Most headlines about B2B crypto payments in iGaming still focus on price swings and regulation, but that only tells part of the story.
In the European iGaming industry, the conversation is more practical. Modern online gaming operators are looking at crypto payments as a way to move money faster and enable seamless settlements, along with better control over funds across different markets.
The European Gaming & Betting Association’s (EGBA) latest figures show that online gambling revenue reached a provisional €47.9 billion in 2024 across the 27 EU member states and the UK, making up 39% of the total European gambling market. By 2029, online gambling revenue is expected to reach €66.8 billion.
The scale of the market makes the payment question harder to ignore. More online gambling activity means more money moving through platforms and, therefore, more pressure on operators to keep payments fast and easy to track.
The public conversation around crypto in gaming often stays close to price volatility, speculative trading, crypto deposits, regulation, and brand risk. While these are all important conversations, they don’t show the full picture of what operators are weighing up internally. For operators, the focus is less on the asset itself and more on the payment rail behind it, meaning that they’re looking at how money enters, moves through, and exits the business. This is where providers like Payhound.com become relevant. Accepting the payment is only one step; providers also need simple fiat conversion, clear settlement, and records that their finance teams can follow.
Payments affect both player experience and internal operations, with slow payouts weakening trust and hard-to-track settlement flows creating problems for finance and compliance teams.
That’s why operators are asking more practical questions:
Paysafe’s 2025 All the Ways Players Pay report underlines the importance of speed. It surveyed 4,300 people involved or interested in sports betting across regulated markets, including France, Italy, Romania, Spain, and the UK. Across all markets, 73% of respondents said they expect real-time payments to become standard at sportsbooks within two years. The use of digital wallets also shows how strongly payment behaviour is linked to speed. Across all markets, digital wallets ranked as the second-most-popular method for depositing into an online sports betting account, at 38%. Fast payouts were also the second-most common reason for using a digital wallet, selected by 28% of digital wallet users. Fast deposits ranked third at 27%, with safety and security sitting first at 36%.
The European data shows how this plays out by market:
For operators, this means that payment speed has become a business issue. Players want fast deposits and withdrawals, but behind that experience, the operator needs fast, traceable settlement, enough liquidity, clear reporting, and proper compliance checks.
What is the benefit of stablecoins in iGaming? Stablecoins provide European iGaming operators with the speed of blockchain transaction rails without the risk of asset volatility. By pegging value directly to fiat currencies like the Euro, stablecoins optimize B2B merchant settlement, lower transaction fees, and accelerate player payout times across cross-border markets.
Stablecoins are relevant here because they can support faster money movement behind the player experience. Players may only see a quicker payout, but the operator still needs funds to move quickly enough across providers, accounts, and markets to support that experience.
This is where stablecoins like EURC become useful: they’re designed to follow the value of a fiat currency (such as the Euro), which helps avoid the accounting and treasury planning problems that come with the volatility of crypto. For European iGaming operators, stablecoins can support payment speed in several practical ways:
By leveraging blockchain-based settlement rails, operators can bypass traditional SWIFT or SEPA cut-off times, moving transactions from a standard 1-3 business day delay to near-instantaneous, 24/7 processing cycles.
MiCA is also changing how operators look at crypto payments in Europe, because it gives the EU a shared rulebook for crypto-assets. For operators, clearer rules make it easier to judge providers, although the market still carries risk.
The European Banking Authority’s (EBA) work under MiCA also shows why stablecoin providers need strong controls, because they need enough backing in place so people can get their money back when they redeem the token.
For iGaming operators, this makes the provider decision more important because crypto payments may create new opportunities, but they also increase the operational burden. Payhound supports this layer of the process through regulated crypto payment flows, crypto-to-fiat conversion, settlement, API integration, and automated invoicing, helping businesses offer crypto payments without having to build the full operating model themselves.
For operators, the priorities are very practical:
These priorities show why crypto payments in European iGaming are now an infrastructure decision.
The bigger shift in European iGaming is the modernisation of money movement.
Stablecoins and crypto rails are becoming part of a broader conversation about payment infrastructure, with the value for operators lying in faster and more controlled payment flows. As the market matures, the strongest providers will be those that combine crypto payment capability with regulated infrastructure.
To keep up with this shift, follow Payhound for practical insight into regulated crypto payments and the infrastructure behind faster settlement.
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