Investment in betting is still concentrated around brands, acquisitions and front-end products. A growing share of capital, however, is moving deeper into the infrastructure layer: deposits, payouts, bank accounts, payment orchestration and settlement rails.
That makes payments an investment story rather than just a cashier function. For businesses connected through a 1xbet partnership, the same principle applies: betting activity depends on money reaching an account quickly enough for the market a customer wants to use.
A sportsbook can add markets or redesign an app. It cannot easily compensate for a deposit that fails at kick-off or a withdrawal that keeps funds unavailable.
Funding Is Moving Into the Rails
Several 2026 deals show where investors see value.
EDGE Markets raised a $29.2 million Series A in June, led by CoinFund, to expand banking and payment infrastructure for gaming and prediction markets. Its EDGE Boost product had already processed more than $2 billion in transactions roughly a year after launch.
Fun raised $72 million in May for payments infrastructure connecting fiat and crypto. The company says it processes more than $18 billion annually across a range of digital platforms.
A sports prediction-market infrastructure company raised $35 million in July to expand its B2B operations rather than another consumer-facing sportsbook interface.
Mesh raised a $75 million Series C at a $1 billion valuation in January, pushing total funding above $200 million while expanding payment infrastructure across wallets, exchanges and blockchains.
At the larger end, Global Payments completed the Worldpay transaction in January 2026 based on a $24.25 billion enterprise valuation. Nuvei then agreed in June to acquire Payoneer for about $2.75 billion, a combination expected to process more than $500 billion annually for over 2.4 million customers if completed.
Mastercard also named Nuvei among the first companies expected to support new stablecoin settlement options during 2026.
Live Betting Makes Payment Speed More Valuable
In-play betting now represents roughly 55% of sportsbook handle in major markets, compared with about 38% in 2022. One 2025–26 test across leading live sportsbooks found median bet-acceptance times around 1.4 seconds.
That creates a mismatch if payments remain slow.
A pre-match 1X2 selection can survive a short delay. A live handicap after a goal may not. Odds can move within seconds while the customer still needs an available balance.
Faster payouts also make funds available sooner for future account activity.
That is why betting companies increasingly depend on instant bank transfers, account-to-account payments, specialist acquiring and digital-asset rails alongside cards.
What Investors Are Actually Buying
The global online gambling market is estimated at about $101.45 billion in 2026, with sports betting representing the largest segment of 2025 revenue at 52.05%.
Payment providers take only a small part of that value, but they sit inside almost every deposit and payout.
| Infrastructure layer | Investment attraction | Betting use case |
| Acquiring / PSP | Recurring transaction volume | Deposit before a market moves |
| Instant bank / A2A | Faster account funding | Rapid deposits and payouts |
| Gaming-focused accounts | Weekend liquidity | Funds available during live events |
| Crypto / stablecoin rails | Alternative settlement routes | Faster movement on selected corridors |
Once a betting platform integrates an acquirer, payout provider and orchestration layer, that infrastructure becomes part of daily operations.
For businesses researching how does 1xbet affiliate program work, the commercial layer is usually associated with traffic and conversion. But that conversion still depends on the infrastructure behind the account: reliable deposits, available balances and withdrawals that move without unnecessary friction.
Prediction markets add another source of volume. Monthly trading across major prediction-market venues passed $50 billion in June 2026, adding further demand for deposits, balances and settlement infrastructure.
That volume still needs deposits, balances and settlement.
Betting Infrastructure Is Becoming an Investment Category
That helps explain why capital is moving toward payment companies instead of only sportsbook brands.
The biggest betting platforms compete on acquisition, odds and product. Payment infrastructure competes on transaction speed, uptime, settlement coverage and integration depth.
Those capabilities are difficult to replace quickly once embedded.
The 2026 funding numbers therefore point to a broader investment thesis. Betting creates high-frequency transaction demand, live markets make latency visible, and payment providers gain value from sitting between the customer balance and the betting product.
Payment infrastructure is becoming a larger part of how betting platforms scale.
