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German Gambling Credit Card Ban

If you're an online gambling in the UK, then this latest law being passed on Germany gambling will sound very familiar to you. In the UK on the 4th April, all gambling that uses a credit card to send a deposit was banned. Yes, you can still use your debit card. But as far as MasterCard and Visa are concerned, it's the end of the road for them throughout the UK gambling industry.

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Introduction: German Gambling Credit Card Ban

Now the same is happening in Germany. German facing online casinos an no longer take players via Visa or MasterCard. Or any other credit card for that matter. From last Wednesday, Visa has instructed its banking partners to no longer accept or process online casino deposits or withdrawals using its credit card. As reported by the news media outlet, NDR, Visa has said that all it’s retail banking partners were contacted. This is “to ensure that only legal, properly licensed transactions are processed.”

German Gambling: No One is Happy

As within the UK, before the ax came crashing down, online forums in Germany are full of complaints. Players are saying that online casinos were gradually accepting credit cards less and less. The number of casinos that would accept their MasterCard or Visa was slowly diminishing. From the casino’s side, they have the little option as the choice. They could suspend these credit card payments for their German gambling customers. Or they could end up losing all Visa and MasterCard access to all their markets.

Not All Casinos Complying

Having said that, the situation is still in a state of flux. Some online casinos have fully complied whilst others are a little slower in the take-up. NDR found that VGC Holding’s Bwin was still telling German customers that they could continue using their credit cards for sports betting. This contrast sharply with Tipico, who has removed all mention of Visa and MasterCard from the site altogether. Funnily enough, NDR found that its attempts to send a deposit to both companies was successful! Company reps for both online casino sites said that they view this German assault on online gambling as incompatible with European law. They claim that the government made a mistake in its quest to criminalize online casino activity.

German Gambling: Lower Casino Revenues

But the writing has been on the wall for all to see for almost a year. Last June, the government banned payments to online casinos being made with PayPal. This put quite a dent into the various casino companies’ revenues. Then in January, the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior made a subtle reminder to the German banking industry. Essentially it needs to get a move on and enforce it’s German gambling regulations more thoroughly.

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German Ministry Not Playing Around

Then in this past April, the same Ministry announced that it had, “once again prohibited an internationally active payment service provider from participating in payment transactions”. This was in connection with illegal gaming in Germany. Though the name of the provider was left off the press release, the Ministry did follow up by saying that further “prohibition orders” were being sent out to all parts of the country. NDR reported that the Ministry was in talks with 19 payment processors. Already 9 of these had already ceased to make and receive payments from German facing online casinos.

Regulate the Marketplace

Unlike some other jurisdictions, like the UK and Malta, Germany lacks any form of online casino licensing requirements. But that will all be changing very soon for German gambling. Though it’s plans were to be soon up for Parliamentary debate, a spanner was thrown in the works. An Austrian bookmaker complained that the whole licensing process was not transparent enough. So this latter case will need resolving before the former can proceed. German officials remain optimistic that the country can have a (heavily) regulated marketplace by 1 June 2021.

Presently Google Searches for gambling-related terms in Germany are at an all-time high. The terms “online casino” shot up by 87% between March and mid-April. This is not really surprising, as pretty much all sports are dead in the water at the moment.