Life got a bit harder for the American online players last week when it became clear that two of the largest credit card companies, Visa and Mastercard had started blocking transactions to online gambling sites. The reason behind the decision is the upcoming implementation of UIGEA on June 1.


The action applies to US-registered cards issued by Mastercard or Visa. Test deposits to a PokerStars account were met with an email stating, “Your credit card transaction has been declined. If your credit card information was entered correctly and you have sufficient funds, your transaction was probably declined due to Internet gaming restrictions set by your credit card issuer.”

UIGEA was originally supposed to be implemented last December but the US treasury moved the deadline by 6 months to June 1 to give the various companies more time to update their systems.

Source: EGR Magazine.