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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
speaker-0 (00:00.056)
There's been pretty big changes in the industry with the with the micro regulation. But as it's a very typical thing in this industry when regulation changes, yeah, the the whole there's big shifts and that's what's happening at the moment.
speaker-1 (00:16.494)
It is no secret that payment infrastructure has become a key element for customer retention as reduced friction can be critical for player experience. Welcome to iGaming Daily, where we will discuss all about payment infrastructure together with David Kix, a founder of PayHound. I'm Fernando Not, Media Manager for SVC, and I'm very happy to be here live at SVC Summit in Lisbon with David. David, how are you today?
speaker-2 (00:42.306)
Thank you. Yeah, very pleased to be here. Very much enjoyed the SBC events. They're always incredibly well organized. got some fantastic meetings and very excited for the next two days.
speaker-1 (00:53.102)
Yeah, absolutely. I can see that you you guys have been very busy so far and you were telling me you're gonna be busier later. So yeah, I really wanna talk about what you guys been doing, but first let me thank Optimov, the creator of Positionless Marketing and number one player engagement solution for iGaming and sports betting operators and proud supporter of iGaming Daily. So big shout out to Optimov. But David, let's get on with this. why don't we first start by introducing PayHound to our listeners?
speaker-2 (01:00.738)
Today, yeah, it's looking good.
speaker-2 (01:22.914)
Yeah, PayHound's a little over eight years old and we specialize in we're a pure play crypto business. We deliver crypto payment processing and a deep suite of crypto treasury management functionality which enables our customers to manage large flows of crypto that can be from crypto to feat, fiat to crypto on and off ramping as they describe it.
through the managing crypto payroll, crypto invoicing. it's a very now large and sophisticated ecosystem. PayHound's trodden the very regulated path. we were able to achieve our Mika CASP license in November of 2025 so we're well ahead of the new Mika Recs that were hard in force July 1st this year 2026.
So that's our business at this point in time.
speaker-1 (02:22.368)
And of course when crypto has been like around for a while now and people some people are reluctant about crypto and and their implementation, something like it's just like something that will eventually go away. But do you think that maybe people have been focusing too much on crypto itself instead of looking into the problems it can solve?
speaker-2 (02:44.664)
Yeah, look, I think that's fair observation. the eye gaming industry was a very early adopter of crypto because it solved a number of problems, challenges that it had. obviously crypto's had a, you know, a a painful birth at many levels. there's always a plethora of negative stories associated with hacks and some bad actors in the early days of it, but actually the underlying utility of crypto has is here to stay, period.
we've seen as the you know the the the emergence really of stable coins being the dominant utility for certainly the i gaming industry, that is gonna continue to grow now at real pace. Certainly things like Mika framework legislation that brings it really into the mainstream financial ecosystem has obviously made a significant difference to the tone of conversations we have.
speaker-1 (03:44.65)
And of course, we live in a as globalization continues to like expand and it's it's become easier to reach new frontiers. So I gaming companies are becoming increasingly international. So you do you think that traditional payment infrastructures are suited to the way these companies operate?
speaker-2 (04:04.578)
Yeah, undoubtedly, because I think you if you're if you're operating in multi market, inherently you have, you know, the FX challenges of what you're doing. Now, if effectively you move your business into a primarily an an underlying dollar denominated business sitting on say USD, the world is effectively borderless at that point. you know, you just think think for a second that you can basically move a chunk of money or take a payment in seconds.
from any point on earth, you know, that's a profound paradigm shift for an operator. So I think that you know, again, let's be very honest about the composition of the work market. The bulk of the regulated market, sitting say UK G C etc. those regulators have been very, very slow to shall we say, warm to crypto. and there's been a lot of
I I suspect frustration from some of the finance teams that they've not been able to embrace some of the utility that that crypto affords. you know, the pre-regulated, dare I say, gray market has been the the front runner on this. They were very early adopters. and I think often you can see some of the regulated
Brethren looking on with envy, thinking, Crikey, if we could do some of that, that's really gonna take away some of the pain points. you know, you look at sort of, you know, settlement terms with you know, traditional card payments, you might be T plus two, T plus five, T plus seven in certain geos. So, you know, that goes away. and we'll probably talk in a minute about, you know, the player experience as well, 'cause fundamentally that's ultimately very, very, very important.
