Markets do not stay still. The player who drove the growth of DraftKings and the player who drove the growth of Bet365 were products of their respective moments — the US sports bettor of the post-2018 regulatory opening, the global sports bettor of the early internet gambling era. Both platforms captured those players well and built dominant positions around them.
The fastest growing segment of the online gambling audience in 2026 is neither of those players. It is the crypto-native player who holds digital currencies as a primary financial instrument and expects gambling platforms to accommodate that naturally. It is the esports bettor who follows CS2 and League of Legends with the same engagement that previous generations brought to football and basketball. It is the player who has researched loyalty programs enough to understand that rakeback is more valuable than points and will not accept opacity as a substitute for transparency. It is the player who expects withdrawals measured in minutes because every other digital transaction in their life moves that fast.
Neither DraftKings nor Bet365 was built for this player. ZunaBet was. Launched in 2026 by a team with over 20 years of combined industry experience, it entered the market specifically to serve the segment that is growing fastest. This article examines all three and explains specifically what that means.
DraftKings: Built for the Player Who Made It Dominant
DraftKings’ dominance in the US market is the result of genuine product quality and the fortune of good timing. A daily fantasy sports platform with an established US audience converted that audience into licensed sports bettors when state-by-state legislation opened the market after 2018. The head start was significant and the platform invested it well.
The sportsbook is the product of that investment. American sports coverage is genuine —