Skrill & Canada

[Igor82]

Skrill will be pulling out of Canada in respect of gambling as of 2nd January 2014. FYI for the members (unless someone brought it up already) while we'll be notifying our Canadian Skrill using customers and working on migrating them to a viable alternative.

Any suggestions?

 

[dionysus]

well snap, but then, they're taking a week or more to credit to the bank now anyway, so time to move.
As to where, I dunno. But I know other Canadians use alternate methods. I've just been with Skrill since day one.
Dang, I'll be using today to research

 

[Igor82]

So far, loudest response i've received was instadebit.

 

[dionysus]

So far, loudest response i've received was instadebit.

Basically it just takes directly from my bank acct, which is no biggie - as long as it puts back directly into the bank, otherwise I'd still need an e-wallet regardless.

 

[Jasminebed]

This will probably end my business relationship with certain casinos that do not pay back to credit cards.

Personally, I don't wish to have my bank accounts available for instant access to gamble with. Let's just call it a safety measure on my part.

If wires have a reasonable fee, I'd probably opt for that. Cheques issued on Canadian banks would be fine by me too. Might change how I play to less frequently but with higher deposits aiming for higher cashouts.

Not good news for me I'm afraid.

 

[dionysus]

This will probably end my business relationship with certain casinos that do not pay back to credit cards.

Personally, I don't wish to have my bank accounts available for instant access to gamble with. Let's just call it a safety measure on my part.

If wires have a reasonable fee, I'd probably opt for that. Cheques issued on Canadian banks would be fine by me too. Might change how I play to less frequently but with higher deposits aiming for higher cashouts.

Not good news for me I'm afraid.

If returns TO the method I deposit with, are reasonable time-frames, I'm ok with it - cheques, wire transfers, things that take several days or a week or more, well, I'll take up knitting lol...

 

[LaHutti]

Do they give a reason at all ?

Skrill will be pulling out of Canada in respect of gambling as of 2nd January 2014. FYI for the members (unless someone brought it up already) while we'll be notifying our Canadian Skrill using customers and working on migrating them to a viable alternative.

Any suggestions?

 

[asadzareef89]

Skrill will be pulling out of Canada in respect of gambling as of 2nd January 2014. FYI for the members (unless someone brought it up already) while we'll be notifying our Canadian Skrill using customers and working on migrating them to a viable alternative.

Any suggestions?

The only suggestion would be to not migrate to canada as everyone seems to be disliking them these days, the pull out of playtech then some MG slots and now skrill

 

[dionysus]

The only suggestion would be to not migrate to canada as everyone seems to be disliking them these days, the pull out of playtech then some MG slots and now skrill

lol, we have a bit more to offer here in Canada than online gambling.

Skrill already pulled out of the US, and we still play most major providers. And as Simmo explained, PT was a decision from certain casinos not PT themselves

 

[LaHutti]

I'm getting the feeling, that something is going on, behind the scenes, regarding online gambling in Canada. Anyone else ?

 

[dionysus]

I'm getting the feeling, that something is going on, behind the scenes, regarding online gambling in Canada. Anyone else ?

yup, I'm waiting for a massive Canadian exodus..I think once the US is in full swing, we'll lose MG too (sniff)

 

[asadzareef89]

lol, we have a bit more to offer here in Canada than online gambling.

Skrill already pulled out of the US, and we still play most major providers. And as Simmo explained, PT was a decision from certain casinos not PT themselves

But there's no smoke without a fire, must be something going on behind the scenes for all these things to happen in a short space of time

 

[Igor82]

Do they give a reason at all ?

No they don't just that they decided to quit gaming in Canada.

 

[Igor82]

As for "something going on" - same here. I'm trying to sniff it out, but whereas usually there are sufficient signs and regulatory reasons in the open, this time around everyone is shrugging it off. No one has said anything official about regularizing Canada so i cant really tell.

 

[dionysus]

Quebec has online gambling and slots. Perhaps Ontario and others will follow suit, thus casinos maybe hedging and bumping out Canadians for if/when it becomes official.

 

[johnsteed]

More info/speculation:

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About a month ago, I was on the phone with someone from one of the major banks in Canada (mentioned in a recent thread). He/she said 3 times casually in the conversation, "But, hey, things could change 6 months from now..." when talking about online gambling in Canada. Nothing concrete of course, but, doesn't sound good either.

 

[Jasminebed]

OLG has declared that 2014 we will have online gambling in Ontario. I think it will be Canada-wide in 2015 if I recall correctly what I read. BC, Quebec, and soon to be Ontario comprise over half the population of Canada. It's in Manitoba, and either on board or coming to the Maritimes.

Government run casinos don't like competition from my observations. It could also be that Skrill is eyeing the roll of processor for those casinos run by the various provinces. That is speculation on my part. There are several possibilities, and I doubt we will ever really know why a business decision is made.

I'm also interested in hearing from Canadians playing online at provincial casinos what methods of payment and withdrawal are they currently using?

I'd be happy to use a Canadian based e-wallet, or at least one that sends wires from a Canadian bank. I currently pay a foreign wire fee when I receive one from Skrill.

Thank you so much for the heads up on this issue Igor.

