Do Banks Allow Online Gambling
- Do Banks Allow Online Gambling
- Do Banks Allow Online Gambling Games
- Do Banks Allow Online Gambling Sites
- Banks Allow Online Gambling
According to FanDuel, banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Capital One, Union Bank and Huntington Bank do not allow their debit and credit cards to be used for online gambling. The worry is that these sites can be used for money laundering and fraud, and banks do not want to run into trouble from federal regulators and prosecutors for. In recent years, regulators have also become more aggressive about enforcing the rules – on both casinos and banks. In 2012 financial institutions agreed to pay $3.5 billion in anti-money. Welcome tothe News desk. Banks let customers block spending on gambling websites. HSBC join many other banks to allow customers to prevent themselves from spending money with bookmakers and online casinos. Europe’s largest bank will offer its 14.5 million UK customers the option to self-exclude from all gambling transactions, a restriction that can only be reversed after a 24-hour cooling-off period.
Ok, for months we have been hearing about that famous UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) which was passed last year. This poor piece of legislation, written by people with no knowledge of the financial works, driven by 'contributions' to political campaigns and hands-washing of the Abramoff scandal, this stupid and absolutely useless and unenforceable law was able to scare away most of the industry away.
Do you know what I say - Let them run! Let all of the lousy, sneaky, cheating online gambling companies run away from the US market and never come back (I pity the Europeans which would be unfortunate to play at their properties).
With a risk of being unpopular - this is the best thing to happen to our industry since the invention of the WiFi-ready toilet seat on which many Americans seem to gamble, according to some Senators who know a great deal about the Internets.
Why is this so good? Well, because it was the Laxative that cleaned up the industry. There were literally thousands of online casinos, sportsbooks, poker websites and almost all of them were in for the short run. Which became obvious after the first 'real' trouble. Many of those gambling websites sold their customers' information, too. And many online gambling 'entrepreneurs' would cry you a river about this law, and many advertisers would, too. But if you look at what matters - the players at those websites - they came out winners. Would any normal person knowingly give away all their personal information to a gambling website which is bound to sell it to the highest bidder? Would you play at a website which you know could disappear tomorrow? Of course not.
So let them run...and don't forget to flush. Let the real companies, which are proving to be in for the long run continue to enjoy making money, and their players to enjoy quality entertainment, high payouts and dependable service.
Because the 'law' which was passed in 2006, although having the right target (the financial side of the business), would not have the means to enforce it. And any online gambling company which would care enough about what they do, and hire a financial consultant, would have know that.
The Banks and the gambling transactions fiasco:
The deal with the credit cards looks somewhat easy - the credit cards assign a merchant code which correspond to the type of service that merchant provides. This is used to evaluate the credit risk from that transaction and help some credit card issuers block transactions to high-risk merchants, such as phone cards or roving merchants. For example, the online gambling merchant code is 7995. This would of course be easily blocked, and almost all of the banks have been blocking transactions to online gambling for years by using this code method. However, it is not that hard to become a credit card processor under a different code - all the gambling websites currently allowing US players bypass the system this way and are able to accept credit cards for depositing money.
Do Banks Allow Online Gambling
According to Steve Verdier, Senior Vice President and Director of Congressional Relations Group for the Independent Community Bankers of America, in 2004 there were 36,000,000,000 checks written and 12,000,000,000 electronic transfers (ACH) conducted. It is safe to assume that in 2007 these numbers are much higher. And the purpose of the bill was to make the banks weed out through all these transactions, find those which go to illegal Internet gambling websites, and block them. Sounds like a good plan, yeah? But if the former Senator Jim Leach would have done his homework right, he would have known that everybody on the planet with a bank account is a potential recipient of a check or ACH, and when you make a bank transaction (non-credit card related) such as ACH, all the information which the receiving bank has is the account number and the bank's own number - there is no information sent about the 'type' of recipient. And there is a provision in the bill, that if it is not practical of feasible to block those transactions, they would be exempt. Also, there are exemptions which require banks to allow transactions to legal online gambling websites, such as online horse betting. And when we add the fact that if a financial institution is 'over-blocking' transactions, resulting in many legal transactions being blocked as well, that financial institution holds no liability for that action, we could expect quite careless approach which may lead to blocking of batches of transactions and a lot of unhappy customers being late on their phone bills.
Mr. Verdier also says: 'Court injunctions are not to apply against financial transactions providers, but what we worry about is that some clever prosecutor would come up with something outside of the bill, to use as an excuse for an injunction, then will have a federal judge, who is probably not an expert on the payment system, may be enforcing and directing that the entire payment system of the United States be transformed so we can track and block those payments.'
Do Banks Allow Online Gambling Games
So, after reading all these facts, can you imagine the mess which lays ahead for the banking sector once the regulations are in effect? You probably don't know much about how the payment system in the United States work (and you don't have to), but even you, after reading the basic facts, would come to the conclusion that not only you cannot block transactions to Internet gambling websites, but also that a big mess would result out of it. Don't you think that a Senator, a man elected to hammer the laws of the country would have done at least this much of a research?
