New Credit Card Code for NJ iGaming Sites

Many online poker players in New Jersey ran into problems when attempting to deposit using Mastercard and Visa credit cards since the state launched online gambling in November 2013.

Garden State gaming regulators pegged the success rate at 44% for Mastercard and 73% for Visa in 2013 and 2014, leaving a lot of players in the lurch. Certain banks were blocking the deposits because the Merchant Category Code (7995) used to process the transactions identified online casinos as the initiator of the deposit.

Though online gambling is legal in New Jersey, major banks apparently continued to halt the transactions as they have done since 2006 when the UIGEA was enacted. Seeing that practice as bad for business, representatives from the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement met with officials from the state's Department of Banking and the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The result was a new Merchant Category Code of 7801 that will identify transactions from New Jersey online casinos as legal, no longer mixed in with the code 7995 deposits that continue to be blocked. In turn, the success rate of New Jersey players who aim to deposit at poker and gambling sites should reach much closer to 100%.

Some players whose previous efforts to deposit were thwarted perhaps found alternate methods to fund their online gaming accounts such as wire transfers or e-wallets. Yet others may have turned their attention away from online gambling completely. New Jersey officials are hoping that the shunned depositors return, as the new credit card code was established and put into practice on Friday, April 17.

Revenue at New Jersey online gaming sites was a bit more than $122 million last year. No estimates have been released on what the total might have been had the new credit card code been in play in 2014, but it's safe to say the amount would have been considerably higher.