There could be a major shakeup in online betting coming. The UK Gambling Commission looks set to announce on Tuesday this week, that they are proposing a ban on credit cards being used for gambling online.
The watchdog’s goal is to prevent any exploitation of customers.
Findings of credit study to be released
The UK Gambling Commission is expected to publish the findings of its look into credit wagering. Nothing is going to happen immediately, because the Gambling Commission will put their recommendations forward to the government first.
The new rules that are being touted, could be public as early as Tuesday. A ban on credit card transactions for betting has been rumbling in the background for around two years now. It started when the Government was appealed to by charities to help fight gambling addiction.
Full ban expected to be recommended
What the regulatory body is expected to say is that a full ban on the use of credit cards for any form of online gambling needs to come into effect.
So this would mean that customers at online betting sites such as Bet365, William Hill and Paddy Power, all of which allow the use of credit card funding as to the majority of operators, will be limited to debit cards.
Will E-Wallets be included?
The slight grey area is over the usage of e-wallets. Credit cards can easily be connected to e-wallet platforms such as PayPal and Skrill. So they may well fall under a full ban too. If not, they could be ways that gamblers with problems circumnavigate the ban on credit cards being used directly on betting accounts.
That may not be the end of the regulatory changes to online betting this year. The Government is expected to pen and pass a new Gambling Act. They are keen to replace the existing one that came into law back in 2005 under Labour. That existing Gambling Act has fallen under criticism that it wasn’t strict enough in regulation to protect customers.
