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Comment by brador | Hacker News Reader

It’s a cash advance since you’re not purchasing goods or services with the card.

It’s really a cash advance whenever the issuing bank decides it is. There is no official definition.

Not necessarily, I mean if you buy a in-game item or currency that wouldn't be a cash advance so with this they could just say you bought $20 worth of credits and since you're buying credits that could be considered a good.

That would be purchasing a license (service).

Gambling is always classed as a cash advance. The gift cards trick has been tapped and closed, the credit companies figured it out decades ago.

What if the site allows you to purchase a digital asset such as a CS2 skin which you can then immediately sell back to them at the same price you to get credits in your account to gamble?

That's fraud.

I'm trying to understand which part exactly is fraud? If this site offered a legitimate marketplace for these items as well as gambling then in certain jurisdictions of course that could be illegal (due to the gambling aspect) but where does the fraud come in exactly?

The fraud is circumventing restrictions on purchasing gambling credits by ostensibly purchasing a CS2 skin at the time of the financial transaction.

Legal what-ifs have a much lower bar than a C++ if clause or the assembly conditional it compiles to.

How is it different than if I buy a TV and sell it on Ebay and use the funds to gamble?

Depending on circumstances, many activities under the same banner of analogy are actually fraud as well. I suggest talking to a lawyer before making any plans. Fraud is more about intent to circumvent, and chaining together individually-legal activities is the most common path to a fraud conviction.

If done at scale, you will get complaints/chargebacks that will trigger an audit followed by fines and/or account closure. Banks and underwriters have standard procedures in place to catch this.

> Gambling is always classed as a cash advance.

Many banks do, but there's no hard rule of the sort you're implying.

> The gift cards trick has been tapped and closed, the credit companies figured it out decades ago.

What do you mean? Buying gift cards using credit cards is absolutely possible.

This is not gambling in the legal sense (gambling is not even allowed in my state, and yet here I am using Kalshi, in case you wanted to argue that), which is why my transaction was classified as Professional Services and, for the nth time, NOT a cash advance.

It's not a cash advance. I funded my Kalshi account using a Capital One credit card. Not only was it not classified a cash advance, I got 1.5% back as is standard on this card.

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