Online Casino Financial Transactions Sing the Blues

March 31, 2010 | News Category: Gaming Law

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As was predicted by many, the UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) would cause havoc when it came to online financial transactions. At this time, when the implementation of the UIGEA has been suspended for a few months, it is still causing havoc in the Internet financial transaction world.

Although the implementation of the UIGEA has been suspended, the deadline for implementation is still June 1st 2010, and financial institutions are making sure that they are ready should this eventuality come to pass.

Those who need to do financial transactions with online casinos find ways to do so, since there are a large number of ways to perform these transactions. When players find that they are unable to use credit cards at online casinos because the credit card companies have blocked these kind of financial transactions, even though they are not illegal at this time, find that they are able to use other methods to deposit their gambling money at their favorite online casinos.

Those who are the least prepared for these kind of blocks are those companies that use online financial transactions, and should not be blocked by the financial institutions for any reason at all. However, there are times when the blocks are not foolproof, and other companies get blocked, causing havoc for them and their customers.

Recently, the South Florida Blues Society, a blues music fan club, had their payments blocked because Paypal had listed their site as an online gambling site. The website does raise money for their organization by selling raffle tickets, with a winning prize of a trip on a Caribbean Blues Cruise. The South Florida Blues Society has been raising money legally in this way for ten years. It seems that this tenuous link to online gambling has been the reason that the site has been listed as an online gambling site, and has therefore had their financial transactions blocked by Paypal. The site was therefore unable to receive membership payments, sell shirts, music, and other merchandise that they usually sell online.

The South Florida Blues Society had to send an email out to their members explaining the situation, and noting that they would need to send all payments by check until this mistake is rectified.

The US Treasury has been given repeated warnings by representatives of financial institutions that this kind of mistake was likely to happen when they tried to implement online gambling payment blocks. In the past, there have already been problems for legal online gambling websites, such as state lotteries and horse racing sites, that were accidentally blocked when other gambling websites were being blocked.

Essentially, any online business that accepts financial transactions could be in danger of having their business interrupted by accidental blocking.