Mastercard Successfully Blocking Online Casino Deposits

February 07, 2010 | News Category: Casino Banking

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Although Mastercard had previously attempted to block deposits that would be made by United States residents at online gambling sites, they had not managed to effectively do so. The credit card company had not been able to identify a coding system that would stop payments that they wanted to exclude from going through. In the past, online gambling sites managed to help players to get their transactions through by processing the transactions as uncoded transactions.

Mastercard has now figured out a solution, which prevents those transactions that are attempted at online gambling sites, including online casino sites, and online poker sites, from being processed. It is possible that online gambling sites will find a way to get around this new blockage, however, at this time, online gaming sites are blocked for Mastercard users.

The successful blockage of payment transfers from online gambling sites via Mastercard credit cards means that many United States online casino players are now unable to fund their accounts. This causes much frustration in the online gambling world, since at this time online gambling is not really illegal at this time.

The UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act)’s implementation was delayed from the beginning of this year to June 1st. At this time, the online casino world is waiting to see if Congress will pass Barney Frank’s online gambling bills. Although it does look like there will be a positive outcome for the online gambling world, until the UIGEA is abolished, and the United States Congress has adopted the online gambling bills as law, financial institutions need to continue to follow the requirements of the UIGEA.

In defense of the credit card companies, they do need to work towards making their online gambling blocking software effective. The reason for this is that should the UIGEA be enacted and enforced on June 1st, 2010, then credit card companies will need to be ready to put the blocks in place, or face legal action.

Players who hold Visa credit cards are still able to use their credit cards to make online casino deposits, since Visa has not yet solved the coding problem as effectively as Mastercard has. Online gambling sites are still able to process the Visa transactions as uncoded transactions. It is likely, however, that this is just a temporary solution for depositing funds with online casinos, since Visa is likely most going to capitalize on the methods used by Mastercard.

When financial institutions have blocked online gambling transactions in the past, they have often blocked sites that should not be blocked, such as state lottery ticket sales.