Payment Chokepoints Curb Online Vice

Updated: 2025.10.07 14D ago 3 sources
Cutting off gambling sites from e‑wallet links halved bets in the Philippines within days. This shows payment rails are a fast, high‑leverage tool to regulate online harms without blanket bans or heavy policing. — It highlights a concrete, scalable governance lever—payments—that can quickly change digital behavior while sidestepping free‑speech fights.

Sources

Operation Choke Point - Wikipedia
2025.10.07 75% relevant
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.
Americans Increasingly See Legal Sports Betting as a Bad Thing For Society and Sports
msmash 2025.10.03 57% relevant
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.
Filipinos Are Addicted to Online Gambling. So Is Their Government
msmash 2025.10.01 100% relevant
Bangko Sentral ordered e‑wallets to remove betting links, immediately reducing betting volume by about 50%.
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