Who benefits from the ban on credit cards in casinos
On paper, everything looked nice: ban credit cards for the game in order to protect players from debts and cut operators' income. But life quickly showed the opposite - casinos turned out to be in the black, and the players themselves got new problems.
Players still borrow
In the spring of 2020, credit cards were cut off from casinos in England. Those who spun slots with free money simply switched to debit cards and didn't even notice the changes. But addicts continued to borrow, only not from banks, but from microfinance offices.
The UKGC later admitted that 75% of problem gamblers almost immediately rushed to MFIs. In the year after the ban, the share of deposits on borrowed money increased from 6% to 8%. A great illustration: instead of "responsible gambling", we got gambling addiction at interest and with collection calls.
Casinos have become even easier to operate
In the end, this ban turned out to be beneficial for operators.Firstly, the level of chargebacks fell. With credit cards, in about a quarter of cases, players rolled back their deposits through the bank. With MFIs, such a feint is impossible - you borrowed, please return it.
Secondly, the credit cards themselves did not dock well with gambling. Expert Andrew Tottenham (yes, the last name sounds like a football club) explained: cards were created for one-way transactions - from the buyer to the store. And casinos need two-way flows: deposits and withdrawals. When a player tried to withdraw winnings to a credit card, the system often perceived this as a return of the purchase, hence the constant lags and delays.
What we have in the end
The ban on credit cards did not reduce the share of deposits on credit, but only shifted them towards microloans, where no one checks the solvency of the client. Banks could at least see the overload on loans and fix risks, and MFIs do not care about such things.
For operators, everything has been simplified: fewer chargebacks, fewer problems with withdrawals. So if such a ban is introduced somewhere tomorrow, casino owners will be upset only formally.
