthly or rolling monthly etc).

Basically, the easiest way is assuming you deposit $1,000 or less, do it to the Canadian cashier (and be careful, the software is not as intuitive to have that as the destination as it used to be). I would suggest doing a $20 deposit first just to be sure it works as you expect, maybe a bit more if you have some sort of bonus that needs a $50 or whatever.

After you deposit your full amount, convert it within the Pokerstars cashier by clicking manage currencies. You do not have to exchange it all, just exchange what you need to US plus a little.

If you win then you can convert it back to Canadian and cash out from the Canadian cashier (you may want to test it again to be sure it works), and if you win a lot, like 10K+ then you will have to email Stars to ask for them to convert it for you, and they will do so with the assumption you are cashing it out (they do not want people just swapping currencies). Unfortunately, with Stars support as it is now, this request which used to take minutes or hours can now take a lot longer. I was lucky the last time I did it in that they did the request within a day, but that is not always the norm any more.

Note, do not use your US currency bank account. Stars will not do transfers to it any more as all US fund transfers go via a US bank as an intermediary. The last time one could do transfers to a US account was maybe 8 years ago with Skrill (when Canadians had Skrill), but that ended even before Skrill ended.

There are e-wallets available, like Ecopayz, but if you are just playing on Stars they do nothing for you.

Is there anything besides setting my default currency to CDN that i should be aware of before depositing to make sure i'm not liable for additional fees?

The pokerstars site says that they charge 0.5 "units" per conversion. does that mean 50 cents or does unit mean something else?

thanks for the info

Honestly, the new cashier software (last year or so) is a bit non-intuitive compared to the old stuff, so I am not sure "preferred currency" matters so much as choosing to deposit while looking at the appropriate cashier. Honestly, I have not done too many deposits in the past years, I just do ones once in a while to keep ecopayz active, and it forces it to the US currency for some reason (not worth figuring it out for the keep it active small deposits I do every 6 months or so), but I do cash out from the Canadian cashier at no fee to my business account in my bank with no fees from either Stars or my bank for those transactions.

I know I did a deposit from the bank long ago to activate that method, but honestly that was years ago with the old cashier, so not sure how that element works, but there definitely should be a way to deposit Canadian currency from a Canadian account to the Canadian cashier within Stars. Again, try it worth a small deposit at first to be sure it works is what I generally suggest.

I have no idea what that 0.5 units thing is about, but part of me wonders if that is what they charge when they exchange currencies from outside sources, but I suspect you would also be charged by the other side for deposits (ie: a small fee), but if you deposit to the US cashier from Canadian source, it will force the cashout from the US cashier (until you offset it) and then your bank will charge a lot more when it gets it. Best to just do Canadian to Canadian, and I think that 0.5 thing, whatever it is, will not apply. Unfortunately for now you can pretty much assume Stars support will be of little or no help, so even asking that will be of pretty much no use (ie: you will not get an answer, and the base level support will not even know the answer if they reply - instead sending a generic email about deposits or something).