LONDON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - A Caribbean-based dot.com firm is offering a way for Britain's betting firms to tap into the potentially lucrative American gambling industry, the firm's chief executive said on Friday.

E-gold Ltd, promoter of an electronic currency backed by the precious metal, is in talks with major British gaming firms which have been hesitant to tap into the returns on offer in the U.S. because of fears of non-payment when credit cards are used on online betting sites.

"Fraud problems are considerable and there are repudiation issues with court systems incapable or unwilling to enforce a debt. Major UK betting firms have had to exclude U.S. credit cards," e-gold chief executive Douglas Jackson told Reuters during a visit to London.

Jackson did not name the firms he had held talks with but said they were leading High Street firms.

The top UK gaming firms include Ladbrokes, William Hill WMH.L and Sporting Index.

Under e-gold, which is incorporated in St.Kitts and Nevis and has been in operation since 1996, UK gaming firms would receive instant settlement as the bet was placed, removing any default risk if a credit card was used.

Settlement charges through the e-gold system were also a fraction of those carried by credit cards, Jackson said.

E-gold was on course to do more than five million transactions worth in excess of $1 billion this year through its website www.e-gold.com, Jackson said.

Under the e-gold system account holders pay each other with units of e-gold, a digital currency which is backed by an equivalent weight in gold held in secure third-party vaults.

This means for example, that a Canadian can pay a German the correct weight of gold for goods and services as easily as if the price had been quoted in a national currency.

Many deals have been done by small businesses in the U.S., Canada, the UK and Australia that could not afford to wait weeks to receive funds from credit card transactions or were not in the credit card system.

The largest increase in use over the last six months had been in China, India and eastern Europe where the banking system was not sufficient for all consumers and many did not have any access to bank accounts, Jackson said.

Jackson will be in India next week -- the world's biggest gold market -- in an attempt to persuade Indian financial authorities to use the e-gold system as part of their national foreign currency accounts.

The industry-backed World Gold Council (WGC) said it was following e-gold and other similar companies with interest.

"One advantage of an electronic gold system is that the buyer and seller can see instantaneously that the transaction has gone through," said the WGC's Jill Leyland.




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