Royal Bank of Scotland Not Processing Online Casino Transactions

May 20, 2009 | News Category: Casino Banking

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Online gambling has reached a level where it has become extremely popular all over the world. With more and more countries legalizing and regulating online gambling, there are others that are trying to close their doors on this form of entertainment.

One of the most recent anti-gambling moves has been taken in Scotland, by the Royal Bank of Scotland. The Royal Bank of Scotland, one of the biggest banks in the world, have decided that they will no longer have any involvement with the Internet gambling industry. They are turning their backs on one of the most up-and-coming industries in the world today.

The Royal Bank of Scotland has given Internet gambling operators a choice, which does allow them to continue banking with the bank, however, the gambling transactions they need to make will have to be done through another bank. This would mean that online casino operators would have to use two different banks to do their banking, or make a total change over to a different bank.

It seems that the reason the Royal Bank of Scotland has chosen to stop processing online casino transactions is connected to their recently announced merger of their bank with a banking group based in the Netherlands, the ABN AMRO.

The Dutch government has tried to prevent online gambling transactions from taking place, and have asked their banks to comply with the request to stop processing Internet casino transactions. It is highly likely that the decision of the Royal Bank of Scotland to refuse to process online gambling transactions is because the ABN AMRO is a Dutch bank.

The Swiss government has also taken a strong stand against Internet gambling, and has put pressure on banks to stop processing online gambling transactions for Swiss residents.

Although no official statement has been made, it is likely that the decision taken by the Royal Bank of Scotland was taken in order to satisfy the demands of the merger with ABN AMRO and also to keep the Swiss government happy.

The European Union has been somewhat frustrated by both the Swiss and the Dutch governments who seem to be taking serious measures in order to protect the gambling monopolies that are run out of their own countries. These kind of measures do not comply with the free trade agreement that exists in the European Union.