Throughout 2025, there have already been multiple examples of how the gaming industry continues to reinvent itself to meet the ongoing demands of consumers. But none may be as crucial as the direction payments processing is currently heading in, especially across the iGaming space. At the SBC Summit Americas held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from 14-15 May, the topic was heavily discussed, especially during a panel which included Nuvei VP of Omnichannel – Americas, Andrew Crowe, and MVB Bank VP of Digital Gaming Katie Roberts.
The pair were joined by iGaming, Fantasy Sports & Sports Gambling Wallet and Fraud Consultant Mike Wrobleski, who served as the VP of Payments & Fraud at PrizePicks until September 2024. Crowe spoke specifically on the growth seen in LatAm over the first half of 2025, citing how entry into new iGaming markets can certainly come with challenges for any operator looking to build a presence within the region.
Banking on LatAm
“We have a strong legal and compliance focus to make sure we’re doing everything in a regulated market and according to the regulations, and then you have to do it according to the bank’s satisfaction. Whoever the sponsor is for processing those credit and debit card transactions, it has to be to their satisfaction,” Crowe said. “And last but certainly not least, because they set some of the highest bars on this, the networks as well. The networks have their own rules about what the standards are so that we are all in compliance with federal and state and local regulations in the US.”
Crowe continued: “Now this is extending to Latin America as well, with a number of operators expanding as those markets become regulated. The same discipline and approach to each market and onboarding just as you expand to a province in Canada or an additional state in the US now pertains to Latin America.”Roberts touched on what MVB Bank specifically looks for in collaborating with gaming operators, from both a streamlining and payments processing point of view. “We’ve been working with our gaming operators since the inception of PASPA, but a lot of what we deal with and what we focus on are good partnerships and finding the right payment processor to really enable this streamline of payments,” Roberts said.
“So while we have a lot of the card processing, we lean on our payment processors for a lot of the acquiring lift, but also handle much of the ACH side as well as any of the direct bank transfers for RTP and RFP today. We still see a lot of the banks coming into the network for it, but it’s definitely seen a big adoption for us and it’s not going away.”
Crowe also spoke on how banks view the “complexity of gaming” as high risk and are treated as such by digital payment providers such as Visa and Mastercard, or by the banks themselves. As the hesitance eventually leads to a “high barrier” for onboarding clients, the precaution has only been raised in recent months following the growth of sweepstakes casinos throughout 2025. “There’s a lot of work that goes into making sure all of the gaming activity, particularly in the US with the regulatory burden that’s in place for us, is compliant and satisfactory from the very beginning,” Crowe said.
Wrobleski was able to discuss new coding from banks that puts an automatic cancellation on internet transactions, as banks and operators have reportedly moved from a 7995 code to 7801, 7802 and 7803, which relate to online sports and gambling, lottery and horseracing. If the bank chooses not to accept a digital transaction that pertains to one of the gaming types, these codes would be placed by default to notify the operator of a failure to process. “There was an education process that occurred where we had to proactively approach the banks and educate them on why it’s legal, why we can do it, why there’s a new code and how we were able to execute the change; it was kind of an evolution,” Wrobleski said. “It was a collective effort not only from the operator’s standpoint, but from the payment processing and gateway standpoint.
It was all of us trying to go out and educate the issuing banks, like Visa and Mastercard, on how it was legal, how we were operating and managing these things from a geolocation perspective, and ensuring our products were being used in a legal and acceptable fashion. That whole process took time, but it did evolve – and it’s come a long way.” Wrobleski also explained how operators have already conducted the experiment of discovering what inquiries are most frequent among consumers, including how quickly they can withdraw funds, the length of time processing this payment takes and where the funds ultimately end up. While providing answers for players is part of the process, finding ways to retain business and ensure second or third deposits from the same user seems to be the main priority for those in the payment processing space. “I think a lot of attention from the gaming operator’s standpoint is about acquiring players and focusing on how to get that user to make a first or second deposit. Cost for acquisition is really high; it’s a very competitive market for retainability,” Wrobleski said. “If the experience is not great, they can simply exit out and go to some other platform. There’s so much focus given to getting that player through the journey to the point where they reach for their wallet, where sometimes enough focus isn’t given to actually asking the players what they would like to experience.”
Crypto-nite
One of the other main topics of discussion for the panel was how cryptocurrency is currently affecting the payments processing industry, mainly due to the risks some operators take when choosing to accept crypto as payment. If a player deposits $100 worth of crypto at a certain time, the payment could be worth 80% of the value by the following day, given the puctuating value of cryptocurrency over the past number of years. A way to counteract these risks, however, is the introduction of a stablecoin. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies whose value is pegged – or tied – to that of a fellow currency, commodity or nancial instrument.“The other layer to this is there has been a lot of people who like to trade crypto, but not many like to transact in crypto. That’s why I joke that I roll my eyes when this topic has come up, but I’m going to confess that it’s starting to change a little bit now with the advent of stablecoin,” Crowe said. If that coin is worth $1 today, it’s worth $1 tomorrow, which means there is no currency exchange risk for operators, and might start to change that level of risk factor.”
Roberts also shared her views on the evolution of crypto becoming a more acceptable form of currency within gaming, pointing to the work done by Signature Bank to help progress the offering. “I think while crypto is the fun buzzword for everyone, the bank that we can really give the flowers to obviously is what was done with Signature Bank and everything they accomplished with creating this closed loop system. But the work everyone praised them on and showed a lot of efficiencies had nothing to do with crypto. It had to do with the API and having everything in house and under one ecosystem of instant transfers,” Roberts said. “Crypto is great, but I think we have a lot of efficiencies that are already at our fingertips within the banking industry – and I’ll hammer it all day that it’s about partnership. Finding the right partnerships, finding gaming operators that are willing to be innovative and flexible with compliance, but also finding payment processors that are gaming friendly.”
As the gaming industry continues to introduce new verticals for players every year, how users receive the funds to actually take part in these offerings may be the most crucial step in whether these gaming types evolve in a successful, but also safe and regulated, fashion. Whether it be iGaming, sweepstakes or retail forms of gambling, the need for strong payment processing solutions will forever be a constant.
