Over the past few years, DraftKings and Bet365 have been the two names most associated with serious online sports betting. One built its brand in America through daily imagination and a strong, aggressive marketing push into regulated state markets. The other has grown steadily from the UK to a global operation that now extends to dozens of jurisdictions. Both are large, well-financed, and deeply rooted in their markets.
But a new platform launching in 2026 is starting to attract the attention of a different type of gamer – Someone who uses cryptocurrencies, wants more points from their loyalty program, and expects casino and sports betting to look like one product instead of two. That platform is ZunaBet, and this article looks at how the three platforms compare.
Kings of the Draft: From Fantasy Sports to the Complete Sportsbook
DraftKings started as a daily fantasy sports platform and has used that foundation to build one of the most iconic sports betting brands in the United States. As the legislation began to take effect on a state-by-state basis following the Supreme Court’s decision in 2018, DraftKings was in a position to move quickly — and it did.
Today it operates a full sportsbook, an online casino in states where it is permitted, and a range of ancillary products including its original daily fantasy offering. The sportsbook covers all major American sports – NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL – along with soccer, tennis, golf and a selection of growing international markets. The live betting product is solid and the app is one of the most used in the US market.
The casino side has expanded significantly in recent years, with the addition of slot machine and live dealer content across licensed states. DraftKings has also taken steps into cryptocurrencies, although its support is still limited compared to dedicated cryptocurrency platforms – more of a feature than a foundation.
The loyalty program, DraftKings Dynasty Rewards, operates on a points and tier system. Players earn Dynasty Dollars by betting, which can be redeemed for site credits. The system has multiple levels and offers some meaningful rewards at higher levels, but like most traditional programs, the mechanics are complex and it’s not always easy to calculate the true rate of return at a glance.
DraftKings is a dominant force in the US market. Its boundaries are largely structural — it operates within country-specific regulatory constraints, its cryptocurrency integration is limited, and its loyalty program is more complex than transparent.
Bet365: The global standard for sports betting
Bet365 operates on a completely different scale. Founded in 2000 in the UK, it has evolved into one of the most widely used online gambling platforms in the world, and is licensed across dozens of jurisdictions including the UK, Malta, Gibraltar and Australia.
Sports betting is the product that defines Bet365. The depth of the market and quality of in-play and live betting across major global sports has made it the benchmark by which other sports betting is measured. The coverage of football in particular is exceptional, the platform has been built around it and the product reflects that.
The casino is a strong secondary offering. Slots, live tables and RNG games are available. The platform is stable, the brand is reliable, and its regulatory standing is among the strongest in the industry.
Where Bet365 fails in 2026 is in the same areas where it has always failed for a certain type of player. Encryption is not supported. The payment infrastructure is completely legal – cards, bank transfers and e-wallets only. A loyalty program is a points system that operates without being particularly attractive or transparent about the actual value of loyalty in financial terms.
For mainstream sports bettors in the regulated fiat market, Bet365 remains one of the best options available. For anyone whose needs fall outside this profile, he has not moved purposefully to accommodate them.
What do both platforms have in common?
DraftKings and Bet365 are two completely different companies that operate in different markets and have different histories. But they share some important characteristics relevant to this comparison.
Both were primarily built around sports betting, with the casino added as a by-product or later. Both are heavily focused on fiat currencies – DraftKings has made limited moves into cryptocurrencies, but neither platform treats cryptocurrencies as a core part of their infrastructure. They both run loyalty programs that operate on points mechanisms that make it really difficult for a player to know exactly the value of their continued loyalty.
Both, in different ways, were designed for an early moment in the industry — where paper banking was the only realistic option, where the U.S. market operated under federal embargoes that shaped product decisions, and where loyalty meant accumulating a balance of points rather than receiving a set percentage.
ZunaBet: the 2026 platform built around what’s missing
ZunaBet was launched in 2026 under Strathvale Group Ltd. It operates under the Anjouan Games License. The team behind it has over 20 years of combined industry experience. They are not designed to compete directly with DraftKings or Bet365 in their core regulated markets – rather, they are designed to serve players for whom these platforms were never designed.
The starting point is encryption. ZunaBet supports over 20 cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT cross-chain, Solana, Dogecoin, Cardano, and XRP. There are no platform processing fees. Withdrawals are fast. The cryptocurrency platform was built first from day one – not as an add-on feature, but as a complete financial foundation.
The game library includes over 11,000 titles from over 63 providers. Representatives include Pragmatic Play, Hacksaw Gaming, Evolution, Yggdrasil, and BGaming. Slot machines make up the largest share of the library, but both live dealer games and RNG table games are heavily covered. In terms of size and provider depth, this is one of the largest cryptocurrency casino libraries currently available.
The sportsbook is fully integrated into the same platform – Not a separate product that shares login information. Football, basketball, tennis, and the NHL sit alongside esports markets covering CS2, Dota 2, League of Legends, and Valorant. Virtual sports and combat sports are also included. For players moving between casino and sports betting, a unified experience removes a point of friction that related but separate products cannot fully resolve.
Dedicated apps are available for iOS, Android, Windows, and MacOS. The interface is dark-themed, HTML5-powered, and designed for fast loading across devices. 24/7 live chat support is standard.
Welcome Bonus: $5,000 across three deposits
ZunaBet’s new player offer spreads the value over three deposits Instead of concentrating them in one. The first deposit gets a 100% match up to $2,000 plus 25 free spins. The second gets 50%, up to $1,500, in addition to 25 courses. The third returns to 100% matching and amounts to $1,500 with 25 additional spins.
Total Value Raised: Up to $5,000 in matching funds and 75 free spins. The structure rewards players for coming back and participating within their first several sessions, building value over time rather than burning it in a single transaction.
Loyalty Programs: Points for Rakeback
Comparing the loyalty between ZunaBet and its traditional competitors is where the contrast becomes very stark.
Both DraftKings Dynasty Rewards and Bet365’s points program require players to accumulate credits through betting and redeem them for rewards or site credits. The rate of return is not clearly stated, the point value requires calculation, and the experience of progressing through levels does not always feel proportional to the time and money invested.
ZunaBet’s Dragon Evolution loyalty system is designed around a completely different mechanism: rideback. Six named levels – Squire, Warden, Champion, Divine, Knight, and Ultimate – each carry a specific percentage. Squire earns 1%. Final earns 20%. Players know exactly what they are getting, in each level, without any calculations required.
There are additional benefits on top of Rakeback – tier-based free spins of up to 1,000, access to the VIP Club, double wheel spins, and a cheerful mascot called Zuno that gives the program a consistent identity. But the basic mechanism is transparency. Players know their price, they know their level, they know what the next player has to offer.
At 20% for top-tier players, ZunaBet returns a fifth of losses over time. For casual players, this is an ongoing, meaningful benefit that multiplies with continued play – a feature that is currently unmatched by any points-based system in a traditional platformer in either clarity or value.
Three platforms, three different players
DraftKings is the right platform for US sports bettors who want a polished first-time in-app experience designed for the US market, adding daily fantasy and casino to the mix.
Bet365 is the right platform for international sports bettors who want the deepest market coverage available at a traditional legal operator.
ZunaBet is the right platform for players who have moved from paper bankingThey want a loyalty program that clearly tells them what to earn, and they expect casino, sports betting and esports to live together in one place without any compromises.
The first two platforms helped define what online gambling looked like for a generation of players. ZunaBet is determining what the next game will look like.
Disclaimer: This is a press release provided by a third party responsible for the content. Please do your own research before taking any action based on the content.
