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Majority Of Credit Card Transactions On New Jersey Web Gambling Sites Do Not Go Through: Report

Payment Processing The Reason Why Revenues Have Been Lackluster

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Just how severe are payment processing challenges for gambling websites in New Jersey?

A firm involved with the process of facilitating transactions told the Associated Press that credit cards used by customers are being accepted less than half of the time. CAMS LLC said that the acceptance rate is between 42 and 46 percent—a terrible rate for the industry.

According to the report, CAMS routes payments from the online gambling operators—such as Borgata and Caesars—in the Garden State to the financial institutions.

The credit card issue is the chief reason why the market size has been below expectation so far, not only in New Jersey, but in Nevada as well. Card Player recently spoke with the CEO of Ultimate Gaming, a company which has online gaming sites in both the Garden State and the Silver State, about this problem. He was optimistic it would improve over time.

New Jersey lawmakers are in fact looking at fixing the problem. One solution is to license the financial institutions in basically the same way that casinos are licensed.

Nevada just had its one-year anniversary of online poker. New Jersey online gaming, which includes more than just poker, debuted in November.

The Associated Press reported that a New Jersey official with the Division of Gaming Enforcement said that MasterCard has approved 73 percent of attempted transactions in New Jersey, while Visa has approved 44 percent.

American Express and Discover do not approve any such charges, according to the official.

In March, Atlantic City casinos won $11.9 million from online gambling, which was up 15.2 percent over February. Online gaming revenues for the year have topped $30 million.

In Nevada, web poker accounted for under $1 million in revenue for three firms in March.

Delaware had online gaming revenues of $206,833 in March.