Discover how the Norwegian government has attempted to limit players gambling options. The monopoly has added banking restrictions to its barriers.
How Norway is Cracking Down on Offshore Casinos
Norway has a monopoly on its online casinos. It offers players the ability to play at just a single online casino in a legal fashion. While some players have been making the move to playing at offshore casinos, in order to widen their horizons, the Norwegian government has taken the decision to limit what players are able to do through other means.
Bank Restrictions
The most obvious issue that the Norwegian government has had to deal with, is that players have found it easy to access other sites to play at. There are a large number of them out there, but you can discover the safest online casinos by researching them at www.norgescasino.com. This obviously makes it difficult for the government to crack down on each individual site, and ban them.
What the government has decided to do instead, is target the banks. It’s part of the almost draconian gambling laws within Norway at the moment. As players are only supposed to access the official Norway state sponsored online casino, by hitting banks instead, it has been able to ban other casino operators by proxy.
The way the government has done this, is by prohibiting banks from transferring money to and from online casinos. It means that while players are able to sign up to other online casinos, they aren’t able to make deposits at the sites, and if they somehow manage to grab a win at the site, they won’t be able to withdraw their winnings.
Players who attempt this, have seen their bank accounts shut down, which is obviously an extra reason for them to refrain from playing at unofficial, offshore sites. As the banks have to abide by the rules of the country much more strictly, it means that refusing to carry out this practice is extremely unlikely from the banks.
Getting Around the Problem
Finding a way around this issue would normally be a relatively simple task for online players. After all, there have been much more invasive practices put in place in the past. However, Norway is known for being inventive, and so it’s not quite as easy as people may think.
The first step that players have tried, is to make deposits using e-wallets. However, the issue here, is that many e-wallets are linked to bank accounts. It means that the moment they are used to make a deposit to an online casino, it throws up a red flag for the bank. From there, it’s a relatively simple process to have the deposit blocked and the account locked.
So, how are players managing to get around this issue? Well, the first way, is by using prepaid vouchers to make deposits. This allows players to make a deposit to the site, as once the voucher has been paid for, it doesn’t register with the account what it is being used for. In fact, you can purchase the vouchers with cash, which will have no link back to your bank account at all.
However, this does mean that withdrawals still can’t be carried out. This raises another issue, because if players manage to grab a large win, then they won’t be able to get it transferred to their bank account. Some players are using offshore bank accounts to do this, but obviously this presents more legal issues.
The main way that players are getting around the problem, is by playing at crypto casinos. By playing with cryptocurrency, players are able to make deposits and withdrawals, and there are no bank issues. While there are a smaller number of crypto casinos on the market when compared to other online casinos, it is one of the best solutions.
Potential Long-Term Solutions
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as though the government in Norway will be changing its stance towards online casinos any time soon. It is still of the belief that a single, state sanctioned online casino is the best way to stop problem gambling. Despite other research showing evidence to the contrary, the stance of the government remains the same.
It means that Norwegian players have to continuously find loopholes to get around the system that’s in place. With cryptocurrency being the most successful solution at the moment, it does limit the overall choices that are available to players slightly.
The only other option that is available, is to try and lobby the politicians within the country. This is extremely difficult to carry out, and it doesn’t necessarily offer much hope to players. As such, it looks like for the short-term, players will just have to concentrate on using either the state casino or finding other payment method solutions.