speaker-1 (05:57.31)
Talking about player experience, operators have been working very hard over time to improve the player journey. do you think that payments still needs some friction to be removed or is there room still to remove friction from payments?
speaker-2 (06:10.978)
So again, yeah, I mean look, it's optimizing all the time. you know, most iGaming operators are very smart people. They're constantly, you know, fine tuning their platforms, their businesses. you know, there's there's there's three three pillars to running a gambling business. You know, you've got your content, your payment, and your customer acquisition. Those are the three really primary ingredients. Everything else is fine tuning. you know, the
The quicker you can enable a player to deposit as the and and as painlessly the better. And as importantly, the player's ability to withdraw money as well is as important. You know, that's you know, it's that kind of trust element. So the player feels that they can pull their money back straight away. They've won, they can pull their money out, you know, subject to any kind of wagering requirements or any KYC obligations that are outstanding at that moment, it's it's a near instant experience. So
you know, I I guess, you know, play it forward a few years. if your platform can't enable that for your player, the question is, you know, why can't you do that for me? 'Cause that's what I expect now as a player. I want instant
speaker-1 (07:23.466)
And finally, when as operators expand, as we were talking before, as they expand into new markets, do you think that their payment infrastructure or the the payment service they have will be in how important is that infrastructure for how quickly they can scale?
speaker-2 (07:43.79)
Well yeah, look exactly. So think if you've got the if if your if your payments team, your finance team are up to speed in terms of in the macro how crypto rails will elevate your business, improve your cross border flows, I think that, you know, you you've got to start thinking crypto first. and even if you're going into new geos where perhaps there isn't necessarily
large scale crypto adoption yet amongst the the customer base. Increasingly we're seeing the the the wider payment industry moving into you know fit to crypto on ramp effectively before the player goes through. So there the player's pushing crypto in, but actually having come through a you know either an open banking or a car to crypto mechanism out front. So that's been a big development we've seen over the last sort of two, three years is really that.
builder of Feature Crypto on RAM at a at a B to C level, preconditioning players to be able to push crypto into the sportsbook casedo environment.
speaker-1 (08:47.938)
David, we will look into what PayHound is doing because it's very interesting so far. So best of luck for the rest of SVC Summit. And we're gonna do a very quick outbreak, but we will be right back with more Payhound after it. Brilliant.
speaker-2 (09:00.482)
Thank you very much. Learn how Optimus position i gaming teams operate. Discover how operators are using positionless marketing platforms to launch personalized CRS lobbies and bet slips and create experience.
speaker-0 (09:06.828)
Optimism.
speaker-1 (09:08.366)
Dynamically change Casino
speaker-0 (09:10.061)
Company.
speaker-1 (09:15.118)
And we're back with more iGaming Daily here at PayHound Stan at SVC Summit in Lisbon. And right now I have the pleasure to welcome Peter Woodfine, head of sales at Payhound. Peter, how are you today? How's the event so far for you?
speaker-0 (09:30.998)
Thank you. Good to be here.
Excellent. I mean very busy. It gets seems to get bigger every year. yeah, lots of lots of key people in all the key areas. Great success. And yeah, we're having we're having a successful event and everyone's very busy, which is always good. So
speaker-1 (09:48.364)
And you've been having a lot of conversations around so first question how much have conversations changed in the last year for you?
speaker-0 (09:57.642)
So Micah's been a big thing for us. So the one that once that ruling came in, I mean, we saw we obviously got our accreditation within the deadline. we initially saw that maybe it would be a more of a box ticking exercise rather than a game changer. But then of course we found that a lot of our competitors were unsuccessful in getting the accreditation. And as a result, that's that's given that's given us opportunities that we perhaps
eighteen months ago wouldn't have been discussing. So there's been pretty big changes in the industry with the with the micro regulation. But as it's a very typical thing in this industry when regulation changes, yeah, the the whole there's big shifts and that's what's happening at the moment.
speaker-1 (10:40.524)
And we were talking with David about crypto. So I wanted to hear from you and what you hear from your from your partners. do they find crypto still as an yet another payment method, or are they looking into it as a more of the an integral part of their payment infrastructure?
