Traffic quality and chargebacks dominate iGaming discussions, but few address the issue at infrastructure level. Alexander Mikhailovski, Chief Product Officer at eComCharge, the company behind the beGateway white-label PSP platform, explains Payment Expert why segmenting primary and secondary traffic during transaction processing is essential for controlling risk, protecting payment channels, and managing costs.
In iGaming, traffic quality, risk, and chargebacks are constant topics — yet at the payment infrastructure level, risk is not always managed systematically. Most PSPs recognize the need to segment traffic by risk level, but implementing that segmentation directly at the processing stage remains challenging.
At the same time, players making their first deposit and players with an established payment history represent very different risk profiles. When this difference is not accounted for during transaction processing, it often surfaces later through chargebacks, higher acquiring costs, or even the suspension of payment channels. In this article, I explain why traffic segmentation matters for both PSPs and operators, and how it can be implemented in practice as a manageable, data-driven mechanism.
This makes segmentation not only a risk tool, but also a direct lever for payment costs and channel stability.
Why segmenting primary and secondary traffic is a systemic market challenge
In iGaming, it is common to distinguish between primary traffic (players who have not previously deposited with a specific casino) and secondary traffic (players with an established history of regular deposits and predictable payment behaviour). For PSPs and payment infrastructure, this distinction is critical: primary traffic is statistically associated with higher levels of chargebacks, refunds, and disputed transactions — and therefore poses greater risk to payment channels.
This risk is directly reflected in acquiring economics. As a result, channels intended for primary traffic are inherently more expensive, with higher risk reflected in their pricing. When segmentation is absent or only implemented formally, elevated acquiring costs are applied across all transactions — including those from reliable and solvent players.
It is also important to recognize the role of information asymmetry. Operators typically have a deeper understanding of a player’s profile and behaviour, while PSPs only see the payment transaction at the moment of processing. Without formal and verifiable criteria, this increases the risk of primary-traffic transactions being routed through channels intended for secondary traffic.
For these reasons, both PSPs and operators have a shared interest in a formal and verifiable segmentation mechanism — one that allows risk to be accounted for at the processing stage rather than addressed reactively after negative outcomes have already materialized.
Traffic segmentation as a manageable, data-driven task
While most industry professionals agree that segmenting primary and secondary traffic is not a matter of subjective judgement or “trust”, in practice such segmentation is not always formalized or embedded into the payment process.
In this context, effective segmentation relies on historical payment data and verifiable criteria that can be applied consistently at the infrastructure level. Repeatable payment behaviour — such as multiple successful deposits over time and the absence of refunds or chargebacks — provides objective indicators that can be used to classify traffic.
It is also important to recognize that there is no universal set of thresholds. In practice, criteria depend on the business model, available payment channels, and the risk appetite of a specific PSP or operator. Once sufficient transaction history is accumulated, segmentation becomes a technical task: trusted transaction criteria are defined (for example, several successful deposits using the same card within a specified time frame, with no refunds or chargebacks), and transactions are automatically routed at the processing stage to channels intended for primary or secondary traffic.
As a result, segmentation shifts from a reactive response to chargebacks and rising acquiring costs to a controlled mechanism embedded directly into the payment processing workflow.
Practical implementation of traffic segmentation on the PSP side
When traffic segmentation is treated not as a concept but as an operational mechanism, the key requirement is the ability to make decisions on the PSP side — and to do so in real time. Transaction classification must happen during processing and should not negatively affect approval rates or the end-user experience.
This requires access to accumulated historical data. Importantly, this does not involve personal player data, but anonymized transactional information that makes it possible to analyse payment instrument usage history — including transaction frequency, successful deposits, and the presence of refunds or chargebacks.
In practice, the analysis does not rely directly on the card number itself. Instead, a card stamp is used — a unique identifier generated by hashing the card number together with its expiry date. This makes it possible to track payment instrument history without exposing sensitive card data and is aligned with security and compliance requirements.
Another critical element is the ability to apply predefined trust criteria directly within the routing logic. A transaction is checked against the defined conditions, and the result is used to select the appropriate payment channel — enabling automated separation of primary and secondary traffic without manual intervention.
In practice, such an approach is implemented within specialized PSP software. For example, on the beGateway platform, transaction classification logic and traffic quality monitoring are embedded into payment processing and routing, allowing the described principles to be applied automatically and without any impact on the user experience.
Finally, traffic quality analytics help monitor changes in incoming traffic structure. An increase in the share of cards used only once can be viewed as an early indicator of a growing proportion of primary traffic and a potential deterioration in overall traffic quality.
Typical usage scenario and conclusions
In real-world operation, the approach described above does not require radical changes to payment architecture or manual oversight. A typical usage scenario combines automated transaction classification at the processing stage with continuous monitoring of incoming traffic quality.
Classification assigns each transaction to primary or secondary traffic based on predefined criteria, and the result is used to route it through the most appropriate payment channel — taking into account cost, acceptable risk levels, and acquirer requirements. At the same time, traffic quality analytics provide early visibility into shifts in traffic structure before they materialize as chargebacks, declining approval rates, or rising acquiring costs.
More broadly, the segmentation of primary and secondary traffic reflects a wider shift towards formalized, risk-based payment management. Instead of reacting after negative outcomes occur, PSPs and operators can account for risk at the moment a transaction is processed and manage payment economics more deliberately.
For PSPs and operators alike, this becomes not a tool of control, but a practical mechanism for aligning interests — increasing payment channel resilience while enabling more conscious control over processing costs in high-risk segments.
In this sense, traffic segmentation is no longer a narrow technical solution, but an element of a more mature payment model for high-risk industries.
