Category: Gambling Features

Original reporting, analysis, interviews, and long-form features covering gambling, sports betting, casino regulation, and prediction markets.

WSEX Co-Founder Jay Cohen on the Sportsbook That Saw the Future of Modern Sports Betting

WSEX Co-Founder Jay Cohen on the Sportsbook That Saw the Future of Modern Sports Betting

Before DraftKings and FanDuel, before Kalshi and Polymarket, there was Jay Cohen and World Sports Exchange.

When the gambling industry looks back on its modern roots, the conversation often begins with the Supreme Court striking down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018, opening the door for states to legalize sports betting.

From there, it often turns to the rise of DraftKings and FanDuel, the normalization of sportsbook advertising, and the legal fights that will ultimately determine the future of prediction markets.

Cohen sees it differently.

Back in 1996, Cohen, Steve Schillinger, and Haden Ware launched World Sports Exchange, better known as WSEX, from the small Eastern Caribbean island of Antigua.

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Exclusive: BetFury to Roll Out Utexo’s Bitcoin Lightning USDT Payments This Summer

Exclusive: BetFury to Roll Out Utexo’s Bitcoin Lightning USDT Payments This Summer

CasinoBeats can exclusively reveal that BetFury has partnered with Utexo to bring Bitcoin Lightning-based USDT payments to its platform this summer. 

Once live, the integration will be one of the first major deployments of the technology at scale in iGaming, giving BetFury users a new way to deposit and withdraw USDT.

To understand the stakes, it helps to take a look back at the original promise of crypto casinos.

From the very beginning, these platforms were marketed as being built around freedom: Players wouldn’t have to deal with banks, there’d be no waiting, deposits would be processed in seconds, and users could play from anywhere, all while moving money whenever they wanted.

However, in practice, things haven’t always panned out exactly as expected.

Moving funds into and out of crypto gaming platforms can still mean waiting 30 minutes, sometimes an hour, or even longer, as transactions get caught up between a centralized exchange, a compliance queue, and payment rails that were never really built for instant settlement at casino scale.

That is the exact gap that BetFury and Utexo are betting they can close.

CasinoBeats sat down with Utexo co-founder Viktor Ihnatiuk to discuss the BetFury rollout, why he believes crypto casinos still have a payments problem, and why Utexo wants to bring USDT back to Bitcoin.

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Ubertesters CEO Ran Rachlin: iGaming Payments Are About Trust, Not Just Transactions

Ubertesters CEO Ran Rachlin: iGaming Payments Are About Trust, Not Just Transactions

When a payment fails on Amazon, most of us would agree it’s annoying. When a payment fails on an iGaming platform, that same glitch can set off alarm bells.

Maybe it’s a stalled deposit. Maybe a payment option customers are familiar with is missing. Maybe a player clears one identity check, then gets caught up in another before withdrawing their winnings.

An operator may chalk these things up to simple technical hiccups. However, from the user’s perspective, they can raise a pretty damaging question: Can I trust this platform with my money?

That psychological gap is exactly what Ran Rachlin, co-founder and CEO of crowd testing firm Ubertesters, sees when he looks at payment friction in iGaming.

In a wide-ranging interview with CasinoBeats, Rachlin said operators often treat deposits, withdrawals, know-your-customer (KYC) checks, and local payment options as just another set of technical steps in their launch plans.

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Former Betway Director Jon Russell: U.S. is Asking the Wrong Question About Prediction Markets

Former Betway Director Jon Russell: U.S. is Asking the Wrong Question About Prediction Markets

Watching the prediction markets fight unfold, it’s clear there’s no shortage of moving parts.

It has a crowded cast. There are state regulators, tribal gaming leaders, federal agencies, sportsbooks, and platforms trying to defend a business model that cuts across old regulatory lines.

From lawsuits and cease-and-desist orders to a larger fight over who gets to decide what these products actually are, the plot has plenty of conflict. But for all the drama and debate, what may be missing is a rearview mirror.

Jon Russell, a veteran sports-trading and integrity executive, has seen parts of this movie before.

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Prediction Markets: Trading, Gambling, or Both? Why the Debate Matters for Consumer Protections

Prediction Markets: Trading, Gambling, or Both? Why the Debate Matters for Consumer Protections

Ask ten people about prediction markets, and you’ll likely get ten different answers.

To some, they’re nothing more than sportsbooks dressed up in financial clothing. To others, they’re sophisticated tools for hedging real-world risk.

However, for the average user, the experience is much less abstract. For them, it’s simply this: put your money on an uncertain outcome, cross your fingers, and hope for the best.

Prediction markets have experienced rapid growth over the last year, with Kalshi and Polymarket reaching multibillion-dollar valuations.

As they continue to expand into sports and other consumer-facing categories, the debate over what prediction markets really are, and what protections they owe their users, is becoming harder to ignore.

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