But wait, it gets even better:
No financial transactions, deposits or withdrawals, are ever made directly to an online gambling site. They always go through a third-party payment processor - credit card processor, ACH processor, or an e-wallet such as Neteller, and those processors are based outside of the US jurisdiction and they are not 'gambling' transactions per se, because the money goes from an US bank to a bank in Costa Rica, for example, which is perfectly legal under US laws (placing money in a third party institution by itself is not considered a bet or wager under the new law), and then the gambling website receives it from the Costa Rican bank. Flip the scenario 180 degrees for withdrawals. Basically, you can 'layer-up' as many offshore banks as needed, so a transaction would not be seen as online gambling.
One thing that I see, is the end of the e-wallets as a form of funding any online gambling activity. The days of Neteller and alike are long gone, and most likely the unreliability of any future e-wallets which may come around to feel the gap would steer the gambling sites away from them and they would depend on in-house payment processing using electronic checks and credit cards.
And there will be a lot of publicity and scare tactics when the regulations come out. But the wimps are already gone, so there would be not much left to scare. Oh, I can see the PR machine wheels turning, but it's an empty mill they are running...
Anyhow, I was able to find all this information. If you are an online gambling website owner, who is dedicated to his business, wouldn't you do at least this much of research? Instead of running away just by hearing 'online gambling bill'? Most of the online gambling websites left the market the day after the bill was passed. Without taking time to analyze it and see what actually it is all about - don't judge a book by its cover, and don't judge a bill by its abbreviation. They just left the next day, their luggage long time packed, and left thousands of customers and partners in the dust. Why? So they don't have to actually do some work and find the legal way around it. This would have made their 'business' a little harder.
Because their business plan was 'let's make as much money as we can, while it lasts' and not 'let's build one of the best companies in the industry'. But there are empires currently build. Next year Forbes may add a few more folks from the online gambling sector to their list.
And we all learned a valuable lesson, and the gambling industry has become as clean as it has ever been.
Do Banks Allow Online Gambling Sites
Congratulations, you have just went through the NASDAQ-bubble-burst of the online gambling industry!
04-10-2007
Thousands of Americans gamble online. But is online gambling legal? We break it down to show you what you can do, what you can't do, and what's still up in the air.
by Katherine Butler
updated September 03, 2020 · 2min read
The legality of online gambling is ever-changing. But one thing is constant: it makes a lot of money. Online gambling industry makes an estimated $1 billion dollars annually. This is a huge business, and a lot of people have cashed in on it. But it has led to some ambiguous legal issues, as the legality of online gambling is constantly being challenged.
There are differences in the legality of making bets, taking bets, facilitating payments to casinos, and advertising on websites. And there are constantly new legal challenges. So here is a breakdown of the law on online gambling.
Legal Forms of Gambling
There is no federal law against placing a wager online. So, you can legally place a bet online. However, a wager must not be placed on a site located in the United States. There is a small chance players might run afoul of state law, but there is little chance of prosecution. The only case cited where a person got into trouble with a state was in 2003. Jeffrey Trauman of North Dakota paid a $500 fine on over $100,000 of online sports bet winnings.
Banks Allow Online Gambling
Sites that are set up outside of the United States are legal. Therefore, gambling on websites located in areas like Australia, the Caribbean, and Latin America is legal. Just be very clear that the site you are playing on is not based on U.S. soil.
Definitely Not Legal Forms of Gambling
It is never legal to gamble on a website based in the United States. Also, if you are planning to operate an online gambling site, stay outside of the United States. You must also deal only with casino and poker wagers (not sports bets) from people in the US. And you cannot take bets over the phone from people in the United States.
Accepting online gambling advertising is also illegal. If you are a small publisher, you are less likely to be prosecuted, but why risk it? As of early 2009, only large and mid-size publishers had faced prosecution. In 2007, the three big search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft) each paid a fine for accepting online gambling ads, but did not face criminal charges. Other publishers, such as Esquire Magazine, have been warned by the government not to take online gambling advertising.
Facilitating the transfer of funds to online casinos is also a bad idea. As of 2006, it became illegal for American banks to process transactions originating from or directed toward any online gambling operator. Because of this, several sites then refused to take bets from American players. But as the law seems difficult to enforce, it has not turned the tide completely for American players.
Still up in the Air
Advertisers who promote sports books in magazines and on billboards may or may not face prosecution. So far, sports books have never been scrutinized for advertising online. And online casinos, poker rooms, and sports books have never been prosecuted for buying ads.
Online casinos and operators still accept American players. And international financial parties have continued to process their transactions. The legality is always changing and there have been attempts to declare online wagering against the law, but for now, U.S. citizens who simply place bets online are in the clear.