New Visa Policy In 2021 Could Affect Future Sportsbook Transactions

Visa’s new policy will see many sports bettors getting transactions to their digital wallets declined in 2021.
In an effort to better understand where the money is being spent by their customers, Visa will be dubbing all deposits to digital wallets as a gambling transaction.
Sportsbooks and other gambling outlets project a decline in activity when a user’s chosen method of payment is declined due to this new rule.

SAN FRANCISCO – Visa will be implementing a new policy in 2021 that could play a major role in the future of sports betting payment methods available. Beginning the first of the year, all deposits made to any type of digital wallet or general purpose reloadable (GPR) card using Visa will be classified as code 7801 which is also known as a gambling payment.

This will prove to be somewhat of a nuisance for users of Visa debit cards connected to financial institutions like Bank of America who purposely block all 7801 transactions, an action brought to users by remnants of the Wire Act.

What’s The Expectation By Visa With This New Policy?

Visa wants to be as transparent as possible and the company knows all too well that GPRs and digital wallets are often used when gambling on the internet or with mobile sports betting platforms. Often people will opt to use their debit card as-is for places like Amazon and the like. However, the bulk of use when it centers around companies like Skrill receiving money is for gambling, which is why all deposits as a whole will be flagged as such.

Sportsbooks and gambling outlets could take as much as a 10% loss on their GGR research analysts’ project. But Visa is not doing this to hurt the gaming industry. They’re trying to get a handle on what money is actually being used for handle and what isn’t among their customers.

They believe this to only cause a very short-term bump in the road for users whose transactions may be declined.

Gamblers that use digital wallets and fund them with their Visa cards will have other options for payment with gaming platforms in the meantime like that of Visa Debit and Play+ being offered as new methods of deposit. There is also PayPal to fall back on which many gambling applications accept.

Visa has been a proponent in the legal sports betting in the United States and hopes that this new rule will help banks to better understand the activities of their customers and ultimately get more banks to accept the sports betting market.

Could This Be A Good Thing?

While a decline in sports wagering is expected due to the number of people that prefer using digital wallets for gambling purposes, some believe that this could be a gamechanger for sportsbooks in the long run. With the incoming information that will be processed under the new rule, it could lead many more banks, including Bank of America to begin accepting sportsbook transactions rather than flagging them and declining them under code 7801.

Only time will tell how this new move by Visa will affect the financial profits of sports betting operators in 2021, either for better or worse.

Advertising Disclosure

In order to provide you with the best independent sports betting news and content LegalSportsBetting.com may receive a commission from partners when you make a purchase through a link on our site.

Christina Monroe

Christina has been writing for as long as she can remember and does dedicated research on the newly regulated sports betting market. She comes from a family of sports lovers that engage in friendly bets from time to time. During the winter months, you can find Christina baking cookies and beating the entire staff at Mario Kart…the N64 version of course.