Here’s what I like about working with the Competitions sector: there’s a refreshing honesty to it. I think that’s driven by the players themselves; if they enter a competition, they want to win what they were promised.  

That player mindset shapes how the sector works; people succeed here who are straight shooters, who deliver what they promise, who act with pace and urgency and who stay focused on the players and doing right by them.  

As the CEO of a payments business, it’s a reminder of what we need to do, both at DNA Payments and across the wider industry, to better serve the sector’s needs. PSPs have underinvested in this sector in the past. They’ve made competition sites put up with high costs and substandard service. Historically, the payments sector has been fragmented; responsibility is split among different partners, who each take a cut and then pass the buck if things go wrong.  

In other words, when it comes to payments in the competitions sector, there are still too many Ladas parked in too many driveways, not the Lamborghinis we thought we would win. 

That’s why, when we were looking at how to start working with competition sites, we felt we had to do things differently. We had to bring to the table payments services that felt different – better – than what the competitions sector has put up with in the past.  

Firstly, it helps that DNA Payments is built differently. We have our own acquiring license, as well as our full payment gateway, so we can handle all card payments in one place. That means one point of contact for any day-to-day support – a point of contact who can actually help, without passing you over to a third party. Supporting that offering is our wider suite of services like payouts, cash advances, and Euro acquiring and settlements alongside GBP. 

But more importantly, we needed to think less like a payments company and bring that same mindset that competition site owners bring to their own businesses. That means acting quickly, keeping our promises, and being a safe pair of hands for one of the most important parts of a competition site’s operations. Having a team dedicated to the sector who only work on Competitions guarantees we understand what the operators need and when they ask a question, we are always there – irrespective of the time of day (and we will give honest advice – no excuses, nowhere to hide). 

Get this right, and payments stop being a pain point and start to fade into the background. Like the quiet purr of a Lamborghini in a 20mph zone, maybe?