News

Tuesday, 06 April 2010 07:22

Setting up blocks on online gambling payments is causing problems for more than just the online casinos, as one Florida based blues fan club site has found out.

The popular online payment processor Paypal has been working diligently to work with US laws to block payments related to gambling related websites that target US citizens. Unfortunately, that diligence has extended to innocent websites, such as that run by the South Florida Blues Society. They have been forced to send out an email to all their members informing them that online transactions have been blocked inadvertently due to their having been listed as an online gambling site by Paypal. While clearly this is not the case, it is just one of many that have come to light as payment processors try to comply with the stipulations set out in the UIGEA. This is causing real problems for legitimate websites and actually doing them more harm than the casino sites it is intended to be affecting.

The confusion in the case of the South Florida Blues Society website likely comes from its attempts to legally raise money through the sale of raffle tickets via the website. This is something they have been doing for around ten years, offering winners the chance to enjoy the popular "Blues Cruise" that sails around the Caribbean. Unfortunately, all sales made through the website that include music, tee shirts and other assorted blues related merchandise are being denied by Paypal. Even membership payments to the society have been blocked, seriously impacting their business. This is all because they have been erroneously labelled as an online gambling organisation.

Predictions from analysts and financial experts are that we will see far more cases of over-blocking occurring as financial institutions become responsible for enforcing the UIGEA. This doesn't bode well for the society, as payments made by credit card may suffer a similar fate as both Visa and Mastercard are forced to screen websites for any connection with online gambling.

Some state lotteries websites and those offering horse racing betting appear to have fallen into the illegal gaming site category, despite their exemption by the law set out in special wording. Websites with completely legitimate connections to any form of gambling are highly likely to find themselves falling under the wheels of the financial machine meant to assist their business as payment processors block anything they don't like the look of or are not sure about as they try to cover themselves from all angles with respect to this vague and ambiguous law.