Merchant Account for Fantasy Sports Business [ [Instant Approval]

No. There is no long-term contract and no early-termination penalty; accounts are month-to-month once approved.

Your EIN and formation docs, three months of processing and bank statements, contest rules documenting the UIGEA carve-out, your state DFS registration filings, your geofencing rule set, a player-fund segregation plan, government-issued ID for the principal, and a KYC/AML program summary.

For states with a registration or licensing requirement, yes — you should be registered in the states you accept entries from. If filings are pending, apply anyway and we will stage the file against your registration timeline.

Yes — that is one of the most common reasons operators come to us. Aggregator termination is a policy outcome and does not disqualify you from a dedicated MID.

Yes. A registered legal entity with a valid EIN is required, and new operators are approved on contest rules, registrations, and a documented compliance plan in place of processing history.

Personal credit is one factor, not a gate. Approvals weigh business model, volume, compliance, and processing history — founders with weak credit are regularly approved.

Via REST API, hosted checkout, or our iOS and Android SDK. Most operators are integrated the same day credentials are issued.

Paid-entry fantasy is priced at the top high-risk tier, typically from 4.95% + $0.30, quoted before you commit based on volume, contest mix, dispute history, and payout model.

Usually not, and the arithmetic is worth running. A point of discount rate is small next to the share of deposits that never fund at all — most operators recover more from correct coding and routing than from a rate negotiation.

Often yes. Season-long collects once and disputes less per dollar than continuous daily play, so the risk profile — and sometimes the rate — differs even though both board under the same code.

Yes. As you build processing history and hold a low chargeback ratio, rates and reserve terms are reviewed and can be reduced.

Interchange is the fee the card networks set and pay to issuers. Interchange-plus pricing passes it through transparently with a fixed markup, available on qualifying accounts.

Usually yes — a 5–10% rolling reserve is standard at the top tier, and it is sized against prize-pool liability rather than raw volume. It releases on a rolling schedule.

Funding is typically next-day to 48 hours depending on the acquirer and your reserve schedule.

The UIGEA fantasy carve-out has three prongs: prizes are established and made known in advance and do not depend on the number of entrants or total entry fees; outcomes reflect relative knowledge and skill and turn predominantly on the accumulated statistics of multiple real-world athletes across multiple contests; and no outcome is based on a single game's score or point spread, or solely on one athlete's performance.

Yes. Season-long, redraft, keeper, and dynasty formats are underwritten alongside daily slates, with the player-fund float reviewed because entry fees are held for months.

Yes. Both are underwritten regularly, and guaranteed prize pools are reviewed for overlay exposure as part of the file.

Honestly, it depends and the ground is moving. Several states have taken the position that player-vs-house prop contests are sports wagering rather than fantasy, and have issued cease-and-desist letters on that basis. We review these case by case and state by state, and we will tell you plainly where we can and cannot place you.

Yes. Platforms collecting dues on behalf of private leagues are underwritten, with attention to the fact that you hold funds you never own.

No. Sports wagering and fantasy are underwritten differently and are structured as separate MIDs, usually under one master relationship, so ratios and coding stay isolated.

Yes. Offshore MIDs are available where jurisdiction, volume, or payout model calls for them.

Most often because the MID is coded MCC 7995 (betting and casino gambling) rather than 7994. A large share of US issuers decline 7995 card funding outright, so the deposit dies at the issuer and never appears as a loss in your reporting.

It appears on your merchant statement and in your processing agreement. If you cannot find it, send us a recent statement and we will read it for you before you apply.

Approximately 98% of complete, compliant applications are approved. The biggest driver of rejection is a missing state registration or an incomplete geofencing plan.

Most complete applications are reviewed within one business hour, with go-live inside 48 hours.

The initial review is a soft, no-credit-pull underwriting check. A hard pull only occurs if you proceed and it is disclosed first.

MATCH-listed merchants are considered case by case. Bring the context and we will tell you honestly whether we can place you and on what terms.

Most commonly contest rules that do not clearly satisfy the carve-out, a missing registration in a state you accept entries from, or geofencing that does not block prohibited states.

Push-to-card withdrawals through Visa Direct and Mastercard Send settle same-day in most cases, with ACH used for larger balances.

Under most state fantasy statutes, yes — player funds must be segregated from operating funds with a reserve at least equal to player deposits, often subject to an annual third-party audit. We board the MID against that structure rather than settling everything into one account.

Yes. Evidence packages carry device fingerprint, geolocation, login history, and lineup-entry logs, which together show a real player really did enter the contest.

Our dispute team files evidence packages that typically resolve within 45 days of the chargeback.

Promotional credit complicates the refund picture, because a disputed deposit may have already been partly played through as bonus funds. Clear bonus terms and a visible playthrough balance prevent more disputes than any evidence package wins.

Generally sustained ratios above ~0.9% (Visa) risk monitoring programs. We watch this monthly and intervene early.

A network program (Visa/Mastercard) triggered when your ratio exceeds thresholds. Our alerts and reserves are designed to keep you well below them.

Stripe and Square restrict real-money contests and close accounts on detection, typically with settlement in flight. 2Accept gives you a dedicated MID coded 7994 with a gaming-friendly acquirer that survives dispute spikes and kickoff weekend.

PayPal's user agreement prohibits most real-money contests and holds funds aggressively. A dedicated MID keeps your funds and your account under your control.

Game of skill covers the broader skill-gaming category — duels, brackets, esports, trivia, and arcade formats — underwritten on a general predominance-of-skill argument. Fantasy sports is underwritten against the UIGEA fantasy carve-out and the state DFS registration regimes specifically. If you run both, one master relationship can carry both MIDs.

Yes. Multi-MID cascading load-balances volume across accounts and fails over automatically, which is also how declined deposits get a second path.

We underwrite real-money contests specifically — carve-out review, state registrations, MCC coding, BIN routing, and player-fund structure — rather than generic high-risk placement.

Those are gateways, not acquirers. We provision the underlying MID and can run it behind NMI or Authorize.net if you prefer.

In most cases yes — we can place a new MID behind your existing gateway with minimal reintegration, which is the fastest way to fix a coding problem.