Best Canadian Visa Brands for Online Gaming

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The best Canadian Visa brands for online gaming have evolved over the last decade. Learn what works, what doesn’t, and why the landscape has changed so drastically.

It wasn’t all that long ago that Canadians could gamble online at any website they wanted, choosing any deposit method they desired to do it. Times have changed since then. Credit cards are still one of the top preferred ways to deposit, but they don’t always work.

The list of best Canadian Visa brands for online gaming is a lot shorter than it used to be. All over the world, it seems governments are trying to restrict what iGamers can and can’t do. That approach has been historically ineffective, though.

What has been working—what’s really happening here—is that laws are putting limitations on what financial institutions, including credit card companies, can and can’t do. Threatening legal action against major corporations has proved especially successful in the US, and unfortunately, it’s having a significant impact on Canadians.

US-based Visa Brands Rarely Work

When the US government passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in late 2006, it required financial institutions to “identify and block or otherwise prevent or prohibit the processing of” payments for online gaming purposes.

You wouldn’t expect this to have any impact on Canadians, where there are no such laws on the books – but it does.

There are quite a few US-based Visa credit card companies that service all of North America. Chase Bank is one of the biggest. If you have a Chase-branded Visa, even though you are located in Canada, there’s a very high chance that your online gaming deposits will be denied.

Chase and other US-based card companies like it are, essentially, covering their behinds. If they let an online gaming deposit slip through from a member account originating below the 49th parallel, they could be in big trouble. So, instead of going through the hassle of segregating their member accounts by jurisdiction, they have simply put a stop to all known internet gambling payments.

Why Some US-Visa Deposits Still Work

The system is heavily flawed. Many of today’s online gaming sites are well aware of the legal landscape, and are able to circumvent the law by submitting payments under a different “code”.

Credit and debit card companies like Visa and MasterCard apply a special, 4-digit numerical code to every transaction. Known as a Merchant Category Code, or MCC Code for short, this code identifies each type of transaction. “Betting” (lottery, casino games, etc; online or otherwise) is classified under code “7995”.

If a US-based Visa brand identifies a 7995 transaction coming from an online website, they will rejected it. However, if an operator is able to disguise the payment with a different categorical code, such as “7278 – Buying/Shopping Services”, it could slip by the bank unnoticed.

In recent years, the acceptance rate of US-based, Canadian Visa brands for online gaming has fallen to about 10-20%. Because of this, it’s actually recommended that, if a Visa deposit fails, the user should ‘try, try again’ before giving up.

If every attempt is met with rejection, you know it’s time to seek out a new Visa card company, or a different method of deposit altogether.

Best Canadian Visa Brand for Online Gaming

Fortunately, there are several Canadian-based credit card companies that support online gaming deposits. So long as your Visa card is issued by one of these major Canadian-based banks, you should have no trouble using the card for online gaming purposes.

The most reliable Canadian Visa brands for online gaming include:

• RBC

  • The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) started out as a small financial operation in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1864. Over the last century and a half, it’s grown exponentially into Canada’s largest and most trusted banking institution. RBC serves customers in over 50 countries, with a staff base of approximately 79,000 employees and more than 16 million customers world-wide.

• CIBC

  • Established in 1867 under its former name, Canadian Bank of Commerce, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) is celebrating it’s 150^th anniversary in 2017. To their credit, CIBC was a founding partner of its hometown Toronto Blue Jays baseball team. CIBC operates in Canada, Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States, housing over 40,000 employees and 11 million customers.

• BMO

  • The Bank of Montreal, (d.b.a BMO) is the fourth largest bank in Canada, and the tenth largest in North America. It’s also the oldest bank of Canada, established by a group of merchants in 1817, making this their bicentennial year. Back then, it operated out of a rented house. Today, BMO’s rich history has evolved into more than 900 branches in Canada alone, with 45,000+ employees and over 7 million customers.

• TD Canada Trust

  • A division of Toronto-Dominion Bank, TD Canada Trust started out as the Huron and Erie Savings and Loan company, established in 1864. Following TD Bank”s acquisition in 2000, it’s now a personal, small business and commercial bank operation with more than 1,100 branch offices, and over 10 million customers, throughout Canada.

These are all respected members of Canada’s Big Five banking institutions. Their commitment to quality customer care makes RBC, CIBC, BMO and TD Canada Trust four of the best Canadian Visa brands for online gaming.