An iGaming operator running sportsbook and casino products across LATAM and EU came to us with a revenue leak they could see but couldn't fix. Players were depositing — or trying to. Roughly half their deposit attempts were failing. Declines, timeouts, and payment errors were eating their top line on both continents.
They had a single PSP handling everything. One processor, one acquiring bank, routing all traffic regardless of geography. A player in Brazil and a player in Germany hit the same acquiring endpoint. That's a setup designed to fail.
Why deposits were failing
The root cause was a mismatch between where the players were and where the transactions were being processed. Their PSP routed everything through a single non-local acquirer. Issuing banks in LATAM saw transactions processed through a European acquirer and declined them. European issuers saw the same thing in reverse. Cross-border card transactions in iGaming have significantly higher decline rates than locally acquired ones.
- Single PSP routing all traffic through one acquiring bank
- Cross-border acquiring for both LATAM and EU — no local processing
- No local payment methods in either region
- No cascading or failover — a declined transaction was a lost deposit
- Deposit success rate sitting around 50%
On top of the card issue, they had no local payment methods. In LATAM markets like Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, a huge share of deposits happen through methods like PIX, OXXO, or local bank transfers. In parts of EU, similar patterns exist with iDEAL, Trustly, or local e-wallets. None of these were available to their players — a structural gap that defines payment processing for iGaming operators running global traffic.
What we rebuilt
We restructured their entire payment stack. We onboarded them to PSPs with local acquiring in their key LATAM markets and separate PSPs with EU acquiring for their European traffic. Each region's transactions now process through local acquirers, which is what issuing banks expect to see.
We added local payment methods in every major market. Brazilian players see PIX. Mexican players see SPEI and OXXO. European players see bank transfers and local e-wallets alongside cards. The deposit page adapts to the player's location.
We also set up cascading across PSPs. When a card transaction declines on the primary processor, it automatically retries on a secondary before returning a failure to the player. This alone recovers a meaningful percentage of deposits that would otherwise be lost.
- Onboarded local acquiring PSPs for LATAM and EU separately
- Added local payment methods per market — PIX, OXXO, SPEI, iDEAL, bank transfers
- Configured cascading across multiple PSPs for card transactions
- Built redundancy — no single PSP failure takes down deposits for a region
The numbers
Deposit success rates went from around 50% to consistently above 85%. That's not a payments optimization — it's revenue recovery. Every failed deposit is a player who wanted to spend money and couldn't. At their traffic volumes, the difference between 50% and 85% success is significant monthly revenue.
The local methods contributed on top of the card improvement. Players who previously had no way to deposit now have their preferred method available. The combination of local acquiring, local methods, and cascading turned their deposit flow from a bottleneck into an engine.
What's running today
The operator processes through four PSPs across LATAM and EU with local acquiring in each region. Cascading handles card declines automatically. Local methods are live in every key market. We manage the PSP relationships, monitor approval rates, and adjust routing as traffic patterns shift.
When they enter a new market, the playbook is the same: identify the local methods, find the right acquiring, and plug it in. The infrastructure supports expansion without rebuilding.
"Half our players couldn't deposit. Now we're above 85% and we haven't changed a single thing about our product."