HIGHLIGHTS
After migrating from a legacy payment setup to GRB Tech’s Payment Gateway and enabling rule-based routing, the operator achieved an immediate uplift: a +25% approval rate on USD deposits and a +12% approval rate on EUR deposits within the first week. The performance improvement remained stable over the following months as the team refined and expanded their routing configurations.
+25%
AR increase on USD card deposits
+12%
AR increase on EUR card deposits
1 week
to achieve visible uplift
Fully self-managed routing by BIN, issuer country, and scheme
Consistent results maintained over months
ABOUT THE CLIENT
A large multi-brand iGaming operator in Eastern Europe running casino and sportsbook projects across several markets. The business serves a high-volume international player base transacting mainly in EUR and USD, with a substantial share of deposits coming from cross-border cards.
Entering a new growth phase, the operator aimed to stabilize daily revenue, improve reliability for high-value players, and boost FTD conversion in markets where payment friction directly impacts acquisition costs. Payments had become one of the highest-leverage components of their commercial strategy: every percentage point gained in approval rates translated into more successful deposits, stronger retention, and higher ROI on marketing spend.
To support their expansion roadmap, the team needed infrastructure capable of delivering predictable payment performance at scale while giving internal payments specialists full autonomy to optimize.
PAIN POINTS
The operator distributed traffic across all connected acquirers, and this simplicity came at a cost. Without a way to distinguish which processor handled specific card attributes best, many transactions were sent to providers that were never suited to process them.
Technical Mismatch
A significant share of deposits landed on acquirers that:
- Didn’t support the card’s issuer country
- Performed poorly on certain BIN ranges
- Struggled with USD/EUR cross-border flows, or
- Had inconsistent results across Visa and Mastercard schemes
Even with several PSPs online, these mismatches caused 20-40% of deposits to fail for avoidable reasons.
Business Impact
Each decline triggered multiple retries, increased friction at checkout, and pushed new users out of the funnel before their first successful deposit. This directly reduced FTD conversion, increased churn among valuable player segments, and introduced day-to-day revenue volatility tied to fluctuating approval rates.
Operational Strain
Payments and risk teams were stuck diagnosing issues rooted not in PSP performance, but in the routing logic itself. Without the ability to align each transaction with the most suitable provider, improving or maintaining performance at scale was impossible.
This was especially painful in regions with frequently changing provider limits, where teams had to manually update minimums, maximums, and method descriptions just to keep withdrawals and deposits operational.
Signals That Routing Will
Deliver Tangible Value
Multiple PSPs already live for the same flow
Cross-border card usage is becoming common
Noticeable differences in performance by country or amount
Increasing effort spent explaining payment results internally
CLIENT REQUEST
The operator approached with a straightforward goal: improve approval rates using an existing stack of providers for payment processing. They appreciated the new payment routing capabilities that helped the client to focus on actual processing performance rather than fixed rotations, and a way for payments and risk teams to adjust logic instantly without any additional development.
Their priority was better control, greater visibility, and a routing system that automatically matches each transaction to the provider most likely to process it successfully.
APPROACH
The first step was to replace the operator’s static allocation model with a predictable, rule-driven system that could intelligently direct each transaction to the provider best suited to process it. Instead of treating all payments as interchangeable, we helped the team define the key attributes that actually influence approval—card brand, currency, issuer country, BIN range, and amount—and use them as conditions for routing.
We introduced the operator to the GR8 Tech Payment Gateway’s Routing feature and guided them through building their initial configurations. Together, we set up routing per payment group and layered in practical rules they could rely on: separating low- and high-value deposits, directing foreign cards to compatible acquirers, isolating sensitive BIN ranges, and assigning Visa and Mastercard traffic to processors with stronger results for each scheme.
Routing changed how we manage both deposits and withdrawals. On deposits, approval rates improved by 2-7% across markets, and first-time deposits increased without adding friction for players. On withdrawals, BIN- and country-based routing delivered up to 15% higher approval rates on specific providers and a stable uplift overall.
Once the foundation was in place, the operator quickly took full ownership. Their payment specialists began expanding the logic, creating dozens of configurations across currencies and workflows, and fine-tuning priorities as they observed how different rule combinations influenced outcomes.
Clients usually know their payment landscape extremely well. We simply give them the tools to act on that expertise. When they need a sanity check or want to confirm whether a configuration will behave as expected, we’re there to walk through it with them.
