Moon shot
Gambling’s crypto payment rails adoption moves a step forward
Paysafe bidding to revive regulated crypto gambling in the US.
In +More: MGM’s LeoVegas secures Swedish betting license.
US economy and New York on execs’ minds at East Coast conference.
Earnings from Rank, Puts+Takes on LiveScore.
Hard Rock Bet is growing – we know you know! And we want to bring in some more maestros to make beautiful music in our Sportsbook. You need to be among the very best in the industry to be considered for these roles. Are you up to it?
Over the Moon
Lunar mission: Paysafe, the payments behemoth known for its Skrill wallet, pre-paid cards and Paysafe cash, has stepped forward with a new crypto product for US iGaming and fantasy sports markets.
Pay with Crypto is enabled by MoonPay, a non-custodial crypto payments infrastructure provider, with some 30 million retail customers across 180 countries.
“Galvanized by the growing popularity of stablecoins, cryptocurrency is evolving in the US from an investment asset into a unit of value for payments, and we’re seeing this shift gather pace in the country’s iGaming market,” said Zak Cutler, president of global gaming at Paysafe.
Can you drive stick? “Crypto has been stuck in neutral for a couple of years, so this is a positive signal for adoption,” Chris Grove from EKG told E+M.
One small step for a man: “Any step towards making it easier for players to transact in the currency of their choice is a positive step,” he added.
License and registration, please: MoonPay holds a New York BitLicense, a New York Limited Purpose Trust Charter, money transmitter licenses across the US and has obtained MiCA authorization in the EU.
I like big buts: MoonPay’s crypto and stablecoin infrastructure will give iGaming operators’ customers the chance to use stablecoin or cryptocurrency to fund their player accounts, but only where that is permitted.
Ivan Soto-Wright, founder and CEO of MoonPay, conceded that without the ability to influence crypto regulation “our job is to close the gap between this technology and real-world utility.”
“People shouldn’t have to convert their digital assets just to make a purchase – they want to use what they already have.”
Rug burn: Right now the regulatory landscape for crypto payments in the US is not especially permissive or friction-free, despite urgings from the Financial Action Task Force that jurisdictions should not try to sustain a prohibitive approach but instead find ways to supervise virtual assets.
The seven US states currently allowing licensed online casinos all require crypto to be converted to fiat before play.
Colorado and Wyoming have approved crypto payments for sports betting, but again with the obligation to first convert deposits to fiat.
Heat it up: Cutler told E+M that Paysafe feels the new Pay with Crypto product will “meet player demand in the states where crypto deposits are currently permitted.”
“A strong crypto product that satisfies operators and players will very likely positively influence other states to consider the value of crypto in the iGaming space,” he added.
Heat shield: According to Grove, payments remain a “pain point for US players, so any time you have got a licensed payment provider advocating for the adoption or the expansion of adoption that is a notable event.”
One giant leap for mankind: “But it may be more of a first step than a last step given the slow pace of adoption” he added.
Rare beast: Paysafe cites 2026 Research from Security.org, which suggests ~70.4 million or 30% of American adults now own cryptocurrency, a number close to its historic 2022 peak of 33%.
In March, Paysafe surveyed players across multiple state markets, and 83% had an appetite for funding deposits by crypto – particularly bitcoin and USDT when permitted – but cashiers accepting crypto deposits are still rare among operators.
“There may be a pathway, but it’s not common to see,” confirmed Grove.
Big fish: Paysafe has scale on its side with ~2,800 employees across 12 countries and annualized transactional volume of $167bn in 2025.
From the player-side, Pay with Crypto links their crypto or custodial wallet to fund each deposit via MoonPay Checkout, and also supports mobile phone transactions via QR codes.
Operators will settle payments in stablecoins in their business’ crypto wallet, or settle in US dollars or fiat currency through MoonPay’s Virtual Accounts.
Current estimates from regulatory consultancy Regulus put the potential global value for crypto gambling at $40bn NGR, roughly on par with the global gray market and a third of the size of the domestically regulated market.
Out of Africa: But increasingly it is emerging markets, where payments such as mobile money are costly to process, that the use case for crypto is most compelling,
Is it a bird? Late last year Super Group, which now draws more than 40% of its group revenues from Africa, announced its own proprietary fiat-backed Supercoin and a new Supercoin Wallet for South Africa and the rest of the continent.
Supercoin expects to provide payment options for customers using Super Group’s sportsbook brand Betway. It will be listed on regulated cryptocurrency exchange Luno and made available to customers in South Africa.
Locked up: Custody of ZAR Supercoin fiat currency backing reserves will be held by tier-1 South African bank ABSA Group, with blockchain security monitoring from Chainalysis.
