Why do only some casinos accept American Express?

Today there is an extremely large number of online casino banking options. It is inconceivable for every online casino to offer each and every banking option to its players.

Players should understand that an online casino will incur some cost for offering a particular banking option. Therefore the online casino should generate sufficient deposits through that banking option so as to justify the cost. Online casinos only accept those banking options that draw sufficient deposits.

American Express is a well-known name in the United States. Most Americans use American Express credit cards in shopping malls, restaurants and online purchases like travel tickets. Therefore American players prefer using American Express credit cards at online casinos.

Those online casinos that accept players from the United States will also mostly accept American Express as a banking option.However not all online casinos accept players from the United States.

Since 2006 the government in the United States has taken steps to curb online gambling and there is lack of clarity regarding the legality of online gambling in America. Therefore many online gaming software providers like Cryptologic, Playtech and Microgaming have withdrawn their services from the United States.

Online casinos powered by the software providers no longer accept American players. They are concentrating on the customer base in Europe, United Kingdom and Asia. Therefore they do not have any advantage in accepting American Express credit cards as a payment option. It makes more sense for them to accept payments through Visa and MasterCard credit cards because these are more prevalent in their customer base areas.

There is another reason why many online casinos do not accept deposits through American Express credit cards. This is that the use of credit cards as a payment option is decreasing. For a number of reasons players at online casinos are giving up the use of credit cards to make deposits and are patronizing alternative payment options.

One of the reasons is the increased the rate of rejection of credit card transactions at online casinos. This is more of a problem in the United States. Because of the current understanding of the legislation many credit card companies and banks issuing credit cards are blocking transactions to online casinos. This is true to some extent even in the case of American Express credit cards. On the other hand transfers using alternative payment options such as electronic wallets go through very easily.

Another reason for the decrease in use of credit cards, including American Express credit cards, is the fear of identity theft. As players wager in more and more different online casinos they are required to submit their credit card details at every casino if they want to make payments through credit cards. This means that the sensitive credit card information lies on a large number of servers and increases the risk of identity theft.

Players opt to fund one electronic wallet using credit cards and then transferred funds to any number of online casinos from that electronic wallet. Therefore as the use of credit cards decreases, the use of American Express credit cards will also decrease. This is another reason why many online casinos do not accept American Express credit cards.