iGaming Weekly: Kalshi's court loss, Florida's sweepstakes suits, Duel Arena goes free

iGaming Industry News

• The Ninth Circuit ruled 3-0 that federal commodities law does not shield Kalshi from Nevada's gaming laws, calling its sports contracts "a quintessential form of gambling"; prediction markets now face state gambling regulation unless the Supreme Court says otherwise.
• The CFTC settled with former White House teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez over insider trades on Kalshi's presidential mention markets, ordering $172,000 total and a three-year prediction-market ban.
• The UK Gambling Commission suspended the operating licenses of BresBet and Bet St George over suspected social responsibility and anti-money-laundering failings, opening Section 116 reviews of both.
• Florida's attorney general sued Stake and VGW and, unusually, their payment processors, calling dual-currency sweepstakes illegal gambling; VGW's LuckyLand Slots, The Money Factory, LuckyStake and CoinFrenzy all closed in August as the segment retreats.
• Evolution's board told shareholders to reject Candle Lake's SEK 695-per-share mandatory cash offer, saying it does not reflect fair market value; the acceptance period runs to about September 15.
• Roobet said streamer Xposed hit the biggest win of his career on the site at CA$7,201,440; the operator self-reported the figure with no independent confirmation.
• A Duelbits player hit 66,666x on Nolimit City's Mental; the operator self-reported the multiplier and gave no stake or payout figure.

Latest Drama

@krombet_ig and @YogiGambles turn on the sponsorship machine: a $200-a-stream pitch gets published

Two callouts landed inside 72 hours, aimed at the economics of sponsored gambling streaming rather than any one person. Everything is allegation by the posters; none of the named casinos or streamers had responded.

• @krombet_ig: "i've now had enough streamers come to me with same @zentrabetcom story that keeping it private would be fucking stupid … got pitched a 'sponsorship': $200 raw balance per stream, 90 minutes liv…"
• @YogiGambles: "…More than 50% of sponsored streamers are handed the exact same playbook to manufacture 'fake' reactions."
• @GmblrMartin: "I've had over 80 calls with crypto casino operators in the past year. Easily 70 of them mentioned they got burned with streamers…"

Duel Arena 1 goes free hours before the bell, after its undercard cost it a broadcaster

Duel staged its first fight card on August 29 in Orlando, headlined by Mike Perry after Dillon Danis pulled out two days before, and founder Ossi "Monarch" Ketola made the pay-per-view free to watch about four hours before the prelims and reimbursed everyone who had already bought tickets.

Danis said the co-main slot given to Paul "Gypsy Crusader" Miller, who has a documented white-supremacist history, had cost him and Perry a DAZN broadcast, and the night ended with an apology for booking Patrick Clark.

• @duelarenax: "Duel Arena – tonight 6PM ET. Now entirely free to watch."
• @korraflow: "Ossi casually mogs and makes Duel Arena free to watch," later putting the audience at 60,000 viewers.
• It is not Duel's first brush with controversy; the casino has built its name on stunts like this.

Latest Releases

Casino Originals

• Thrill released Moles, a whack-a-mole Original with three modes, Classic, Find All and Gold Hunt, live on Thrill.
• Goated shipped instant early cashout on its in-house Goated Blackjack, letting players cash out early.

Third Party

• Hacksaw Gaming released Arizona James and The Lost Relics, a 6x5 cluster-pays slot with Pistol Reveal wilds and three bonuses, 25,000x max win, live on Gamdom and Stake.
• Pragmatic Play released Bubble Up!, a 6x6 slot with bubble frames collecting money symbols and multipliers to 10x, 10,000x max win, live on Gamdom.
• Jinx Gaming released Toxic Waste, an 8x8 cluster grid built on expanding multiplier zones, 10,000x max win, live on Gamdom and Rainbet.
• Evolution released a YEET-branded Blackjack table, live-dealer blackjack with a 99.6% theoretical RTP before rewards, live on YEET.

Weekly Stats: On-Chain Casino Report

Deposits across the casinos FairGambling tracks on-chain came to $1.03B for August 24–30, up 1.4% week over week.

Top 10 casinos by deposit volume

Stake took $519.9M of it, ahead of Roobet ($91.2M), Duel ($63.7M), Rainbet ($62.4M), Shuffle ($51.4M), Gamdom ($39.1M), BC.Game ($35.8M), 1win ($23.4M), Sportsbet.io ($19.8M) and Stake.us ($15.6M). Duel fell 12.7% and Stake.us 10.8% on the week; Roobet (+8.0%) and BC.Game (+5.2%) grew fastest.

Chain dominance

Ethereum carried 33% of deposits ($337.4M), TRON 31% ($317.8M) and Solana 22% ($219.2M, up 19.7% on the week), with BSC at 11% ($107.6M), Polygon 1.9% ($18.8M) and XRP 1.5% ($15.6M, up 26.6%).

Coin dominance

USDT was 56% of deposits ($569.8M), USDC 18% ($178.4M, up 13.0%), SOL 15% ($147.9M, up 22.6%), ETH 8.7% ($87.5M, down 23.7%), XRP 1.5% ($15.6M) and TRX 1.0% ($10.1M).

Weekly Bet Stats: Tracked by FairGambling

FairGambling tracked 46.34M bets from roughly 351,000 players, $7.53B wagered in total.

Top 5 casinos by wager

Stake handled $3.87B of it, ahead of Jack ($1.41B), Roobet ($551.3M), Duel ($317.4M) and Gamdom ($283.8M).

Top games and biggest bets

Classic Multihand Blackjack took $1.15B in wagers, ahead of Waylanders Forge ($681.8M), Blackjack ($349.7M), Keno ($294.6M) and Mushroom Madness ($148.1M). The five biggest bets were all at Stake: $3.1M, $3.0M and $2.9M on Privé Lounge Baccarat, all lost; a $2.8M Privé Lounge Baccarat hand that won $5.9M; and $2.7M on Dice that returned $3.2M.

Biggest wins of the week

Every top multiplier was a 5,148,297x Mines hit at Stake, the largest turning a near-zero stake into $120K (Marvin150). The five biggest wins were all $500K stakes at Stake paying $20.0M, three on Waylanders Forge at 40.04x and two on Rage Kitchen at 40.00x, all by the same player (10111821).

That's the week. Follow @FairGambling on X for more weekly recaps, on-chain data and industry insights, or bring what we missed to the FairGambling Discord.

Treat gambling as entertainment you pay for. 18+, and if it stops feeling like entertainment, help exists at BeGambleAware and GamCare.