{"id":10831,"date":"2020-10-12T22:00:49","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T22:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=10831"},"modified":"2026-04-24T01:03:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T04:03:29","slug":"bank-australia-blocks-gambling-transactions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/bank-australia-blocks-gambling-transactions","title":{"rendered":"Bank Australia blocks gambling transactions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As of December 1, customers will be banned from using their credit cards for gambling or lottery activities.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Australia.-&nbsp;Bank Australia has announced it will block all gambling-related transactions made with credit cards issued by the bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Customers have been advised of the measure, which has also been announced on the bank&#8217;s website. Clients will be able to continue gambling with the bank\u2019s Visa debit cards.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bank said in the communication: \u201cFrom 1 December 2020, you&#8217;ll no longer be able to use your credit card to make transactions related to gambling or lotteries. We will be doing this by blocking transactions from merchants that are classified under the gambling merchant category code.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The change is in line with the company\u2019s <strong><em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/banks-australia-credit-gambling\" target=\"_blank\">responsible banking policies<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, which also include not lending money to casino operators or businesses connected to the gambling industry and or sports betting.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It said: &#8220;Around the world, changes have been made to limit the use of credit cards for gambling. We believe these measures make sense and help address some of the harms associated with gambling transactions on credit cards and help prevent problematic credit card debt.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\u00a0Australian Banking Association had recently renewed the debate on whether banks are acting responsibly by letting customers get into debt problems due to gambling. Bank Austria suggests other financial entities in the country will follow its lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As of December 1, customers will be banned from using their credit cards for gambling or lottery activities.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10833,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Bank Australia has announced a prohibition on credit card use for gambling and lottery transactions, effective December 1, 2020, citing responsible banking policies and a commitment to mitigating gambling-related harm. This move aligns with broader industry discussions initiated by the Australian Banking Association regarding responsible lending practices in the context of gambling debt. The bank anticipates other financial institutions in Australia may follow suit.","focusai_entities":"Bank Australia, Australian Banking Association","focusai_location":"Australia","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.95), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.95), affiliate_publisher (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.95), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.75), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on GGR?","query":"What is the projected impact on Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) for Australian licensed operators following the implementation of this credit card ban across the banking sector?"},{"label":"Regulatory Precedent?","query":"Will this unilateral action by Bank Australia accelerate a broader regulatory mandate for credit card gambling prohibitions across other jurisdictions or financial institutions?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,156],"tags":[289],"class_list":["post-10831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-regulation-news","tag-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10831"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19727,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10831\/revisions\/19727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}