An SBC webinar with Payhound explored how, in cross-border gambling, stablecoins can cut settlement from days to minute, so long as MiCA-era compliance and travel rule tooling are built into the stack.
In cross-border gambling markets, money often moves at the pace of old infrastructure. Payouts inch through correspondent banks, reconciliation waits on time zones, and cash trapped in transit saps working capital.
Against that backdrop, a recent SBC webinar co-hosted with Payhound explored the idea that when local rails are slow, stablecoins can shorten settlement from days to minutes, provided the compliance plumbing is in place.
“We’ve seen a lot of interesting developments over the past year or two, a lot of regulatory stabilisation and clarity with things like the MiCA framework in Europe,” said Moderator Ted Orme-Claye, Editor at SBC News.
The panel – Elton Dimech (Managing Director, Payhound), George Chatzigeorgiou (gambling compliance professional), and Thees Buschman (Senior Consultant, Chevron Group) – then mapped where that momentum is being felt and what could still slow it down.
‘Minutes, not days’
Asked how crypto can make payments simpler rather than harder, Dimech kept the operator experience front and centre.
“The idea is to create a solution where you are not dealing as an operator with the complexity… because we are the ones that would be interacting with the different blockchain,” he said. “They will be using the account […] very similar as if they’re using a fiat account.”
He then drew a line between stablecoins and speed in settlement flows, particularly where bank transfers to operators are sluggish. Citing South American markets as an example, he said: “The local payment provider would normally prefer that the local payment provider sends these settlements as quickly as they can through stablecoins rather than having to wait days until they get to their bank accounts if the local payment provider processes them via the SWIFT infrastructure.”
The result, he said, is that an operator “can get money as quickly as within minutes… rather than having to wait for a number of days,” before using providers like Payhound “to convert back that stablecoin into fiat and settle them to their main banking providers.”
Beyond player deposits
The panellists noted the same logic is extending into business-to-business flows.
“We’re seeing that the operators themselves are making use of more than just that. So they’re paying their suppliers… their affiliate payments,” Dimech noted, adding that “most of them make use of it to pay third parties that are willing to get paid in crypto, affiliates being a big chunk of them.”
Many affiliates, he said, take commission in crypto and “instantly convert into fiat,” a pattern facilitated by mass-payout tools.
While panel views differed on how “special” this is from a compliance standpoint, the operational appeal (speed, reach, and optional conversion back to fiat) was a recurring theme.
MiCA: clarity with a heavier lift
Chatzigeorgiou was clear that Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation changes the context without removing complexity.
“I see it more as a structural shift, so it creates a single EU rulebook […] it does reduce legal uncertainty, but it also raises some, concrete new obligations that operators must manage,” he said.
“It rather transforms it in my opinion, MiCA takes crypto out of the legal grey, but it makes the compliance workload very, very real.”
Buschman echoed the step-change while cautioning on detail: “MiCA… is the first attempt on a supranational level to regulate cryptos… a very big step that has been made… No matter of the content of the actual regulation, which is still, as I believe still to be developed.” In other words, governance is arriving, but definitions and operational expectations will continue to evolve.
Those shifts, the panel suggested, have changed how some larger brands think about crypto. Dimech said “we’re seeing a lot of local big gambling operators looking at crypto in a very different way. The operators want to enable a solution like ours in their locally licenced, regulated markets,” something he said was not the case in prior years.
A design choice, not a trade-off
The central tension is whether instant payments can coexist with rigorous controls. For Chatzigeorgiou, they can, if firms pick the right stack.
“The travel rule and enhanced AML and KYC obligations will require operators and payment partners to transmit originator and beneficiary information… which will inevitably introduce some friction,” he said. “However, the travel rule doesn’t necessarily kill speed in iGaming fast and compliant isn’t a contradiction. It’s a technology and vendor choice.”
Dimech agreed that travel-rule messaging between VASPs need not halt payments when the counterparties can exchange the required data.
“It’s not the case, as long as there is from one side to the other, agreement between the VASPs that are sending information. This doesn’t mean that payments will have to be blocked,” he said. He added that “some are not still not compliant with [the] travel rule, even European ones,” which means effectiveness depends on who you connect to.
Over time, he suggested, richer data sharing could help operators make “an informed decision whether they want to accept, reject, or else ask for further information” on deposits, mirroring workflows in fiat rails.
The competitive calculus
For those inclined to “wait and see,” the panel’s views were pointed, though explicitly framed as opinion.
Chatzigeorgiou argued that “waiting and seeing usually comes with hidden costs,” citing speed, efficiency, and potential “market share” as the trade-offs, while early movers who build compliant infrastructure gain “first-mover advantage.” Buschman put it more starkly: “Either you go with the time or time goes over you.Who comes too late will be punished by time.”
Watch the full webinar here.