Does your Bet Builder supplier or in-house Same Game Multi solution support 12 sports, including all of the main global betting sports, plus local variants and even eSports? Does your product allow your end-users to place both Pre-Match and In:Play Bet Builders across multiple sports? Can you offer cashout across all Bet Builder transactions? Does your solution use your own odds rather than another opinion of the market? If the answer to any of these is ‘no’ then come and find out why over 200 operators are using the Algosport Bet Builder solution today.
+More
Burning bright: MGM Resorts’ LeoVegas has secured a Swedish betting license for its GoGoCasino brand, enabling the launch of its proprietary Tiger sportsbook in the market. The rollout expands Tiger’s international footprint following launches in Denmark, the Netherlands and Brazil. Acquired from Tipico in 2024, Tiger underpins LeoVegas’ strategy to control its technology stack.
Read across
Cold desert: A federal judge in Arizona has temporarily blocked the state from pursuing criminal charges against Kalshi, after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission intervened and asked the court to preserve the existing federal framework. From Tuesday’s C+M.
E+M PRO
The new regime: New Entain CFO Michael Snape used his debut call to telegraph a shift in financial philosophy: cash generation and deleveraging are now explicitly ranked as his top priorities, tying future capital decisions directly to balance sheet repair, with both described as areas with “a lot to go for.”
See yesterday’s Earnings Extra edition (PRO subscribers only).
Director of VIP – Panama City
Commercial Manager – Remote in Europe
Chief Product Officer – Tbilisi
East Coast conference report
March winds, April showers: The Iran war has hit the US economy primarily through rising gas prices and higher inflation, risking the potential for a recession, with gaming executives noticing an impact on their bottom lines.
“You know March was a tough month,” Jim Allen, chair of Hard Rock International and CEO of Seminole Gaming, told E+M at the East Coast Gaming Congress in Atlantic City this week.
“But frankly, April, so far, has been nice. Not unbelievably great but nice.”
“I think that a lot of people when they look online at their retirement or see gas going from $2.80 a gallon to $4-plus a gallon, they say this is a little scary,” he added.
“I think the up and down of the tariff conversation, I think the stock market moving the way it has moved, it creates uncertainty, and there’s no doubt that people that have discretionary income are cautious.”
How low can you go? E+M also spoke with Soo Kim, chair of Bally’s Corp., and Tim Drehkoff, CEO of Rush Street Gaming, to understand how the current economic conditions are affecting their mass-market consumers.
In terms of the war with Iran and rising gas prices, Drehkoff said his company hasn’t felt any impact yet.
“It doesn’t mean we won’t, but we haven’t seen it,” he added.
“Over the last few years, I’ll say with inflation and now, our higher-end customers, rated players have been much stronger and have been driving whatever growth we have,” said Drehkoff.
“We’ve seen the lower end, not as loyal, not as much spending, fall off. Our rated play has been doing okay. It’s our unrated, lower-end play that just keeps going away.”
“We really start to see the impact when the labor market starts to weaken, and we haven’t seen that yet.”
The division bell: At Bally’s, Kim agreed that it was a similar struggle to retain the mass-market player, attributing the decline to a “bit of a dichotomous economy” we’re in now. “Overall, the numbers look OK,” he said. “There’s the have and the have nots, and I think we recognize that our business is sort of structured to that mass business.”
“We’re definitely feeling a reasonable amount of headwind, but still OK,” he added.
Kim noted that the gaming industry has been through worse times, but the current economic landscape is not great.”
“I think affordability is a real issue, and that’s the reason why elections are the way they are, because people are unhappy with the price of things. We’ve gone on for too long without focusing on inflation, because inflation is a tax on those without capital.”
New York state of mind: Both Bally’s and Hard Rock received gaming licenses to build and operate a casino in Downstate New York. Kim described the decision as a “game changer.”
“New York was going to be the best market in the world. OK, wait, maybe not the world, but it’s the best market in America,” Kim said.
He noted that even with three new casinos there would be 25,000 to 30,000 game positions in Downstate New York for 16 million people, while Illinois has 80,000 game positions for 11.5 million people.
City limits: Kim warned that anyone not preparing for a New York gaming market needs to understand that you’re at risk of losing half of your customers and revenues are going to dramatically decline in Atlantic City.
Allen agreed, saying that with table games launching within the next 30 days in New York, it will have a direct impact on Atlantic City as soon as it happens.
He added that it’s not an exaggeration to expect Atlantic City casinos to lose 20% to 30% of their gross gaming revenue from the New York market.
Right here, right now: When asked if there was a situation where Hard Rock would no longer operate an Atlantic City casino, Allen proclaimed: “Right now, our commitment is to stay here.”
Puts+Takes – LiveScore
R U UK honey? LiveScore’s full-year numbers to March 2025 tell two stories at once, suggested the team at Regulus. On the surface, 15% group revenue growth to £206m and a £24m improvement in EBITDA losses look like a business finding its feet.
