Payment processing is the step that most often determines whether a launch happens on schedule. It cannot be arranged before the licence is granted, processors run their own onboarding, and availability varies sharply by market.
The platform decision is made earlier and has longer consequences: a turnkey arrangement is faster and cheaper upfront but sets the operator's cost base and supplier relationships for years.
This is part two of three. Part one covers licensing; part three covers acquisition.
What a platform actually includes
"Platform" covers more than the player-facing site, and the components are worth separating because they are priced and replaced differently.
Player account management. Registration, KYC flow, wallet, session handling, responsible gaming controls.
Game aggregation. Integration with content studios and the interface through which games are served.
Payment orchestration. Routing between processors, retry logic, and the reconciliation that follows.
Bonus engine. Offer configuration, wagering requirement tracking, bonus abuse detection. This is the component operators most often find limiting, because acquisition strategy is constrained by what the engine can express.
Back office and reporting. Player data, financial reporting, regulatory reports.
CRM. Segmentation, campaign delivery, retention automation. Sometimes included, sometimes a separate contract.
An operator evaluating platforms should ask which of these are included, which are extra, and which cannot be replaced independently later.
Three models, not two
Estimate: €30,000 – €150,000 setup, or 8–15% of gross gaming revenue
White label. The provider holds the licence; the operator runs a brand on it. Fastest to market and lowest upfront cost. The operator does not hold the regulatory relationship, does not own the player data outright, and cannot easily move.
Turnkey. The operator holds its own licence and licenses the platform as a service, typically on revenue share. More control than white label, still a dependency.
Proprietary. Built and owned. Highest upfront cost and longest timeline, but no revenue share and no dependency.
For a first launch, turnkey is the usual route, and the reasoning is sound: the operator does not yet know what it needs. The trade-off is that the provider holds relationships with game suppliers and often with payment processors, which means both the cost base and the supplier terms are set by someone else.
Under Anjouan's framework, the platform provider must itself be licensed. Confirm this before signing.
Game content
Estimate: 10–20% of gross gaming revenue, plus integration fees
Slots, live dealer and table games are licensed from studios, almost always on revenue share. Live dealer carries a higher share than slots because the operational cost — studios, dealers, streaming infrastructure — is higher.
Content is simultaneously where an offering is differentiated and where the margin is thinnest. A turnkey platform arrives with an aggregated library, which removes both the negotiation and the differentiation.
Exclusivity and release windows. Some studios offer exclusivity periods on new titles. These are worth something in a crowded market and are negotiable at scale.
Certification. Games must be certified for the licensing jurisdiction. This is usually handled by the studio or aggregator, but it is worth confirming rather than assuming.
Integration fees for individual studios are usually one-off and modest relative to the revenue share. The share is the number that matters.
Payment processing
Estimate: 3–8% of transaction volume, plus rolling reserve
This is the constraint that most often decides whether a launch is viable in a given market.
High-risk classification. Gambling merchants are classified high-risk by the card schemes, which means higher rates than standard e-commerce and a smaller pool of willing acquirers.
Rolling reserve. Processors typically retain a percentage of transaction volume — commonly 5–10% — for six months or longer against chargebacks. That reserve is working capital the operator cannot access, and it accumulates fastest during the growth phase, when cash is tightest.
Chargebacks. Disputed transactions carry both the refund and a fee, and a chargeback ratio above the schemes' thresholds triggers monitoring programmes with further costs. In gambling, chargebacks are frequently friendly fraud — a player disputing losses — which makes them harder to defend than in retail.
Market coverage. A processor serving one target market may not serve another. Operators commonly run several in parallel, which multiplies integration work, reconciliation and reporting.
Local payment methods. Card penetration varies enormously by market. In several markets, bank transfer, e-wallets or local schemes account for the majority of deposits, and an operator offering cards only is offering something most of the market cannot use.
Licence dependency. Processors require the gaming licence as part of their own onboarding. This step cannot start earlier, and it is frequently the longest in the sequence.
Withdrawals
Withdrawal processing receives less attention than deposits and generates more complaints.
Deposits are instant because they are card or wallet transactions in the operator's favour. Withdrawals typically involve manual review, KYC verification and a settlement cycle — and each step is a point at which the player waits.
Withdrawal speed is one of the most visible quality signals in the sector and one of the most common subjects of dispute. Under Curaçao's current framework, disputes between players and operators fall within the regulator's remit, which makes withdrawal handling a supervisory question rather than purely a commercial one.
Operators should establish before launch: who reviews withdrawals, against what criteria, within what timeframe, and what happens when the reviewer is unavailable.
Cryptocurrency processing
Crypto removes some constraints and introduces others.
It removes card scheme classification, chargebacks and much of the rolling reserve problem. Settlement is faster and processing costs are typically lower.
It does not remove AML obligations. Both regimes require the same identity verification and transaction monitoring regardless of payment rail, and crypto carries its own monitoring requirements around source of funds and wallet screening.
It also narrows the addressable market. In most jurisdictions, crypto-only deposits exclude a large majority of players, which makes it a complement to conventional processing rather than a replacement.
What the stack costs together
| Component | Model | Estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | Setup or revenue share | €30,000 – €150,000 or 8–15% of GGR |
| Game content | Revenue share | 10–20% of GGR |
| Payment processing | Transaction fee | 3–8% of volume |
| Rolling reserve | Retained capital | 5–10% of volume, held 6+ months |
On revenue share arrangements, platform and content together can absorb 20–35% of gross gaming revenue before any other cost is counted. That figure is the reason proprietary builds exist, and it is the number worth modelling before signing a turnkey agreement.
All figures are industry estimates. We have not verified them against primary sources.
Questions worth asking before signing
- Which platform components are included, and which are separate contracts?
- Can the bonus engine express the acquisition offers we intend to run?
- Who owns the player data, and what happens to it if we leave?
- Is the provider licensed in our jurisdiction, as required?
- What is the notice period, and what is the migration path?
- Which payment processors are already integrated, and for which markets?
- What is the revenue share on content, and is it negotiable at volume?
Sequence and dependencies
Platform selection can run in parallel with the licence application, but contracts should be contingent on the licence being granted.
Content integration follows platform selection and is usually handled by the platform provider.
Payment processing cannot begin until the licence exists. Start the conversations early, but expect the formal onboarding to take weeks after grant.
Testing — deposit, withdrawal, KYC flow, game launch — comes last and is routinely underestimated.
What most often goes wrong
Payments were assumed. The licence arrives, the platform is ready, and no processor will onboard the operator for the target market. This is the most common launch failure, and it is discovered after every other cost has been incurred.
The revenue share was not modelled. Platform and content on share can absorb a third of gross gaming revenue. Combined with acquisition cost, unit economics can be negative at launch and stay there.
The rolling reserve was not budgeted. It is working capital, and it is locked for months.
Withdrawal handling was designed after launch. It is a supervisory matter under Curaçao's framework and a reputational one everywhere.
The provider's licence status was not checked. Under Anjouan's framework, an unlicensed provider becomes the operator's problem.
Where this sits in the sequence
The full scope, cost range and timeline are set out in the launch guide.
Page last reviewed: 2 August 2026