NOWPayments Review
6.0/10A crypto-only gateway from the ChangeNOW exchange team, carrying 350+ cryptocurrencies with custom token listing, per-player deposit addresses for casinos, and fees of 0.5% and 1%, contracted through a St. Vincent and the Grenadines LLC that holds no license and whose terms exclude EU, UK, and US residents.
Our read
- 350+ cryptocurrencies across a dozen-plus chains, plus custom token listing, which BAZEDBET used to add its own BAZED token.
- 0.5% without conversion, 1% with, a 0% service fee on payouts, and no setup fees, monthly fees, or turnover minimums.
- Public Postman API docs and a full sandbox mirror usable before KYB.
- Seven years of operation, and a default pass-through flow that settles each payment straight to the operator's own wallet, leaving no balance inside the system.
- Custody, mass payouts, and the fiat off-ramp all park funds with a third-party custodian for which FD Transfers LLC does not remain responsible, with hot-versus-cold storage at that provider's discretion.
- No licenses anywhere, so an EEA-facing operator using it after the July 1, 2026 MiCA cutoff is transacting with an unauthorized provider.
- The contract runs through FD Transfers LLC in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which took over from a Seychelles entity in December 2025, while day-to-day operations sit in Tallinn.
Curacao-grade and unlicensed crypto casinos that want maximum coin breadth (including their own token), $0 fixed costs, and a launch they can test in the sandbox before signing, plus Telegram and TON-native products following the TON Poker path.
Any EEA, UK, or US-licensed operator (the terms exclude those jurisdictions and no MiCA route exists), anyone who needs a regulated counterparty, and operators planning to run custody balances or mass payouts at scale without pricing in the custody terms.
Markets & licensing
NOWPayments holds no license or registration in any jurisdiction. Its terms, dated April 13, 2026, say services are not rendered to residents or citizens of the EU, the UK, or the US, and that anyone from those places who uses them anyway does so at their own risk. St. Vincent and the Grenadines, where the contracting entity sits, does not license or supervise crypto providers at all.
No MSB registration and no state money-transmitter licenses, so there is no compliant route for a US-facing operator here.
The UK sits in the same exclusion as the EU and US, and no FCA registration of any kind exists. A UK-licensed operator would be routing player money through a counterparty that has disclaimed the UK in writing.
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Licensing tier: NOWPayments holds no MiCA CASP authorization, while CoinGate, Confirmo, BVNK, and Triple-A all hold one.
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Live usage concentrates in offshore, Curacao-grade operations.
The exclusion is contractual rather than technical, and the terms shift the risk of access from excluded places onto the user. Gambling is absent from the prohibited-business list in the terms.
Methods & rails
What you can reach
Payout rails
Processing features
Integrations & engineering
One contract and one API instead of a separate deal per studio, feed, or PSP. Here's what connects, how fast, and on what stack.
Integration is direct REST API with x-api-key authentication and HMAC-signed IPN callbacks, documented on Postman for standard e-commerce and invoice payments. The full sandbox at sandbox.nowpayments.io mirrors production and requires no KYB, so the build can be finished before onboarding starts. Lighter surfaces (invoices, widget, payment links, WooCommerce plugin, white label, POS) cover non-casino use cases.
Products & tools
One gateway with two personalities: a pass-through deposit flow that settles straight to the operator's wallet, and a balance layer that moves funds to a third-party custodian, wrapped in an iGaming toolkit with a no-KYB sandbox.
Crypto Payment Gateway
The deposit engine: players pay to dynamically generated addresses across 350+ cryptocurrencies and a dozen-plus chains, NOWPayments converts if asked (autoconversion runs on sister exchange ChangeNOW), and the default flow pays out to the merchant's own wallet with no balance held.
- 350+ cryptocurrencies
- Chains include ERC20, BSC, TRC20, Polygon, Solana, Avalanche, Arbitrum, and zkSync Era, plus custom token listing (BAZEDBET integrated its own BAZED token)
- Autoconversion to a settlement coin powered by ChangeNOW, with a fixed-rate option that locks the quote and moves volatility risk to the gateway
- 0.5% fee without conversion, 1% with autoconversion or fixed rate, plus network fees
- Per-currency-pair minimum payment amounts exposed through a dedicated API endpoint
- Contract-level handling for wrong-asset deposits, repeated deposits, and stuck payments (the Push feature)
Custody Balance
The opt-in balance layer: a custody account that avoids double network fees, single-API-call mass payouts to player wallets at a 0% service fee, off-chain conversions at 0.5%, and a crypto-to-fiat off-ramp, all of which require leaving funds inside the system.
