Greenlight For Online Casino Action?
Added: May 4, 2015
Sure looks that way at first glance. Here is what is going on. As you probably remember, the status of online gambling in the United States is literally all over the map. Legal in some states, illegal in others while the status of online gambling at the federal level seems to keep going back and forth.
Also remember that one holdup for further expansion of online casinos around the United States has been the reluctance of banks to process transactions related to online casinos. If you think back, that was one of the holdups back when the state of New Jersey took the plunge and authorized online gambling.
Just to review how this sort of thing works in the real world, understand that the major credit card companies such as MasterCard and Visa facilitate payments by credit card. At the same time, keep in mind that these credit cards are actually issued by state and national banks. In other words, it is completely up to the bank whether or not they will allow online casino transactions to be processed.
After taking a close look at how many credit card transactions in New Jersey were actually being declined because of association with online casino transactions, New Jersey officials realized they need to act and to act quickly. Investigating the matter in more detail, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) in conjunction with the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) realized the magnitude of the problem.
In short, the problem was based on an old credit card code used by credit card companies to classify online gambling activities. Looking in the matter even deeper, the New Jersey DGE found the problem to be the 4 digit code 7995. This code, also referred to as the Merchant Category Code automatically triggered denial of payments. The problem is that if the 4 digit code is used in a locale such as New Jersey where online casino action is actually legal, supposedly legal online gambling transactions are still denied.
To address this issue, the New Jersey DGE and the OCC worked together to create a new 4 digit code. This code (not publicly revealed as of this writing) will allow legal online casino transactions to be processed. Once this code is made active, which is scheduled to take place before the start of summer, online gambling may really take off. After all, Americans reach into their pocket everyday and pay with credit and debit cards. It just took a little while for the banks to catch up.