UKash has announced entry to the North Americas. This involves exchanging cash for vouchers, a bit like the old method for cellphone top-up payments.
You get a voucher with 19 digits, and to deposit at a casino you enter these digits, and UKash forwards the money you initially exchanged for your voucher. The tranasction is not traceable UNLESS you have to give ID to the outlet where you bought the voucher. The route from outlet to merchant IS, of course, traceable using the unique 19 digit number.
This may still be a false hope, because UKash (the company) may well be told it has to block it's vouchers issued in the Americas from being used at gambling sites. It could easily do this because whilst it would not know the identity of the purchaser, it WOULD know where the voucher was sold, so could implement such a country specific rule.
UKash vouchers are available in relatively small denominations, and actually BUYING one can be far more difficult than the hype. I tried it out, and out of 11 retailers locally that are SUPPOSED to issue them, I could only find ONE where I could ACTUALLY GET one.
Theoretically, casinos could also PAY in UKash vouchers, by purchasing them and giving the player the numbers. This would be pretty insecure if sent by email, a bit like sending cash through the post. It would be equally secure though normal post for the same reason.
The limits would prevent all but low rollers using UKash as their SOLE means of depositing and withdrawing, and UKash may place limits that effectively prevent merchants from issuing refunds in UKash.
Outlets of UKash are NOT supposed to sell "too many" to the same person because of the ease by which "money laundering" could be conducted. I am sure that there will be guidelines for what might constitute "normal use" by the target market, which consists of "unbanked" customers, who are likely to be poor rather than rich, and would not be expected to be buying large amounts of UKash in monetary terms.
