The sportsbook industry is a difficult industry to find credit card processing for. Most sportsbook merchants spend an extended amount of time looking for new solutions. Start up sportsbook merchants will even have a tougher road ahead of them when it comes to obtaining a merchant account. These merchants will need to provide a package of documents to the bank or processor showing that they will be able to grow their online sportsbook with substantial growth once they have been approved and setup with a merchant account. Sportsbooks looking for credit card processing that have previously processed payments will find that the underwriting and approval process is much easier than a start up sportsbook.
Sportsbooks are categorized as high risk for a number of reasons. The largest of them is their legalities in different areas. Sportsbooks that are categorized as coded operate in countries that are legal to do so. These sportsbooks accept credit cards and debit cards only from residents of countries outside of the United States. This is completely legal and most sportsbooks operate this way. The illegalities begin when sportsbooks want to start accepting payments from United States citizens and United States residents. This is one of the main reasons that online gambling is one of the toughest industries to place. Merchants already operating in this market are aware of this and must make sure that their business has all of their processing history in order when looking for a new merchant processor.
New sportsbook merchants should make sure that they have their website fully completed and all of their licenses in place before starting to contact high risk processors. The bank is going to require a number of documents before they begin underwriting. In high risk businesses, previous payment processing history is the most important item to underwriters. If you do not have this, you will be required to provide information that will be able to let the bank know that your account will not be a small account. This is usually done by providing financials of some sort when applying. Merchants that have money in their business bank account are serious about their business. These businesses will be investing money into building their company. Smaller start up merchants with little to no money in the bank will be less likely to have a high volume and the banks consider this a waste of their time. It takes a bank the same amount of time to setup a large merchant as it would to setup a small merchant so they do not want to spend their time on smaller merchants.
Offshore Merchants has been setting up merchants with payment processing, credit card processing and debit card processing since 2007. Offshore Merchants specializes in setting up merchants that have already processed payments before. Unless the merchant is located in the United States, they will not setup start up merchants. It is important that merchants have all of their paperwork and supporting documents together before applying.
Contact one of our helpful account representatives to assist you in the setup of a high risk merchant account or offshore merchant account for a high risk merchant.