Will anyone care to share how their bank treats customers using debit cards online for internet poker/gambling?
We are going to go down the path of closing customer account but would like to hear how others are dealing with this? I know there is an internet gambling bill passed in 2006... Are there any other laws?

We send out a warning letter informing that they are engaging in an illegal practice. If they continue to use their debit card in this manner, we close the account.

The law was signed in 2006, but no one could ever come up with a clear definition of what illegal internet gambling was as banks would be inundated with policing this, so hopefully the proposed new bill will help to clarify specific rules around what we will be required to do.

We currently have it listed in our Visa Check Card Agreement listed as “No Illegal Purpose” to include agree not to use your card to gamble on the Internet or for any transaction that violates applicable law. We do not look to specifically target the gambling activity due to the masking of MCCs by foreign gaming merchants, but if we come across it in our Fraud Detection process, we will advise the customer that they will need to refer to the agreement, cannot use for Internet Gaming and continued violation will cause their plastic to be revoked.

PROPOSED LAW WOULD HELP DEFINE UNLAWFUL ONLINE GAMBLING: Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., this week introduced a new version of the Payments System Protection Act, which would direct the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to create a formal process to determine what types of online gambling they consider unlawful. The bill is a new version of legislation Frank introduced in April, which he hoped would stop the federal government from enforcing the Unlawful Illegal Gambling Enforcement Act, which passed in 2006. The law requires banks and payment companies to take burdensome steps to block illegal Internet gambling activities. The first version died in the House Committee on Financial Services. In the new version, sponsors propose bank regulators, in consultation with the U.S. Attorney General, would establish criteria for illegal Internet gambling versus other types of legal wagering and games of skill. Several large banks and financial-services organizations testified at a Congressional hearing in April that complying with the gambling enforcement law as it presently is structured would prove costly for them and would not necessarily prevent the most harmful types of illegal online gambling. The House Financial Services Committee has scheduled the bill for discussion next week.

Thank you so much for the law update!