Visa Exit US Online Gambling Market

Making a deposit at an online casino with a Visa or MasterCard credit card will be a thing of the past for US citizens following recent changes introduced by the credit card giants.

In recent weeks both Visa and MasterCard have quietly gone about cracking down on US facing gaming companies, putting in force restrictions that close a number of loopholes that allowed gaming companies to accept deposits from US players.

The move by the credit card giants represents a final push to ensure they meet the standards and policies outlined in the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA), a piece of legislation that targeted a delivery date of the 1^st June 2010 for financial institutions to comply with US anti-gambling policies.

The attempt to restrict deposits by US players at online gambling sites is not a new one. Following the passing of the UIGEA in late 2006, both Visa and MasterCard were quick to restrict deposits at US facing casinos by identifying gambling operators by their SIC code of ‘7995′. All transactions to companies which fell into the ‘7995′ online gambling category were then simply refused.

Faced with a dramatic reduction in deposits, US facing operators were quick to identify a loophole within the Visa and MasterCard scheme. A number of gambling companies started to record e-gaming deposits as “other” forms of transactions, thereby circumnavigating the ‘7995′ restrictions that had been put in place.

The latest crackdown by Visa and MasterCard has targeted this loophole, and US players who until recently had not experienced any problems, are now finding it impossible to deposit using either of these credit cards at US facing gaming sites.

The move is expected to create a period of uncertainty within the US market whilst players identify and become familiar new alternative payment mechanisms.

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Tags: banking, mastercard, UIGEA, US gambling, visa