Those who live in the United States, and rely on their credit cards to top up their online casino and online poker balances, for the most part, are very frustrated at this time.

Although the terms of the UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) do state that financial institutions need to block online gambling transactions, the act has not yet reached the point of implementation, and is in fact delayed until the middle of this year, in June 2010.

Mastercard recently managed to block online casino transactions, and now, following closely behind them, VISA has also managed to block online gambling transactions. In the past, the credit card companies had trouble identifying online gambling money transfers, since the coding used by the online gambling operators may have been coded for other forms of e-commerce. The credit card companies have managed to find a way to get around this, and have now worked out how to block online gambling transactions.

There have been reports from some players that they are still able to use their Visa credit cards, however, news reports have stated that Visa’s credit card transactions seem to be blocked for many of the online gambling sites.

The Internet Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act, authored by Congressman Barney Frank, may well be voted into law, and will cause the UIGEA to be abolished. Should this happen, the credit card companies, and other banking institutions, that wish to process online gambling financial transactions, will have no legal problem doing so. At this time, the current law is quite unclear.