One of America's largest banks confirmed today that its customers will no longer be allowed to use their ATM and debit cards to fund online gambling transactions.
Tom Kelley, a spokesperson with Bank One, said customers were sent letters with their statements this week informing them of the new regulation. Kelley said the move was made to make rules for credit card use consistent with rules for debit and ATM cards.
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"Because we aren't able to selectively approve transactions where Internet gambling may be legal, we have made the decision to decline all payment transactions that are believed to be Internet gambling related."
- Statement from Bank One
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"All we are doing is applying the same policy to the debit cards that has been in place with the credit cards for the past two years," Kelley said. "We are just trying to be more consistent across the board with our rules and regulations. Customers view the cards as the same in regards to usage; they know the funds for one comes out of their checking account, but we want the rules to be the same."
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill earlier this month aimed at making it illegal to use credit cards and other "instruments" of banking to fund online gambling. The bill, which now awaits action in the Senate, has caught the ire of some in the racing industry who are worried that a blanket ban on credit cards for online gambling transactions could make it harder for customers to bet online through licensed U.S.-based services like Youbet.com and TVG.
Both companies operate advance deposit wagering systems in California and could be affected by the decision from Bank One and other banks that have taken similar measures.
As stated in the letter sent to account holders, Bank One said it is too difficult to differentiate between legal and illegal online gambling transactions ,so it is forced to block them all.
"Because we aren't able to selectively approve transactions where Internet gambling may be legal, we have made the decision to decline all payment transactions that are believed to be Internet gambling related," the letter read.
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"All we are doing is applying the same policy to the debit cards that has been in place with the credit cards for the past two years."
- Tom Kelley
Bank One
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Juliette Ballick, a Bank One spokeswoman, echoed that statement. "The gray area around online gambling made it to hard for Bank One to try and separate legal transactions with illegal ones," Ballick explained. For online gambling, we can't really identify where the transaction is coming from, so we took it upon ourselves to implement this policy for online gambling transactions," she said.
Visa, the world's largest credit-card payment system, allows its merchant banks to determine whether they want to block gambling transactions. Visa has a system that enables issuing banks to determine if a gambling transaction is conducted on the Internet or a licensed casino in Las Vegas or Atlantic City.
Bank One is just the latest of a growing number of banks to take steps to prohibit the use of their credit cards or debit cards for online gambling transactions. Morgan Chase, Citi Bank and others have taken similar steps.