speaker-0 (11:01.358)
Yeah, I mean it's it's safe to say it's not really a kind of a new idea anymore. It's becoming more commoditized. It's a it's a necessity. because of the speed really it's solving so particularly cross border, and in sort of territories where the the the native banking system is more complex, crypto is becoming has become a must have. but then now of course it's how within that sector.
what products are you giving people? Are you giving the customers the the speed and the e the the simplicity that they require? So i the sale now is not so much whether whether the operators need crypto or not, it's are you offering the right kind of service? And and that's what's changed.
speaker-1 (11:48.812)
And how important have affiliate payments, provider settlements, and other operational payments become for the industries?
speaker-0 (11:57.57)
Yeah, so affiliates particularly is quite is quite a big business in the sector. again because you've got not only the affiliates themselves but the the media owners that are based all over the world acquiring traffic for the operators. And often crypto is the easiest way to make those payments cross border. So like in Asia, for example, yeah, you've got a it's
the doing a standard bank transfers is much harder. So crypto really comes in into that sector, yeah. So it's it's it's basically an enabler. It's you're you're able to create payment types that are happening now same day or T plus one or in under an hour that traditionally would be taking five days plus. and that's the that's the kind of big big difference. It's this it's the speed and simplicity of it that
That is that is coming through.
speaker-1 (12:55.222)
And recently we've learned that Payhound has struck a partnership with Monaco, the the club football club from Monaco. so how did that partnership come to be?
speaker-0 (13:05.762)
Yeah, so it's part of again with with Micah that's come through and the types of institutions that we're talking to now with with our with the mica regulation. it was time for us to you know, Payhan traditionally has been slightly under the radar as a business, but now with with our EU flow and the and also the luxury sector that we work in, it made sense to do sort of key partnerships like this to to kind of get us into new markets and new areas. And yeah, we're working
working very well with the club. and it sort of ties in nicely with obviously it's a European well known football club. So you got the the sort of the the marketing benefits of that. But then also given that they are in Monaco, they're also tapping into the high net worth aspect for us, which is becoming now an important stream. So yeah, it's a it's a very successful partnership. We're we're working with them well.
speaker-1 (13:56.054)
Congratulations on that. And let's go back to partners, but in business partners, not not necessarily that the sponsorship deal. how much are operators looking into how much it costs them to move money across the entire business?
speaker-0 (14:12.6)
So, I mean, look, everybody wants to do everything as cheaply as they can. Right. you know, that unfortunately that's the sort of the nature of the payments business. Like there is a little bit of a race to the bottom. However, I think the operators now are learning that you maybe get what you pay for a little bit. And they've they've found that yes, you know, if you go down the unlicensed route you can get much better pricing, but then that causes problems.
and then of course now a lot of those unlicensed exchanges or or facilitators can no longer handle the flow. So it's you know, we've we've we're sort of educating the industry and vice versa that yeah, okay, maybe not always the absolute cheapest product is is the right one. So but you know, payments in general, forget about crypto, just the payment sector as a whole. The price is price is very sensitive. It's
It's it's unfortunate but it is it is where we are. So
speaker-1 (15:09.144)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And and where are you seeing the highest demand? Is it like payments in player payments or is it more like about payments between businesses?
speaker-0 (15:21.832)
so we we offer both, and and it's the the spread is probably fifty fifty in B2C payments or or B2B Treasury services, if you will. both are very important. I think probably with Treasury services, reliability and robustness is taken slightly above, whereas whereas processing is always very price sensitive. But again
You know, it's it's how seamless is the integration, what's the UI for the customer, things like that are are sort of just as important to it to a point. I mean you can't you can't charge three times everyone else to have a better service, but you can sort of h hold on to what to what's realistic. So yeah, it's but we we do we do both and both are very popular.
speaker-1 (16:10.476)
Well Peter, thank you very much. I've learned a lot about payments today. So make sure you contact Peter Woodfine at Bayhound if you want to learn more about payments. This has been all for today's iGaming Daily here at SBC Summit Lisbon. Thank you very much, Naya McDonald, for producing this episode. I'm Fernando Knott and to our listeners out there, we'll see you in the next one. Goodbye.