effect of money transfer restrictions on books

theswami · May 10, 2003

for those in the know (books, insiders, industry observers, etc.)......

what effect did restrictions of money transfer options from americans have on the volume of transactions at books (or online casinos)?

when visa/mc and paypal restricted the business they did with gambling related companies i would assume that volume growth would have slowed from new sources/customers. i'm assuming that the buiness was growing at a pretty high rate before the money transfer issues and existing customers would have figured out a way around the system.

frankly, if i was new to online gambling i'm not sure i would ever get into the game. let's see...to gamble i would have to go to western union (and send less than 1k if i didnt want to give out personal information), go to a money transfer service such as neteller, securebuxx, or prepaid atm, or a site's proprietary system to get money into the site. that seems pretty unappealing. a few years ago when i discovered online wagering, i used western union (decent), then my cc (awesome), then firepay (shady), then paypal (awesome). now i use neteller but the other electronic transfer options SUCK either for cust svc, security (associated with scandal or shady investors/operators), or lack of wide acceptance.

the gov't will continue to follow the money to attack online gambling.

Buzzsaw · May 10, 2003

I have not thought about it much but the only thing I see it ending is bank wires.

Will Neteller be affected? I think it will be timed at the start of football and will dampen the sign-up season. But nothing stops real players from playing.

DellDude · May 10, 2003

It won't affect me. The day after whatever law passes, I'll be making another suicide EFT to BoDog.

Calm down guys, the government can't stop people from spending their own money or in my case, my bank's money.

Banned4Life · May 10, 2003

Dell Dude... the whole IDEA behind the law is to make it illegal for your bank to transfer "your" money to a gambling site.

DellDude · May 10, 2003

Then I have nothing to worry about. What law could they pass would stop my bank from transfering my money (or my overdraft funny money

) from my checking to any place I want?

An EFT is basically a check. Bank One is not going to refuse to honor it just because of who it is sent to. Just think about this. It's so absurd it's laughable. This would be a nightmare for the banks. So who's going to refuse payment? Nobody.

As far as credit cards and Western Union, I don't know. They may be able to block those. Well they already have in large part with credit cards. And it has yet to be seen what will happen with NETeller and PPATM.

The bottom line is the books could just go to either ACH's or direct EFT's. Both would work just fine to and fro. I'm surprised more books don't have these. Online casinos do, but not the books.

The only thing negative about them is the 7-10 business day hold on payouts. That has cost me over $5000.

For VIP squares like me, they should wave the waiting period and give me my money as soon as I win.

Banned4Life · May 10, 2003

READ THE BILL.

That's all I have to say in this thread.

jjgold · May 10, 2003

Could cripple most books if USA really pushes it.

theswami · May 10, 2003

banned..frankly, the questions in my post will not be answered by reading the bill. i ask about the effect the previous actions taken by visa/mc, western union, paypal, etc. have ALREADY had on the books. if there is information that in the bill that addresses these issues, i stand corrected. otherwise, leave the "that's all i have to say" stuff in another poster's thread. thanks.