Merchant category code 7995

The code is set by the operator’s acquiring bank when it signs up the merchant, not by the casino on a whim and never by you. It rides on the authorisation request that reaches your card issuer in real time.

Visa’s rules go further than most people expect. A merchant taking online gambling payments has to put all its online transactions under 7995, even if betting is only a side line, and a paid game of chance with a cash-value prize can fall under it too.

Some networks also use 7801 and 7802 for certain regulated gambling, so 7995 is the main code rather than the only one.

You meet it at the cashier, usually without seeing it. The clearest case is a bank gambling block.

AIB introduced a voluntary block on debit and credit cards in August 2024, and Bank of Ireland followed with one on debit cards in 2025. Both work by refusing transactions flagged as gambling, which in practice means reading the merchant code. AIB says plainly that a payment not flagged to it as gambling will go through as normal, and that lifting the block takes three working days.

Issuers also apply their own policy to the code, so a card that works everywhere else can still be declined at a casino cashier.

It is often mixed up with quasi-cash codes such as 6050 and 6051, which cover money orders and similar products. Mastercard states that those codes must not be used for gambling.

The other confusion is about cost. Some credit card issuers bill a 7995 payment as a cash advance rather than a purchase, with interest from day one, but that is the issuer’s choice and varies from card to card.

The code also says nothing about whether an operator is licensed, so treat it as a payment label and nothing more.