The Internet gambling payment processing problems continue one year after major money transfer firms like Neteller and MyCitadel eCommerce abandoned the U.S. market. And nowhere could this be felt more than during last week's Super Bowl Sunday.
"We thought we had a processor put in place that could handle all our new traffic (customer deposits) for Super Bowl Sunday," said one sportsbook operator we visited while in Costa Rica this past week. "It (the processor) crashed after just three hours."
The reason is volume and very few of today's online payment processors have the ability to handle the amount of money coming in, especially during what is arguably the busiest betting day of the year - Super Bowl Sunday. Nearly $100 million was wagered on this year's Super Bowl in Vegas alone.
And it's not just volume. Antsy operators talk of how they spend much of their days - not fielding calls from customers - but chasing down payment processors.
Following passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in the United States, which essentially holds banking institutions responsible for policing online gambling activity, U.S. law enforcement waged a campaign against Web payment processors, specifically publicly traded Neteller. Since then, online gambling establishments located in the Caribbean and Central America have had to partner up with new and sometimes risky processors based in locations throughout the Middle East, Asia and Russia.
The end result has been a backlog of payouts for new customers and the inability to process same day payouts.
"We may have to revert back to the days of issuing payouts only two assigned days during the week," said the operator visited by Gambling911.com.
Typically, once a customer has been playing with the wagering establishment over a period of time, sportsbooks and online casinos can then place that individual into one of its more trusted processing methods. While convenient, these processors are only designed to handle a specified amount of volume. There are also concerns over fraud and banks refusing to honor checks.
"It's a complete nightmare!" the operator proclaimed.
COURESTY OF: Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher You can e-mail Chris at CCostigan@CostiganMedia.com. www.gambling911.com is the nations leading gaming news site.
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