This week: Hedge funds are coming for sports betting, prediction market arbitrage

Also: SBC reveals the lineup of startups heading to First Pitch next month, and how Soap Payments plans to clean up a messy payment landscape for operators.

Payments are messy for operators, and Soap Payments wants to clean it up

Filip Michalsky and his co-founders are building the payments layer that real-money gaming operators have always needed but had to cobble together themselves.

This week: No-code platforms are gaining traction in real-money gaming sector

Also: Fast Draft and FantasySpin merge to win over the 60M fantasy players sportsbooks left behind, and ChatBet expands WhatsApp-based betting to LATAM.

Fast Draft, FantasySpin merger wants to champion fantasy as operators shift to sports betting and prediction markets

Fast Draft founder Matt Kelley says the combined entity plans to “make fantasy great again” by staying focused on the core audience and not deviating to adjacent product segments.

This week: XO Market raises $6M to build the “YouTube of prediction markets”

Also: Elastic’s $2M raise to develop AI agents for prediction markets, and how Hydrastack converts land-based slot games into online-ready versions at a fraction of the time and cost.

Hydrastack is building the fastest way to bring land-based casino games online

The Hydrastack co-founders are building an AI-powered platform that converts land-based casino games to online in weeks—solving a supply chain problem that's frustrated manufacturers, operators, and players for years.

This week: Lucra scores $20M to help brands build P2P experiences

Also: eyeDP closed a seed round to scale document fraud detection, and GridGorilla plans to reinvent the Super Bowl squares format into something digital, and bigger.

GridGorilla plans to reinvent the Super Bowl squares format into something bigger

Co-founders Nathan Thomas and Brett Debari are bootstrapping a patented squares-style prediction game, and why they see it as a low-friction onboarding funnel for the broader real-money gaming category.

This week: BetHog’s ambitious plan to roll out AI dealers and “take over” the category

Also: We’re partnering with Defy The Odds to elevate startups and founders, and why LuckyDraw thinks prize draws can help operators court customers.

LuckyDraw is building prize draw tech to help operators court customers

Former Bragg executive Yaniv Spielberg says anyone can win money, but customers will always remember the operator that gave them World Cup tickets or a Rolex watch.

BetHog raises $10M to “take over” the live dealer category with AI

CEO Nigel Eccles outlines BetHog’s ambitious plans to roll out AI dealers through its new B2B arm, Sentient Studios.

Waterhouse VC: Business Pitches