Home » OCW News » February 2010 » UK Online Payment Processor Enters U.S. Gambling Market

UK Online Payment Processor Enters U.S. Gambling Market

Date published: 16 February 2010

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The U.S. online gambling market bears an uncanny similarity to J.R.R. Tolkien's book The Hobbit, which contains a fierce fire-blowing dragon that sits atop and protects a pile of gold and jewels. The dragon is the U.S. Justice Department and the riches is the lucrative U.S. online gambling industry.

The trick for online gambling firms who want to tap, or should that read 're-tap', into the U.S. online gambling industry is to get past the dragon. But this is no easy feat as the only way past the beast is for the U.S. government to reverse its draconian 'anti-online gambling laws' and to legalize and open up its industry.

While it is unknown when or even if this is likely to happen, one intrepid UK online payment processing firm, UC Group Ltd, is making moves to ensure that as soon as the evil dragon has been slain, it will already have a foothold in the United States and be ready to process U.S. online gambling transactions.

On Tuesday last week, UC Group announced that it has launched a U.S. subsidiary called SecureTrading Inc, which will pounce as soon as the U.S. government reverses the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA), the legislation that was passed in October 2006 that became the dreaded dragon.

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Said SecureTrading chairman, Chris Thom, 'Momentum for regulating online gambling in the United States has been building for some time. As Congress prepares to take the final step, SecureTrading Inc's turnkey system is ready and primed to enable our customers to go live the moment online gambling is regulated.'

UC Group uses an online payment processing system that protects customers through a series of checks that verifies that they are of legal gambling age and live in areas where online gambling transactions are permitted. SecureTrading is expected to offer U.S. customers the same levels of service and protection.

SecureTrading will even offer customers a problem gambling facility, where if they suspect they have a problem, customers can choose from many 'self-exclusion options', as well as utilize real-time online help which is manned by staff who have been specially trained to help people with gambling addiction issues.