United States Shuts Down Online Gambling Finance Processor eWalletXpress

Starting last November, observant gamblers realized that the popular eWalletXpress electronic wallet service has been evaporating from internet gambling sites. eWalletXpress’ Customer Service attempted to explain this as the result of “technical issues”.

There may have been some technical issues, but now it seems that the most important technicalities may actually have been within American gambling laws instead of their hardware or software. Now, the electronic service has withdrawn entirely from the U.S. market to preempt or limit legal battles, property seizures, fines, and other potential undesirable costs. While specifics are not available, funds are already being confiscated.

eWalletXpress clients are receiving messages which state, “We regret to inform you that we are no longer able to continue service at this time due to a federal warrant issued to seize our funds … ”

eWalletXpress is currently accepting email requests from account holders wishing their money returned. These customers may, however, be in for a long wait. The service will not be writing checks, but rather promises to transfer funds when the “technical issues are resolved.”

Bodog Casino and Intertops Casino have both been hit hard as eWalletXpress was a preferred deposit method. Necessity being mother to invention, new deposit methods such as Digital-Pin and MyPayLinQ are already popping up to fill the void which eWalletXpress is leaving behind. Meanwhile some older competitors such as UseMyWallet are still currently available to USA players.

Unfortunately, any of these services and their alternatives may be subject to similar attacks by the United States federal government. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) directly targets neither online casinos in the US nor gamblers, but rather aims squarely at the payment processors who move money between the gambling operations and the players.