I am wondering what RTG is going to be able to offer me as a suitable withdrawal method. Those places that pay back to Visa, I'll just use that there until I have my alternatives researched.

 

[Jasminebed]

We've seen some banks pull out of gambling transactions here, or not allow them for their credit cards.

If it gets to be like for US like the US has it to deposit and withdraw, I'll be taking my gambling once a month to the B&M on a day trip like I did before online.

I will miss it however.

Most of us slotters, even the high rollers, don't move the amount of funds poker players do. I'll read that link in more depth Johnsteed, thank you

 

[me_and_ed]

OLG has declared that 2014 we will have online gambling in Ontario. I think it will be Canada-wide in 2015 if I recall correctly what I read. BC, Quebec, and soon to be Ontario comprise over half the population of Canada. It's in Manitoba, and either on board or coming to the Maritimes.

Government run casinos don't like competition from my observations. It could also be that Skrill is eyeing the roll of processor for those casinos run by the various provinces. That is speculation on my part. There are several possibilities, and I doubt we will ever really know why a business decision is made.

I'm also interested in hearing from Canadians playing online at provincial casinos what methods of payment and withdrawal are they currently using?

I'd be happy to use a Canadian based e-wallet, or at least one that sends wires from a Canadian bank. I currently pay a foreign wire fee when I receive one from Skrill.

Thank you so much for the heads up on this issue Igor.

I am wondering what RTG is going to be able to offer me as a suitable withdrawal method. Those places that pay back to Visa, I'll just use that there until I have my alternatives researched.

I just said basically the same thing in another thread, I think you are spot on, once the power of OLG puts on the pressure I think we will see sadly see some movement here.

 

[Perc]

Looks like it may be time to move to the UK, or better yet, elect a new government that doesn't follow the US around like a lost puppy.

Pushing people out of existing online casinos, opening your own and forcing your people to only play there, is a stupid way to go about making it legal. Not saying that's what is happening, and I really hope it doesn't go that far, but since Ontario is the only province that matters to our gov't, something could happen when they finally get their casino online.

Why not just sell licenses to the existing online casinos and tax the income they get from Canadians? It's simple, it's been done before (rather successfully I think), and you don't have to deal with things like the BC site getting hacked on launch day because they had no idea what they were doing. Leave it to the experienced casinos that have been doing this for many years, and simply take a cut for allowing Canadians to play there legally. Lots of income for minimal effort.

Just think of how much money the US gov't could have made since 2006 if they would have started selling licenses rather than enforcing the UIGEA. I'm thinking the figure would be much higher than the amount they confiscated from processors, and they wouldn't have pissed their own people off by reducing their freedom. Would have also saved a ton of taxpayer dollars not having to enforce their stupid rules.

It's just so frustrating to watch stupid people doing stupid things. I guess that's why I'm not in politics.

 

[Igor82]

It's just so frustrating to watch stupid people doing stupid things. I guess that's why I'm not in politics.

And why you (and like minded) probably should be. Sadly, it doesn't work that way

 

[Jasminebed]

I don't think Skrill's decision had been planned for all that long. It's only really recently that they have offered an ATM card to Canadians, and I think they were launching a virtual prepaid mastercard of their own?

Doesn't matter to me personally, but I'm wondering if affiliates can still use it for receiving payments from their programs? I mean, that's not gambling, it's a business relationship.

One solution for paying Canadian's I'd like to see a casino use is email money transfer. It's relatively low cost, and it's FAST, usually less than 1/2 an hour to your bank account after acknowledging the email. A processor would just have to make a payment from their Canadian bank account (and it doesn't have to be the same one), and you choose which account you want it deposited to. For me to send money to my kid for instance, I believe it's $1.50 fee.

 

[Balthazar]

Well if the government bans online casinos in hope that we'll move to their State-run gambling monopoly, they better start offering better online slots than the outdated crap that they have now. The slots look like they were made in 1991, even the classic IGT ones look shitty:





In all seriousness though, if Skrill is getting some pressure it must be from the financial institutions. Either that or they got a scary letter from some government lawyers. They did it before with Neteller I think.

Somehow, I highly doubt that a company like Skrill would have "inside informations" about a secret upcoming Canadian gambling bill.

 

[baldidiot]

Doesn't matter to me personally, but I'm wondering if affiliates can still use it for receiving payments from their programs? I mean, that's not gambling, it's a business relationship.

There are reports on some aff forums about affiliates being told they can no longer receive payments via MB. Not sure if that's a hard and fast rule or on a case by case basis (it probably also makes a difference where the money is coming from - eg: from TheCasinosMBAccount.com or from SomeRandomHoldingCompany.com).

 

[dionysus]

Unibet pulling out before Jan 2014:

We`ve noticed that some of your payments to Unibet were made via Skrill. We are sorry to inform you that as a result of Skrill’s decision to withdraw from gaming in Canada we are removing this method of payment. You can continue to deposit and withdraw via card and bank transfer before and after this date.

The effective date for the change to go live is this Friday, 20th December 2013, on this date we will remove the deposit method. On January 27th we will also be removing the withdrawal capability.

Hope you will understand this change and stay with us for 2014.