The Central Bank of Iran is using a smart platform to detect and block unauthorized payment gateways, developed and used by online betting and gambling websites.
“Smart detection of unauthorized payment gateways has begun. It allows us to quickly detect illegal payment gateways and block them automatically,” Mehran Mahramian, CBI's deputy for innovative technologies was quoted as saying by the CBI website.
Press reports said recently that there has been an increase in gambling and betting activities on the internet. Experts say such cyber and financial phenomenon is spreading fast and should raise the alarm, particularly in the cyber and payment sectors.
“The issue of confronting illegal payment gateways related to online casinos and betting websites has been on the CBI agenda for a long time…We have managed to detect and block 20,000 payment gateways or bank accounts related to illegal websites,” said the official.
Payment gateways used by online casinos are not authorized by the banking and payment network, he said. “They usually rent gateways, bank accounts and bank cards” for their forbidden activities.
Owners of small businesses are more likely to be deceived by online casinos, as they hope to make huge gains, he added.
Shaparak, the body in charge of supervising the domestic payment network, recently announced that it had blocked 3,540 payment gateways used by online betting and gambling sites since the beginning of the current fiscal year in March.
