It was kind of obvious this might happen. Since the noise started to come from the US that plenty of states, and maybe even the Federal government themselves, are likely to start offering online gambling to their residents, companies have been falling over themselves to get involved – all so that they’re ready for the crowning and coronation, whenever that might be.
MasterCard and Visa have, for a long time, been opposed to online gambling in the US. Well, basically since the UIGEA outlawed payments being taken by online gambling companies back in 2006. Earlier this month saw the disclosure that Mastercard has spent $840k lobbying the US federal government in Q3 2010, not all earmarked for internet gambling regulation, but an amount was set aside for exactly that.
The fact that they’re lobbying for it shows that like many other companies, they’ll do anything to make a quick buck but they obviously aren’t banking on many observers seeing the ridiculous amount of hypocrisy taking place. MasterCard et al currently demonize online gambling as if it were on the same level as child pornography but are now salivating at the prospect of regulation.
The new position they are taking just confirms that this has always been about money and who gets it, not about protecting consumers. The same consumers who are very likely to be a lot worse off when government sanctioned gaming gets the go ahead.
Something akin to the castigated French market is maybe what we can expect from the US government when regulation comes round, and we know full well what that merde is the word used by those in the know in France.
Don’t get us wrong, we’re not completely against regulation of online gambling. It just gets our goat when the wrong type of regulation is championed as if a save our souls type solution. The UK model has shown itself to be the best one to follow in terms of consumer protection and protection of consumer value in the product, and will continue to do so for some time yet.
We’ll leave you with this final thought:
Lobbying the US government…$840k
Erasing any evidence of you criticizing Internet gambling from the web using Secure Clean…$50
Being found out in the end by Wikileaks…PRICELESS!
