U.S. Internet gambling deposit options shrinking

The list of payment processors for American gamblers is shrinking rapidly in the wake of money laundering charges being filed against NETeller co-founders Stephen Lawrence and John LeFebvre.

NETeller, the world's largest online payment processor for Internet gamblers, and Citadel pulled out of the U.S. market Wednesday night.

And over the weekend, INSTADEBIT left the U.S. entirely while Click2Pay pushed the pause button on allowing new American accounts.

"Account registrations and transfers to and from merchants from your country of residence are denied due to the U.S. law," a recorded message on INSTADEBIT's customer service line informs U.S. callers. "If you have a balance in your INSTADEBIT account, you can log in to your account profile and withdraw the balance to your bank account. Please contact security at security@instadebit.com with any further questions. Thank you."

And while Click2Pay is still allowing existing customers to conduct business as usual with Internet gambling sites, as of Jan. 19, they are no longer opening new accounts for U.S. customers. Click2Pay would not comment on whether it would change its policy or if it has a timeline in which to do so.

The sudden lack of options for American gamblers is a huge sea change in just a week's time. While Poker Stars lists 17 deposit methods, only one (ePassporte) still accepts U.S. customers. Full Tilt has also pulled several deposit options, with Click2Pay, ePassporte and MoneyGram cash transfers being the only remaining options for Americans.

Absolute Poker, however, has moved past third-party payment processors and into processing credit card transactions. Transactions are not coded as Internet gambling transactions, and instead are processed by an outside company that appears as GLOBAL with a 1-800 number on credit card statements.