Online gambling is certainly generating revenue in New Jersey, but is falling drastically short of expectations. In fact, all states who have legalized regulated online gambling are seeing far less success than expected.
One of the largest roadblocks for online gambling in New Jersey is that more than half of all MasterCard transactions — and over 25% of all Visa gambling payments — are being declined. On top of that, Amex declines all online gambling transactions, says Press of Atlantic City
What this means is that even if someone wants to gamble online, that they may be unable to deposit funds. But New Jersey has devised a plan to remove this roadblock, by creating a new Merchant Category Code. The current Merchant Category Code for any and all, including the illegal and unregulated online gambling, is 7995. Many banks automatically decline all transactions with this code, due to their concern of facing criminal liability.
The state of New Jersey has now created a new Merchant Category Code for their government licensed online casinos, in hopes to differentiate themselves from unregulated illegal online casinos. The new Merchant Category Code is 7801. If the new code is successful, it may play a vital role in more states adopting regulated online gambling and is likely to prompt other states facing the same roadblocks to create a new code too.
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