July 14, 2010 (CAP News Wire) – Continuing the minor but frustrating series of inconveniences the online gambling industry is facing because of the implementation of the UIGEA (the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, the United States’ anti-online gambling law), more reports are surfacing of extra transaction fees being charged by places trying to claim winnings or make deposits.
Most of these complaints have been focused around the online sportsbook world. “We have heard from players who are outraged by the fees … for payouts,” reports the Offshore Gambling Association (OSGA).
“Books have increased fees over the last four years, since the passage of the UIGEA in 2006 that basically makes it illegal for a bank to move money for the purposes of online gambling. However, most books are simply passing along their fees to the customer. The idea that sportsbooks are making money with these fees is generally unfounded.”
The report went on to describe financial nightmares from the online betting world getting scammed by processing companies … which remains, of course, unregulated thanks to the UIGEA. So the UIGEA is in effect making the business a lot riskier by refusing to regulate financial processing for the online gambling world and instead leaving it up to some reportedly less-than-reputable parties to fill those services.
“In researching this story the one underlying thing that I heard over and over again was that the sportsbook does want to keep their prices down as low as possible. It’s just in today climate, these processing companies know they have the sportsbooks (and ultimatley you) over a barrel. They charge high fees to the books, because they can,” the report adds.
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