Payment Chokepoints Curb Online Vice

Both ideas treat financial rails as a high‑leverage regulatory tool: the existing idea shows cutting payment access (e‑wallet links) quickly curbed gambling in the Philippines; the UK plan would similarly use a payments restriction (banning crypto donations) to prevent anonymous or foreign funding of politics. The article names ministers, the Electoral Commission, and Reform UK’s crypto portal (Nigel Farage’s party) as actors implementing or affected by this payments‑as‑governance approach.

Shutting a crypto mixing service functions like cutting a payment rail: law enforcement removed a tool that anonymizes flows, analogous to how payment‑rail restrictions quickly reduced gambling activity in the Philippines—showing payment infrastructure is a high‑leverage governance lever against online crime.

The existing idea emphasizes payment and commercial rails as high‑leverage levers of behavioral change; this article documents China using economic pressure (seafood import bans, tourist discouragement) and market access (cancelling concerts/film releases) to coerce Japan and signal deterrence around Taiwan. That maps the same mechanism — targeting trade and consumer flows to achieve political ends — into an East Asian diplomatic context.

The article details how regulators used banking/payment access as a lever against sectors like payday lending, online gambling, pornography, firearms and others—an earlier, large‑scale case of governing behavior via financial chokepoints rather than direct bans.

Rising public concern that legal sports betting harms society and sports (Pew: 43% and 40%, up sharply since 2022) could increase support for payment‑rail interventions that curb online gambling, aligning with the idea that financial chokepoints are an effective lever on digital vice.

Bangko Sentral ordered e‑wallets to remove betting links, immediately reducing betting volume by about 50%.