Dig in, and the picture is considerably more complicated with the UK doing the heavy lifting, the analysts argued.
Regulus estimates UK online gambling grew around 33% for the period, roughly 20 percentage points ahead of the market, with LiveScore Bet and Virgin Bet together adding approximately 30bps of market share.
The analysts argued the underlying logic of the model, turning a high-reach sports-content audience into betting customers and then cross-selling into gaming, is visibly working.
But this is in the one market where it has had time and resources to bed in.
Cobbled together: Outside the UK, it is a harder read. The Netherlands closure cost £6m in revenue this period with another £12m headwind still to come. Nigerian naira softness accounted for much of a 14% decline in Rest of World revenues.
Bulgaria was exited post-period and South Africa only launched in February 2026.
The international portfolio looks less like a growth engine and more like a series of expensive lessons in market selection, Regulus said.
The balance sheet reflects all of it. Cumulative P&L losses now sit at £279m, with net assets of just £2.7m. There is not much cushion for further setbacks.
Absorption: The April 2026 increase in UK online gaming GGR tax to 40%, which Regulus estimates will be a £20m-£25m pre-mitigation headwind, adds another complication, though the team makes the argument that LiveScore is better placed than most to absorb it.
Octoplay is live in Spain! 🇪🇸 By bringing its premium slot portfolio to the region, the studio further solidifies its position as a key player in the European iGaming landscape.
Rank earnings
Heads up: Rank delivered a broadly encouraging third-quarter trading update, reporting group like-for-like NGR up 5% to £205m for the three months to March, with YTD NGR up 6% to £625.2m.
The headline news was a profit upgrade: full-year underlying LFL operating profit is now expected to be at least £68m, ahead of prior analyst expectations.
The land-based businesses were the standout performers. Grosvenor venues grew LFL NGR 5% to £95m, with gaming machines the fastest-growing vertical at +10%.
Gimme more: Regulus noted the division still has more to give as the expanded machine estate is optimized, reflecting improving venue quality and customer experience remains a more powerful driver of land-based performance than the oft-cited headwind of channel shift to digital.
Mecca venues grew 5% to £37.8m, with the recent abolition of Bingo duty from 1 April providing an additional tailwind that should accelerate the group’s target of double-digit operating profit from that business in 2026/27.
Enracha, Rank’s Spanish operation, was the fastest-growing division at +9% in Q3, driven by gaming machines, which surged 27%.
It’s complicated: The UK digital business was the more complicated picture. LFL NGR grew just 2%, which Regulus characterized as a real-terms decline of around 1% when inflation is factored in.
Still overpaying for geolocation? Find out why over 25 operators have upgraded to GeoLocs!
Connections
Inspired Entertainment has signed a distribution agreement with Playtech to deliver its Virtual Sports portfolio via Playtech’s sportsbook platform globally. Kambi’s esports unit Abios has signed a multi-year deal with Google to supply esports data across major titles.
DAZN has partnered with ADI Predictstreet, FIFA’s official 2026 World Cup prediction market partner, to integrate real-time prediction markets into its streaming platform. The deal embeds interactive forecasting and sentiment tracking into live broadcasts, aiming to deepen fan engagement and blur lines between sports viewing, data-driven prediction and betting-like participation.
Increase Operator Margins with EDGE Boost Today!
EDGE Boost is the first dedicated bank account for bettors.
Increase Cash Access: On/Offline with $250k/day debit limits
No Integration or Costs: Compatible today with all operators via VISA debit rails
Incremental Non-Gaming Revenue: Up to 1% operator rebate on transactions
Lower Costs: Increase debit throughput to reduce costs against ACH/Wallets
Eliminate Chargebacks and Disputes
Eliminate Debit Declines
Built-in Responsible Gaming tools
To learn more, contact Matthew Cullen, chief strategy officer: Matthew@edgemarkets.io
Upcoming earnings
Apr 20: Bally’s Intralot
Apr 22: Evolution, Churchill Downs (earnings), Las Vegas Sands
Apr 23: Penn Entertainment, Churchill Downs (call), Boyd Gaming
Apr 24: Betsson
Gambling.com Group [Nasdaq: GAMB] is fueling the online gambling industry with unmatched performance marketing solutions. Leveraging proprietary technology, a diverse portfolio of premium websites, and the newly acquired consumer-facing OddsJam and B2B service provider, OpticOdds, $GAMB connects operators to high-value players across the globe.
Positioned as a dynamic leader in the sector, Gambling.com Group is an engine of growth and profitability, backed by a proven track record of driving revenue for operators in sports betting, iGaming, and beyond.
Visit our investor page to see why it’s the platform behind the industry’s most successful operators.
An +More Media publication.
For sponsorship inquiries email scott@andmore.media.