US Law. That’s what matters.
VISA is a US company. And as long as any of their merchants are using VISA as means of payments (regardless of whether its a casino or eWallet) the US government decides what’s ok or not OK.
eWallets may be a good solution in the short run, but if you have heard of Patriot Act, and some other legislation (that prohibits money to change hands) are the instruments agains eWallets and such.
eWallets may survive for now, while ACH transactions are available. But later they will have to be a lot more creative in order to accept in-payments from worldwide customers. US will prohibit banks to allow all gaming payments (includeing ACH, wire, cc, etc)… There will be little option left for casinos (and eWallets) to accept money from US players.
Ofcourse there will be plenty of eWallets based outside US that will offer legal or half-legal means of in-payments. Actually we can see that happening. I watch what’s going on in the industry and see how many eWallets popup every week. Their numbers double every two months.
Neteller, Firepay, PrepaidATM, EvoCash, LogixPay, E-Gold, moneybookers, StormPay, EcoPay, OmniPay, c2it, ecashpay, CentralCoin, VASPay there are a hundred more.
These e-wallets will sooner or later start to accept each other as means of payments too…
I beleive there will not be a distinct leader, as more or less big companies will get hit by some kind of legislation or banks sooner or later, giving way for smaller guys to take their share. (that already happened: PayPal gave place to Neteller).
BonusTracker is right, most likely Neteller’s days will be over soon. I give them no more than a year.
But there will be other rivals. There is demand for the services, and regulation is not international. So its hard to stop the small guys from operating an eWallet. Once they get too big tho, its over.
Where is the point of balance? Too early to tell. Let’s see what happens next