Mastercard in Controversial Online Funds Seizures
Online gamblers resident in the United States will need to be a lot more careful in future. It may even be time for them to cut up their top branded credit cards and start looking for a more reliable and cheaper e-wallet or prepaid online payment solution.
Following in MasterCard’s footsteps, the Visa brand also recently announced that it would cease to process transactions suspected of involving online gambling service providers, such as casinos and poker rooms, and their clients.
More recently, and despite a clear directive from the treasury to delay the implementation of UIGEA until June 2010, MasterCard has chosen to take the widely-feared next step. The company has now donned its jackboots and begun conducting a Draconian campaign of account seizures against that huge sector of American society that still believes it has a democratic right to the pursuit of happiness; in this case, a harmless flutter on a card game or slot machine.
At least one online casino, as yet unnamed, has already fallen foul of the financial giant’s claws. One of its client’s has had his or her casino account seized, along with multiple deposits, pending a more in-depth investigation by the card company. The seizure means that the casino’s client will have no access whatever to the funds in that online account until the investigation is complete and MasterCard has, so far, given no indication of just how long this might take. Depending upon their findings, the funds could then be returned to the player or simply forfeited to the card company. The latter possibility, if implemented, should certainly meet with some strong legal challenges to the dubious right of MasterCard to retain these funds.
It has been stated many times that is probably impossible to stop online gambling and experience has repeatedly shown that there is little doubt that this is, indeed, the case. A great many online casinos have already been taking steps to ensure that they have other, less detectable mechanisms in place with which to perform their online transactions. In parallel, other service providers are looking at way to guarantee deposits even when made using the widely popular branded cards. Clearly, this type of undertaking represents a substantial risk on the part of online gaming operators and it appears to reflect their firm belief that current UIGEA legislation will be repealed in favour of a regulated online gambling industry.
Should this be the case, it might prove quite interesting to see how the reaction of millions of angry online punters may subsequently affect the future business of MasterCard and Visa.