From the 14th of April, UK gambling sites will no longer be able to accept credit card payments. The United Kingdom Gambling Commission first announced this legislation back in January 2020. According to its own data and statistics; approximately 22% out of the 800,000 gamblers who regularly use their credit card to gamble are classified as problem gamblers.
Clearly, the intention of the Gambling Commission is positive; however, an executive from a payment provider has called the ban ‘overrated’. Kamran Hedjri, who is a board member of PXP Financial, claims that the ban will have a limited impact as the majority of players already use different payment options to gamble these days.
Different Generations Surveyed
Mr Hedjri based this assumption on research his company conducted at ICE London. It looked into the payment habits across generations, with a focus on Generation Z (people born from 1997), Millennials (people born between 1981 and 1995), and Generation X (those born between 1965 and 1980).
The results highlighted that 59% of Generation X gamblers use their credit card, whereas Millennials preferred payment option was a debit card (49%). In total, across all three generations that were surveyed, 45% said that debit cards were their primary payment method. This figure rose to 53% when the various mobile wallets that are now available were included in the results.
Furthermore, the results of PXP’s survey showed that Millennials are the big spenders within the online gambling industry. Generation X doesn’t have a huge impact when looking at the overall revenues across all forms of gambling online.
Will the Industry be Affected?
Two thirds (67%) of Generation X believe that the online gambling industry will be negatively impacted by this ban. That figure drops to 55% when you include the other generations surveyed. Regardless of these numbers, Mr Hedjri stands by what he said. Credit cards are no longer the dominant force they once were.
Gamblers have already started using alternative methods in greater numbers. For the online sports bettors, casino, poker or bingo players that do still use a credit card, they will merely seek out other methods to continue their gambling activities.
It should be stated that Mr Hedjri is in full support of the credit card ban. He said he thought it was a “good move for the industry” and that he and his colleagues at PXP Financial supported the ban. “Nobody should bet on credit,” he added. That’s a sentiment shared across the online gambling industry.
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