- Mass payouts to many wallets in one API call, for casino player withdrawals
- 0% service fee on withdrawals and mass payouts, network fee only
- $0-fee payouts to ChangeNOW PRO accounts via API and dashboard
- Off-chain conversions between own balances at 0.5%
- Fiat off-ramp through third-party providers with their own variable fees
- Legal ownership of custodied assets stays with the merchant
iGaming Toolkit
A built-out casino vertical: a casino integration guide, fiat on-ramp for player deposits, fixed-rate volatility protection, public Postman docs, and a full sandbox that needs no KYB.
- 0.5% for deposits and 0% for payouts on the casino rate card
- Permanent per-player deposit addresses instead of one-off invoices
- Public API reference on Postman covering payments, mass payouts, conversions, recurring payments, and fiat payouts
- Full sandbox mirror at sandbox.nowpayments.io, testable before any KYB
- Fiat on-ramp for player deposits across about 21 currencies via third-party providers
- Dashboard with role-based access, withdrawal whitelisting, and 2FA, plus a personal manager 24/7 for casino merchants
The history
Longevity in this industry usually comes with a change of owner somewhere in it.
NOWPayments launched in 2019 as a spin-off of the ChangeNOW crypto exchange, and operations have run from Tallinn ever since.
Brands & clients on the platform
Corporate
Milestones
- 2019
Launched by the team behind the ChangeNOW exchange, with the brand kept inside the NOW product family (ChangeNOW, NOWNodes, NOW Wallet).
- 2022
FD Transfers LLC is formed in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
- 2024
The terms name NOWPayments Ltd in Seychelles as the operating entity.
- 2025
The contract moves to FD Transfers LLC in St. Vincent and the Grenadines on December 15.
- 2026
New terms dated April 13 exclude EU, UK, and US residents.
Where they're pushing next
- Telegram and TON-native gambling, the TON Poker route
- Long-tail offshore casino brands
Longevity and ownership
Switching vendors is expensive, which makes the company's staying power part of the purchase. What the contract says about your data decides how expensive an exit gets.
NOWPayments vs alternatives
Most buyers in this market shortlist three or four vendors long before they take a single sales call.
| Attribute | NOWPayments | CoinGate | CoinsPaid | Confirmo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2019 | 2014 | 2014 | 2014 |
| Team | 22+ | 50+ | 200+ | — |
| US market | Restricted | Restricted | Restricted | Restricted |
| Pricing | Public | Public | Public | — |
| Currencies | 21+ | 3+ | 40+ | — |
| Coins | 350+ | 20+ | 20+ | 10+ |
| EMI / PI licenses | — | Lithuania | — | Ireland |
| Settlement | Per transaction, in minutes | Weekly on Standard, weekly or on-request on Enterprise | Near-instant crypto-to-fiat at a rate locked when the payment is made | Bank-account settlements that can be fully automated and recurring, with near-instant crypto settlement |
| Instant payouts | Yes | — | Yes | — |
Settlement & commercials
NOWPayments publishes pricing. Those figures are below, and final terms still land in the contract.
Flat per-transaction percentage on deposits (0.5% mono, 1% with conversion) plus network fees, 0.5% off-chain conversions, 0% payout service fee, and per-currency-pair minimum payment amounts served through the API.
Fiat on-ramp and off-ramp fees belong to third-party providers, and volume discounts route through a BD manager.
The deal
Money movement
Onboarding path
- 1Sign up self-serve and scope the build from the public Postman API reference
- 2Run the full deposit and payout flow in the sandbox at sandbox.nowpayments.io before any KYB
- 3Pass simplified KYB
- 4Choose between pass-through settlement to the operator's own wallet and a custody balance
- 5Wire the casino specifics: permanent per-player deposit addresses, IPN callbacks, autoconversion or fixed-rate settings, and withdrawal whitelisting in the dashboard
Support & account management
You can't demo service before you sign, so what a vendor puts in writing is the only floor you can hold it to.