Mastercard and Visa have underline “zero tolerance” to black market activity on network
It follows a Guardian report that alleged that Mastercard and Visa are falling short in terms of halting transactions to the illegal gambling market.
The report stated that Mastercard found itself alongside cryptocurrency being offered as a payment option for a myriad of unlicensed operators.
Nonetheless, Mastercard rallied back against the accusations, telling Payment Expert: “We have zero tolerance for illegal activity on our network. When specific instances of potentially unlawful or illegal activity are identified, we investigate the allegations so that we can work with partners to take the appropriate action. We will now do so with the sites which were noted.”
The report was less scathing about Visa, revealing that it appeared on fewer sites, however, did still have a presence on the black market.
Visa, however, lauded the impact of its Integrity Risk Programme, which is a set of guidelines and requirements for its partnered payment acquirers to connect to its network.
The card issuing giant stated: “Visa is committed to maintaining the integrity of our payment system. We do not tolerate the use of our network and products for illegal activity, and we are vigilant in our efforts to deter illegal activity on our network.
“The Visa Integrity Risk Programme establishes a set of ecosystem controls, requirements and capabilities that seek to deter, detect and remediate noncompliant transactions across our network.
“This framework helps network participants that support merchants in legal businesses that are at higher risk for illicit activity maintain proper controls and oversight processes to identify and deter unlawful transactions from entering the Visa payment system.”
UKGC’s black market battle
Furthermore, a UKGC spokesperson also underpinned the efforts of the body when it comes to tackling the black market.
The UKGC stated: “We are aware of these websites and continue to take action to disrupt the unlicensed market, including working with online platforms and with payment providers.
“Since the start of April, our team has issued over 770 cease and desist, and disruption notices – this includes 262 cease-and-desists issued to operators and 205 to advertisers.
“Over that same period, the Commission has referred over 102,000 URLs to Google with 64,000 of these removed by the search engine, and over 260 websites taken down. This is more than a tenfold increase in URL takedowns in comparison to the whole of 2023 to 2024.”
The UKGC also recently urged UK-licensed operators to increase vigilance of supplier partners engaging with black market casinos.
The UKGC has explained that these illegal websites offering online casino games are unregulated and cannot provide the same safeguards that are required from licensed operators, including abiding by self-exclusion schemes such as GAMSTOP, placing vulnerable gamblers at-risk.
The Commission stated: “The websites may have inadequate social responsibility and AML controls in place and leave customers open to risks of fraud, data privacy issues and unfair practices. It is therefore imperative that the Commission, in collaboration with the gambling industry and key partners, take all possible steps to mitigate risk to GB consumers.”
However, operators providing online casino platforms in the UK can help the regulator to tackle these illegal websites by reviewing their own operations.
The Commission has found that, in some instances, third party resellers are distributing games supplied by operators to the illegal market, often in breach of their contractual obligations.
The UGKC suggested that Commission licensees may have been negligent in allowing them to do so and, in the process, placed their own licence at risk.
The regulator has advised operators to ‘actively monitor’ their business relationships to ensure any partners are not participating in offering illegal gambling facilities to the UK market, and where identified, terminating relationships where non-compliance has occurred.
“It is critical that licensees also actively engage with the Commission where such activity is identified, setting out the preventative measures adopted to ensure such activity ceases immediately,” the group continued.
“Actively notifying the Commission and setting out a clear plan to mitigate the issue at pace is a minimum requirement.”
