It has been quite the talking point for politicians in recent months – how to further regulate the UK’s gambling sector. It was only at the beginning of November that various Members of Parliament called for an overhaul of the country’s online casinos and gambling sector, and their demands even extended to the banning of being able to deposit at such platforms with credit and debit cards.
That seems to be the thoughts of many of the UK’s adult population as well, if the results of a recent poll are to be believed. Golden Casino News recently conducted the poll in question, asking if people would be in favour of banning online gambling with credit cards. Once the results came back, it was revealed that a total of 76.7% had voted that they would be in favour of such taking place. That’s quite the revelation, although when you consider that up to 20% of deposits via credit card at online casinos are done with money that customers don’t possess, it speaks volumes.
Altogether, that poll brings together the opinion of around 2,000 UK adults, and it took place between November 18 and 20 of this year.
Figures suggest that around £8.6 billion is deposited through credit cards to online casinos and other gambling sites. One political party – the Liberal Democrats – has made the announcement that they plan to ban the use of credit cards for online gambling, should they receive a majority vote in the elections to be held on December 12.
The 76.7% is Made Up of a Combined Figure
Respondents in favour of the ban from the poll are made up of a 55.65% portion who strongly agree with it and 21.05% who answered that they somewhat agree with it. A total of 15.85% answered that they had no particular opinion on the matter, perhaps being a group of players who utilise other forms of payment for depositing and withdrawing at their favourite casinos. The remainder, made up of 7.45% of respondents, had disagreements of one form of another with banning credit cards for gambling purposes.
According to the poll results, there is also a small division between the gender of those answering, with females being more vocal about banning credit cards. A total of 51.50% of female respondents are in favour of banning card payments, while 48.50% of those in favour of it are male.
The largest amount of support for banning credit card transactions at online casinos and gambling sites came from the North East region, with 64.56% of respondents being in favour of it. Meanwhile, the largest opposition to this potential ban came from the West Midlands, with 5.52% of those answering the poll this way being located there.
Despite this, even if credit and debit cards are banned for gambling purposes, most online platforms support a variety of other payment methods to use. These include e-wallets like Skrill and PayPal, prepaid cards like Paysafecard and even cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
