Gambling Stocks vs Crypto Gaming Platforms: What Market Data Shows

Public gambling stocks and crypto gaming sites both mix entertainment with high risk. Traditional casino and sportsbook companies give investors exposure to consumer spending, tourism, and regulated online betting.

Crypto gaming platforms work more like Web3 products. They track wallet activity, token prices, and blockchain settlements instead of quarterly earnings and P/E ratios.

This article compares how major gambling stocks have performed over the last few years against the growth and activity on crypto gaming platforms. It focuses on real data: prices, revenues, volumes, and risk.

Performance of Public Gambling Stocks

Over the last three to five years, major U.S. gambling stocks have grown revenue strongly, but their share prices have been choppy. DraftKings, PENN Entertainment, and Caesars have expanded their online betting and casino businesses, but their stock charts still show big swings and long drops.

DraftKings (DKNG)

DraftKings has grown its revenue fast. Annual revenue jumped from about $615 million in 2020 to roughly $5.9 billion and $6.1 billion in late 2025, with guidance pointing to around $6 billion in 2025.

PENN Entertainment (PENN)

PENN's share price trades far below the highs it hit during the first wave of U.S. sports betting hype in 2020-2021, despite bringing in billions in annual revenue.

Caesars Entertainment (CZR)

Caesars runs large physical resorts and a growing online business. The company made around $11.369 billion in revenue in September 2025 while continuing to invest heavily in Caesars Sportsbook and its online casino.

What Stock Data Says About Risk Cycles?

Gambling stocks follow the broader risk cycle in the stock market. Charts from 2020 onward show how changes in interest rates, liquidity, and regulations shift investor sentiment.

Bull phases

In 2020-2021, low interest rates, stimulus, and rapid legalization created a strong "risk-on" period. Legal U.S. sports betting handle jumped from about $13 billion in 2019 to nearly $149 billion in 2024, with more than $121 billion in bets again in 2025.

Stocks like DraftKings and PENN rallied hard as investors priced in fast expansion, more state launches, and cross-selling into online casinos.

Bear phases and resets

When interest rates rose, and promo spending stayed high, many gambling stocks suffered deep drops. Operators that relied on heavy bonuses and VIP offers also faced lawsuits, compliance pressure, and tighter rules on advertising and responsible gaming.

Valuations dropped. Even with revenue growth, investors wanted clear paths to profit, lower promo spending, and better balance sheets before paying high prices again.

Ongoing cyclicality

Gambling stocks still move sharply around quarterly earnings and state news, like new launches, higher taxes, or ad limits.

Even when revenue rises, shares can stall or drop if growth slows, margins shrink, or regulators threaten stricter rules, so these stocks behave like high-risk consumer and tech stocks.

Why Crypto Changed Online Gaming Economics?

Crypto has changed how some online gaming sites move money and settle bets. Instead of relying only on cards and banks, money moves across blockchains that run 24/7.

Faster settlement

Crypto payouts can reach a player's wallet in minutes once a transaction is signed, instead of the three to seven banking days often seen with cards and wires.

Borderless access

A crypto wallet isn't tied to one national bank. If a player can reach the platform and send a transaction, they can access global liquidity without local payment systems.

On-chain verification

Many crypto casinos use provably fair systems that publish seeds and hashes so users can confirm results weren't changed. Settlement transactions appear on public ledgers, creating a visible record of activity.

Lower payment friction

Networks like Litecoin or stablecoins on low-fee chains can settle for cents per transaction, reducing fees and chargebacks for high-volume operators.

User control of funds

Players often keep funds in their own wallets and move them in and out quickly, so their behavior looks closer to trading or DeFi, with fast reactions to wins, losses, or news.

Crypto Gaming Platforms as a Parallel Market

Crypto gaming has grown into a parallel market next to, but outside, listed stocks. It's driven by on-chain data, token design, and global access.

User and activity growth

Recent research based on Yield Sec data estimates that crypto casinos made about $81.4 billion in gross gaming revenue in 2024, about five times the figure in 2022.

Early 2025-26 reports suggest that crypto casino GGR is tracking near or slightly above 2024 levels, though full 2025 numbers are still being compiled.

Tracking usage instead of share price

These platforms aren't listed on exchanges, so performance is tracked through active wallets, daily bets, deposits and withdrawals, and settlement counts, similar to metrics in DeFi and fintech.

On-chain transparency

Because many payouts and some bets are on-chain, analytics firms can build dashboards from raw transactions, giving a different type of transparency compared to quarterly reports.

Borderless liquidity

Crypto casinos are often based offshore and accept users from many regions, even as regulators try to block or limit access, creating a global flow of bets and payouts.

Alternative business models

Some platforms use fee-based models, liquidity pools, or native tokens that share in profits or volume, making their economics look more like a crypto exchange than a classic casino.

Decoupled from equity risk cycles

Because there's no listed share price, crypto gaming platforms are less tied to stock market moves or interest rate headlines and more tied to crypto bull and bear markets and product design.

Case Reference: Moonbet

Moonbet is a crypto-native casino that uses blockchain settlement, provably fair games, and Web3 wallet connections. Players connect their wallets, play with crypto, and get payouts instantly, making it one of the fastest and most transparent crypto casinos.

What Traders and Investors Should Take Away?

Listed gambling companies are judged by share prices, earnings, and balance sheets, while crypto gaming platforms are judged by wallets, volume, and settlement behaviour, plus estimated GGR.​

Gambling stocks have boomed and then reset as the U.S. online betting market matured and rates rose, while crypto gaming has seen its own cycles tied to crypto bull runs, token crashes, and new rules.​

Design features like faster settlement, borderless access, and on-chain transparency change how quickly risk moves and how users think about trust and withdrawals.​

Both listed gambling stocks and crypto gaming platforms remain high-volatility exposures, so position size, time horizon, and comfort with drawdowns matter more than any single growth story.​

Outro

Gambling stocks and crypto gaming platforms now exist side by side as two different ways to get exposure to betting and digital wagering- one tied to regulated earnings cycles and the other to on-chain activity.

​Watching both with a calm, data-focused approach in 2026 helps traders and analysts see how money and users move between old and new systems without confusing very different signals.