Officials with Betfair have informed their Canadian and Australian customers that they can no longer use Visa cards to withdraw funds from their accounts.
The decision came after policy changes from Visa International and put an end to the withdrawal service Betfair had been offering to its customers since January.
A spokesperson with Betfair explained that Visa started offering the withdrawal option at the beginning of the year as a pilot project. He said each country's separate Visa association was allowed to determine whether they wanted to offer the service on a long-term basis. After testing out the system, Canada and Australia were among more than 20 jurisdictions that decided not to offer Visa withdrawals.
He also pointed out that the Visa decision in each jurisdiction applied to all interactive gaming operators, not just Betfair or the betting exchange industry.
"There were a lot of countries that this affected," the spokesperson said. "Australia and Canada were the only ones where we had customers in them."
Brazil, Argentina, Hong Kong and Colombia were among the other jurisdictions where the service isn't being offered, but Betfair doesn't have a presence in those areas.
In its notification, Betfair told customers that the change would take effect July 15, and all withdrawals requested via Visa card would be redirected via bank transfer.
The Visa withdrawal system remains intact for Betfair's U.K. and European costumers. The Betfair representative said users in the United Kingdom have taken full advantage of having the Visa withdrawal program at their disposal.
"Visa is regionalized, and the decision didn't affect our users in Europe, many of which use debit cards or Visa cards to fund their account," he said. "A large amount of our user base has debit cards."
Europe was one of the leading regions for testing the initial scheme, the Betfair spokesperson said.
Canada and Australia represent growing market segments for Betfair, but the representative was unable to estimate exactly how many users from the two jurisdictions were affected by the decision.
"Our Canadian users were only affected because Visa regulators in the United States decided to not offer the withdrawals, but since we don't accept any play from U.S.-based players, it only affected our Canadian customers."
As a courtesy to its customers affected by the change in policy, Betfair said it wouldn't pass on any charges related to transferring the first two withdrawal requests in a calendar month to a bank transfer. Any subsequent withdrawals in a month after the first two will incur the standard bank transfer charge, the company said, with the charges debited from the customer's Betfair account.
Officials with Visa did not reply to requests for an interview.