One of the biggest challenges for online gambling operators is ensuring that their players can easily deposit and withdraw funds from their accounts. Since a robust credit and debit card industry is in operation in almost every market on the planet, this shouldn’t be a big issue for operators…except for the fact that it is a big issue for operators.
Thanks to the never-ending efforts of pearl-clutching anti-gambling activists, credit card companies and banks have been pressured to prevent players from using their credit and debit cards to fund their online gambling. So far that hasn’t happened in Australia, one of the world’s biggest gambling markets, but if the authors of a new report on credit card use and gambling by the Australian Banking Association (ABA) have their way, credit cards and gambling will be a thing of the past.
Every Customer Counts Consultation Report – Use of credit cards for gambling transactions, was commissioned by the ABA to find out how operators and customers felt about credit card use. The report relies on submissions from 40 operators and other interested parties such as guidance counselors, along with 813 people who responded to a web survey. Not surprisingly, the web respondents suggested that credit cards be banned for online gambling transactions. This jibes with another survey that was done last year and suggested that 81 percent of Aussies want to limit the use of credit cards in online gambling transactions.
While the report holds no legal sway over credit card companies, its findings will certainly be noticed in that sector. Aussie banks and credit cards aren’t really on board with the online gambling industry anyways, and it’s likely that more of them will prevent their products from being used by gamblers in the near future.