Operators across Europe are noticing the same shift. Approval rates dip without much explanation. Deposits that used to clear instantly start slowing down. Onboarding, once routine, can suddenly drag on for weeks. There’s no statement from Visa, Mastercard, Trustly or Zimpler to point to, but the pattern is now widespread enough that it’s hard to ignore.
The payment providers haven’t left the sector. They’re still processing gambling transactions, just with a different posture. Reviews go deeper than before. Merchant questions are more direct. The overall willingness to take on gambling traffic feels noticeably lower than it did a few years ago.
This isn’t a withdrawal. It’s a reset driven by updated risk models that treat gambling as a complicated category within the payments system. In those models, liability carries more weight than growth, and gambling now lands closer to the high-friction end of the spectrum.
Inside the models that drive the shift
Payment providers follow the signals in their data. Over the past two years, those signals have consistently pushed gambling toward the highest internal risk tiers.
Chargebacks that skew the curve
Across acquirers, gambling chargeback ratios often land three to five times above mainstream e commerce. Mastercard’s public dispute framework classifies MCC 7995, the merchant code for gambling, under enhanced monitoring. Volatility is the issue. Disputes surge around major sporting events and periods of heavy promotions. PSPs built around predictable risk curves cannot absorb that level of fluctuation indefinitely.
Onboarding friction that keeps building
High-risk merchants now face longer onboarding timelines. Deloitte’s 2022 fraud and merchant-risk research found that elevated-risk verticals can require 30 to 50 percent more onboarding time than standard industries. Gambling consistently sits near the top of that range in complexity.
At the Payments Leaders Summit in 2023, a senior risk officer at Worldpay summed up the shift.
“High-risk onboarding is materially slower today than it was two years ago. Risk teams have become far more cautious across the board, and gambling merchants feel it first.”
Monitoring systems that stay busy
Gambling transactions trigger far more automated alerts than most categories. Rapid deposits, same-session withdrawals and irregular velocity patterns frequently resemble fraud activity. More alerts mean more manual reviews. More manual reviews mean higher cost and lower appetite.
A senior analyst at a Tier-1 PSP, speaking on background to CasinoNews.io, added an exclusive insight.
“Internal gambling-risk scores are up roughly 20 to 30 percent year-on-year, even when the merchant behavior stays flat. The shift is happening inside the models, not at the operator level.”
The pressure coming from the banking side
PSPs operate inside banking environments that are tightening at the same time.
The European Banking Authority’s 2024 Risk Assessment highlights gambling as one of the top three AML-exposed sectors across EU payment institutions. This designation influences how banks treat the category at the onboarding and monitoring level.
The UK Financial Conduct Authority’s 2023 review of de-risking found that banks have increased scrutiny across several high-risk verticals. Gambling was explicitly referenced as a category facing heightened oversight. Cross-border flows and ambiguous licensing structures were flagged as structural risk factors.
Correspondent banks, which provide PSPs the international rails they rely on, have also narrowed high-risk exposure. When correspondent banks reduce available routes, PSPs lose processing lanes. Acquirers respond by raising thresholds. Operators feel the impact even if they never see the upstream decision.
Two mid-tier EU brands, representing a combined monthly volume of more than one million deposits, reported Visa approval declines between 8 and 12 percent in Q4 despite stable traffic and unchanged bonus structures. Issuer-side scoring was the only variable.
As banks tighten and card networks recalibrate risk, the space does not stay empty for long. Wallets move first.
The shift to wallets
While PSP giants step back, digital wallets are scaling rapidly in gambling. Their design gives them structural advantages that card networks cannot easily replicate.
Wallet providers such as Astropay, MiFinity, Jeton, Luxon Pay and Revolut verify users at the account level. Identity, device fingerprinting and behavior patterns are established before the user reaches an operator. Cards verify at the transaction level, which creates more uncertainty and a heavier burden on risk systems.
Astropay publicly reported double-digit year-over-year growth in gaming transaction volume in 2023. MiFinity’s annual updates reflect similar expansion in user accounts and gambling-related activity.
Wallets excel in cross-border performance as well. They operate with native multi-currency support and fewer legacy constraints. Their risk models adapt to user behavior rather than merchant category.
Players adopt them quickly because wallets deliver:
- faster movement of funds
- fewer unexplained declines
For the first time, card networks are letting wallets set the pace in gambling. And if current risk posture continues, wallets will not just pick up market share. They will become the default rails in markets where banks no longer want gambling liability.
The quiet role of crypto
Crypto functions as a parallel rail. It becomes relevant when banks block deposits or when players want immediate settlement. Adoption is leaned toward high-value users and international bettors. Crypto fills gaps but does not compete directly with wallets or cards.
How operators respond to the new reality
Operators see payment friction sooner than anyone. A drop in card approvals shows up within hours. A slowdown in onboarding is visible in conversion metrics the same day.
Most operators now run multi-wallet stacks. They create redundancy and stabilize approval rates. Wallets also align more closely with user expectations. Players want speed, predictable withdrawals and streamlined verification. Wallets provide all three consistently.
Cards remain part of the mix, but no longer the foundation.
What operators should do now
To maintain stable performance as PSP behavior evolves, operators can:
- diversify across global and regional wallets
- monitor approval rates weekly instead of monthly
- route high-value and cross-border users to lower-friction payment methods
- maintain an alternative payout rail for sensitive markets
- plan onboarding with the expectation of extended PSP due diligence
The operators that stay ahead of friction will preserve conversion and reduce volatility.
A future shaped by quiet decisions
Cards will remain in the ecosystem, but their influence is shrinking. Based on current trends, card volumes could fall another 10 to 15 percent in the next two years across regulated and gray markets.
Wallets are gaining ground because they innovate faster, adapt to player behavior and operate with fewer structural constraints. More regional wallets will emerge, accelerating the transition.
The biggest changes happen upstream, inside risk models and bank controls that players never see. These quiet decisions are rewriting the flow of gambling payments more than any public regulatory update.
If the trajectory holds, the next decade of gambling payments will be shaped by PSP risk models, not legislation.
References
https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/corporate/uk-payment-accounts-access-and-closures.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://www.eba.europa.eu/publications-and-media/publications/risk-assessment-report-july-2024
https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/46786/truelayer-to-acquire-open-banking-rival-zimpler
