During Tuesday’s panel at SBC Lisbon, Payment Leaders: How to handle mature regulated markets, professionals from across the industry discussed how operators should approach payment solutions when entering a regulated and mature gambling market. The panel aimed to examine the dynamics of payment integration as operators expand and shine a light on the strategic steps needed to succeed in an already mature gambling landscape. The panel is one of several payment-focused events at SBC Lisbon, with dedicated networking areas and further discussions with industry experts throughout the conference.

The panel focused mainly on whether to use direct integration or partnerships when entering a mature gambling market. However, moderator Andrea McGeachin, CEO of NeoSurf (who sponsored the panel), opened the panel by asking the panelists to define what a mature regulated market is.e.

Isabelle Delisle, Head of Group Payments at Pinnacle explained how difficult it was to define a regulated market, asking “Do we consider that to be the markets that are like the UK, which have been around for a while but are still changing?”

Christian Reinheimer, Group Director of Payments Product & Technology for the LeoVegas Group, said, “You can’t really say that maturity equals age,” and that “I personally think there is no such thing right now like mature regulated markets.” Most of the other panelists agreed on this point, sharing the view that the online industry, being relatively young, is still evolving, and even established markets are still undergoing changes, making it difficult to consider any market fully mature.

Addressing whether direct integration or partnerships is better, Vasilije Lekovic, Vice President of Gaming for Trustly, said it was the “million dollar question.” Trustly is an online banking solution founded in 2008 that works with many online gambling operators in the US, allowing players to make payments from their online bank account without using a card.

Lekovic’s view was that “direct integration is always best,” which was echoed by the Chief Commercial Officer at OKTO, Simon Dorsen. He conceded that “every operator is different,” but confirmed that “in a perfect world… direct integration would be best for everybody.”

OKTO is a payment solution company that recently purchased Flexia Payments to deliver more cashless payment options in North America.

Delisle agreed that direct integration is best, citing her company, Pinnacle, as operating its own payment cashier for 25 years. Although she conceded some weaknesses with this approach, “getting new service on the tech stack is very hard to do,” she highlighted the main benefit as “equally, I’m not relying on someone else’s business decision to run my cashier.”

She also offered a word of advice to payment providers, commenting “keep your API as dynamic as possible and as few changes as possible and don’t force me to upgrade it until I’m ready.” Delisle became Pinnacle’s Director of Payments in January 2023. Pinnacle launched as a sportsbook in 1998 and launched in North America in 2022, going live in Ontario.

Moving on to the role of responsible gambling in payment providers and operators, Reinheimer commented on some of the requirements to provide proof of payment method, saying, “that’s a very very intrusive thing.”

He used the example of someone purchasing a book on Amazon, the site noticing that the customer is not paying instantly but in installments, and asking the customer to prove they can complete the payment. He also highlighted the need for gaming regulators, payment providers, and operators to work together, using Germany as an example. He explained that in Germany, you need to “verify ownership of that payment instrument,” and that some popular payment providers don’t offer that kind of service.

John Winters, Commercial Director of Verifeye Online, cited the role that governments play in payment compliance regulations and how that can impact how providers can operate, commenting, “Gambling regulators report to governments. Governments change. Some governments don’t want gambling.”

Dorsen speculated that regulators may introduce harsher regulations on payment providers for a reason: “I’m speculating here. Maybe they want less companies in the market because it’s easier for them to regulate things like that.”

When the panelist was asked which mature markets may not be sustainable and which newer markets may have a sustainable model, Lekovic highlighted the Dutch gambling market as unsustainable for payment providers. He explained, “If the Dutch gambling regulator keeps increasing the gambling tax, [it] is going to be unsustainable.”

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