Online casinos targeting Canada consumers will no longer be able to offer Visa or MasterCard services, as a number of punitive laws have been pronounced targeting the gambling industry and payment providers transferring money to and from online casinos.
Canada regulations ban Visa and MasterCard for online casino payments
Online casinos frequented by Canada audiences are losing their ability to access Visa or MasterCard services as the government ramps up pressure on unauthorized gambling transactions. Visa last week instructed its partner banks not to process deposits or withdrawals from online casinos using its credit cards. A Visa spokesman said its retail partner banks were recently contacted “to ensure that only legal, properly licensed British Columbia Online Casinos are processed.”
Some major real-money casino operators have already updated the payment options advertised on their platforms to remove the reference to Visa, but there is some variation among operators.
Still, the situation is not entirely uniform. NDR noted that while local betting operator Tipico removed all mentions of Visa from its platform, GVC Holdings’ Bwin brand told Canada customers that they could still use Visa, but only for sports betting.
Representatives from both sides told NDR that they consider the Canada State Treaty on Gambling, which allegedly criminalizes online casino activities, to be incompatible with Canada.
Canada`s gambling environment
Canada’s efforts to stop payments to and from internationally licensed gambling sites began last June with payment processor PayPal cutting off payments with its Canada customers a few months later. In January of this year, Lower Saxony’s Ministry of the Interior reminded Canada banking industry associations of their online gambling obligations and to strive to support only legal online casinos in order to also counter money laundering.
In April, the same ministry announced that it had “once again prohibited an internationally active payment service provider from participating in payment transactions related to illegal gambling in Canada.” The provider in question remained unmentioned, but the ministry mentioned that further prohibition orders would be issued to other processors.
The ministry told NDR this week that it was in talks with 19 unidentified payment processors, nine of which had already stopped processing payments for English-speaking online casinos.
Strong limitations
Canada has been working toward building a licensed online casino sector in recent years. Currently, efforts are being made to open up the sector, which comes with significant restrictions, such as a maximum bet of €1 on slot games and a deposit limit of €1,000. The Canadian Commission has criticized such measures.
The aim of limits in the area of online casinos and online sports betting are to increase player protection on the one hand and to exclude the black market on the other. In the UK alone, it was shown in February 2020 that the limitation of the stake in online gambling to 2 British pounds led to falling prices for listed gambling companies. This phenomenon could be observed once before in November 2019, when the UK APPG published a letter to limit betting stakes to 2 British pounds. This will then also be expected in online real money casinos in Canada.
It is planned to establish a licensed online gambling sector by the beginning of July 2021. The Fourth Edition of the State Treaty on Gambling requires the approval of 13 of the 16 federal states in Canada to come into force. In Hesse, for example, there are already numerous applications for licenses for 2023, which is not surprising since Hesse, like Schleswig-Holstein, is considered a pioneer when it comes to legalizing sports betting and online casinos. Moreover, they have always pushed for a national self-exclusion system.
Available payment options for real money casinos
As of now, Canada financial institutions must be very careful about the options supported in online real money casinos to support transactions in foreign online casinos in Canada. It is up to each individual operator to decide what measures are appropriate to effectively comply with the ban.
However, there are many other payment methods, apart from Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, that you can use to deposit and request withdrawals at the online casino.
Particularly popular options are
- Trustly,
- Giropay,
- PaysafeCard,
- Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies,
- eWallets like Skrill and Neteller,
- Much Better or
- Klarna/ SOFORT.
Also, there are more and more Play N’ Go casinos that offer corresponding options and do not require account creation.
Giropay, for example, is a payment system developed exclusively for players residing in Canada. It is supported by a large number of Canada banks, and anyone who has online banking can use the services of giropay. Whenever you want to make a deposit to your favorite online casino, you need to select giropay from the list of available payment options and then you will be redirected to your online banking page, where you will have to follow the instructions and confirm the transaction. You don’t need to create an account to use giropay. It is the perfect solution for those who do not have a debit/credit card or can no longer use them at online casinos.
Even if you can no longer use your credit cards or PayPal in real money casinos online as a Canada customer, you will still have options to play with real money that you can deposit or withdraw via alternative methods. So there is no need to worry for casino fans in Canada!