SOLUTION
GR8 Tech’s Payment Routing engine gave the operator a way to make the right decision for every transaction in milliseconds. Instead of relying on rotation or assumptions, the system evaluates each card’s attributes and applies a clear rule set to select the most suitable processor.
Routing operates as a structured decision tree. The highest-priority rule is checked first; only if it doesn’t match does the engine proceed to the next one. This eliminates randomness and ensures consistent outcomes. If no condition matches, the system automatically falls back to safe default methods defined in the payment group, preventing dead ends or misroutes.
Start with an existing payment group
- Choose an existing payment group (cards, P2P, bank transfer, etc.)
- Keep your current providers and commercial terms intact
- Select direction: deposit or withdrawal
Define the routing conditions that matter for your flows
- Transaction amount ranges
- Keep your current providers and commercial terms intact
- Card BINs
- Card scheme (Visa / Mastercard)
- Payment method characteristics
Assign preferred providers per condition
- One provider or a weighted priority list
- Separate logic for deposits and withdrawals
- Different rules per currency or payment group
- Rules are executed top to bottom
Enable routing for the payment group
- Routing automatically replaces static traffic distribution
- Manual IN% / OUT% settings are disabled
- The system applies routing logic to every transaction
- If no rule matches, the platform falls back to the default group logic
Transactions are routed automatically in real time
- Players see payment methods as usual
- After submission, the routing logic selects the optimal provider
Monitor performance and iterate
- Results typically become visible within days.
- Teams monitor approval rates by method, currency, and provider
- Routing configurations can be adjusted or expanded instantly
For this client, the configuration included:
- BIN-based rules to capture incompatible or high-risk ranges and send them to acquirers built to handle them.
- Issuer-country rules that ensured foreign cards were routed only to processors capable of approving them.
- Amount-based rules to avoid mismatches between deposit size and provider limits, especially in markets where small and large payments behave differently, and provider limits change frequently.
- Card brand-specific logic separates Visa and Mastercard traffic to leverage each processor’s strengths.
- Stop-cascade rules prevent multiple sequential declines from degrading player experience.
- For withdrawals, additional rules allowed routing by user ID, ensuring high-value and VIP players were consistently processed by providers capable of handling their limits.
On the front end, players saw none of this complexity. They experienced a stable, predictable cashier, supported by a wide-range UX logic: the system calculated the broadest possible min/max ranges across all eligible methods, eliminating errors and unnecessary friction. Behind the scenes, the operator’s team gained a self-service environment where every rule could be added, tested, and re-prioritized without technical support.
Acting Product Team Lead (Payments Core) at GR8 Tech
One of the biggest wins was operational. Automatic rule disabling removed the need to constantly adjust minimums, maximums, and method descriptions by hand. Routing replaced a lot of manual firefighting. Once the logic was in place, the system adapted on its own when conditions changed.
RESULTS
The uplift was visible almost immediately. Within the first week of activating Routing, USD deposits—previously the weakest segment due to cross-border friction—jumped from 17.1% approval to 41.4-42.1%. EUR deposits rose from 41.5% to 55.5-56.4%. These gains held consistently over the following months as the operator expanded and fine-tuned their configurations.
Beyond the headline metrics, the routing setup delivered several compounding benefits:
Fewer declines and retries
Accurate method selection sharply reduced avoidable declines, cutting down on repeated attempts and removing friction that previously stalled players mid-deposit.
Higher FTD conversion
With more first-time deposits being processed on the first attempt—especially for players using foreign-issued cards—conversion rates improved without any changes to the acquisition channels.
More predictable revenue
Stabilized approval rates in both EUR and USD reduced day-to-day volatility, providing the commercial team with a more reliable foundation for forecasting and campaign planning.
Operational efficiency
Payments specialists shifted from reactive troubleshooting to proactive optimization. With full control over routing logic, they could introduce new rules, test adjustments, or isolate specific behaviors instantly. Automatic rule disabling removed the need to manually update limits and method descriptions when provider conditions changed.
Long-term performance resilience
The uplift wasn’t a one-off spike. As the operator expanded routing to cover more currencies and scenarios, performance continued to improve and remained stable even as traffic mixes changed.
Together, these outcomes demonstrated a clear pattern: when each transaction is matched to the right provider, the entire payment flow becomes more efficient, more predictable, and more profitable.
