Online Gambling Payments Blocked By VISA

Gambling News - February 20th, 2010 - Written By Glen

In February, MasterCard, one of the two giant brands of credit cards, decided to cease allowing payments for American online gamblers. Not even a month later VISA, the biggest credit card supplier in the nation, decided to begin blocking gambling deposits almost universally. It has been estimated that thousands of gamblers will be affected by this change.

Both VISA and MasterCard, possibly under the pretext of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, or the UIGEA, have decided to begin blocking these transactions, be it related to any form of USA Online gambling. Cards registered in the United States will undoubtedly see much lower success rates, leading players to different forms of deposit methods, particularly e-wallets.

The UIGEA had been postponed until June 1st, as the December 1st deadline had been successfully been delayed. Questions are now being asked, however, as to why the banks have taken the steps to impose sanctions against online gambling now, rather than back in November or earlier. With the possibility of the Barney Frank bill, HR2267, or the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act, being passed into law, the steps taken by these credit card companies may be superfluous at best.

Unfortunately, many players do not understand the finer points of alternative deposit methods. The necessity of these alternative methods have been on the rise, as credit cards have been blocking gambling deposits for some time, but only through the gambling sites with heavy traffic.

"I tried to use my credit card to fund my account through PokerStars," began Christopher M. from New Jersey. "I tried a Bank of America debit card, a Capital One credit card, and both my debit and credit card from my credit union. Each of my cards were blocked."

Unfortunately, there are not that many gambling sites still accepting American Express, who had begun blocking gambling deposits almost a year ago, nor Discover Card.