This week: GuardDog invests in Regen’s auto-savings feature

Also: InsightPlay.ai raises $500K for enterprise AI, and EWagers makes a play for skill-based esports wagers.

Author

Cody Luongo
January 22, 2026

GuardDog invests in Regen’s auto-savings feature 

The news: Underdog has invested in Regen through its responsible gaming innovation fund, GuardDog. The partnership will introduce Regen’s automated savings feature into the Underdog platform, allowing players to convert a portion of their wagers into real-world savings. 

Zoom in: Founded in 2025, Regen automatically sets aside a customizable percentage from each wager or trade, regardless of whether it wins or loses. The savings are pulled from a linked checking account and stored in an FDIC-insured wallet, separate from playable funds, with users able to adjust or pause contributions at any time. Later this year, Regen plans to expand savings options to include ETFs, robo-advisor funds, and Roth IRAs.

Why it matters: Underdog operates daily fantasy sports in roughly 40 states and prediction markets in more than two dozen, positioning Regen as a tool capable of spanning multiple product types under one ecosystem. VP of Responsible Gaming Adam Warrington said the investment reflects a broader push to apply consistent player protection across fantasy and prediction markets alike. For GuardDog, which launched in 2023 with an initial $1M commitment, the Regen deal shows how RG tools can evolve beyond limits and exclusions into proactive, financial wellbeing infrastructure.

InsightPlay.ai raises $500K seed round for enterprise AI

The news InsightPlay.ai has raised a $500K Seed round backed by a group of industry veterans and angel investors with deep experience across gaming, payments, data, marketing, and SaaS. The company positions itself as an “enterprise AI transformation partner” for iGaming operators, focused on moving AI beyond point solutions and into core infrastructure. The capital will be used to accelerate product development and expand deployments across regulated markets.

Zoom in: InsightPlay.ai builds enterprise-grade conversational AI agents designed to help operators acquire, retain, and reactivate players, all within a compliance-first architecture. The platform is already live with operators and affiliates across Latin America, Europe, and North America, delivering measurable gains in player engagement, reactivation, and operational efficiency. CEO Javier Troncoso says the goal is technology operators can “trust, scale and govern across regulated markets.”

Why it matters: AI adoption is beginning to accelerate across real-money gaming, and operators are increasingly looking for solutions that integrate directly into existing business workflows rather than more ‘experimental’ tools. Following its raise, the upstart was showcasing live AI activations at ICE Barcelona this week, offering a real-world look at how this tech can fit inside regulated betting environments.

Sponsored by NEXT

The news: BettingStartups is partnering with NEXT.io for NEXT Summit: New York, bringing startup and early-stage innovation front and center at one of the industry’s most important U.S. events. The partnership spans NEXT Focus: Emerging Verticals (March 9) and the full Summit (March 10–11), with a shared goal of elevating new ideas across betting, gaming, and adjacent formats.

Why it matters: For founders, distribution and visibility are everything—and this partnership is about creating a real platform to be seen, heard, and connected early. NEXT Summit: New York brings together operators, investors, and decision-makers at scale, while BettingStartups ensures startup voices don’t get lost in the noise. 

Use code BETTINGSTARTUPS10 at checkout to get 10% off your full event pass.

EWagers wants to build on the side bet culture in esports

The news: EWagers was built around a simple observation: competitive gamers already wager on themselves and each other, but the tools to do it safely, legally, and inside the game haven’t really existed. For founder Noah Fulk, that gap was personal—after wagering on his own Call of Duty matches and settling bets via PayPal, he was eventually banned from the platform. “Fast forward a decade later, and that’s really what inspired EWagers,” Fulk said on the BettingStartups Podcast.

Zoom in: Early on, EWagers leaned consumer-facing, aiming to give players a safer destination to compete for cash without worrying about getting cheated or losing access to payments. As the product evolved, the team realized that skill-based wagering was already happening alongside gameplay—and that pulling players into a standalone product introduced friction rather than removing it. That realization pushed EWagers toward a B2B model, positioning itself as a skill-based esports betting platform that sits on top of popular games rather than trying to own the end user.

Why it matters: Today, EWagers works behind the scenes, allowing developers to integrate peer-to-peer wagering directly into gameplay by connecting live game data to EWagers’ backend while handling compliance, KYC, and payments. Looking down the road, Fulk sees the technology as something that could live more effectively inside a larger platform. “I think it makes a lot more sense for somebody who's bigger—more resources, more games, more users at their disposal—to take the technology and monetize it in a much better way than we are.”

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