Singapore blocked more than 600 iGaming platforms during the 2026 World Cup; France’s bookmakers doubled revenue to €157 million

A handful of market updates here, but for high-risk payments the useful part is simple: regulators and payment rails are getting tighter in some places, while betting volumes and affiliate rules are shifting in others. That combination changes where PSPs can route volume, and how much friction operators should expect.

1. In Singapore, authorities blocked more than 600 iGaming platforms and stopped 7,000 financial transactions during the 2026 World Cup. For PSPs, the point is not just enforcement volume; it is that payment flows tied to banned platforms can be interrupted fast, and at scale.
2. In France, bookmakers’ revenue doubled to €157 million after the World Cup was expanded. The source frames this as a record, which is the kind of number operators and acquiring teams care about when assessing seasonal exposure and capacity planning.
3. In Chile, revenue from illegal online gambling in 2025 could have reached $450 million. That is the kind of estimate that usually ends up in policy debates, but for payment teams it also signals a market where illicit volume is large enough to matter.
4. Quarterly revenue at Единого ЦУПИС fell by 8%. For anyone watching payment infrastructure in regulated betting, that is the sort of directional signal that can matter more than the headline number itself.
5. Bulgaria is introducing a licensing system for gambling affiliates. Affiliate licensing tends to change traffic economics quickly, because it adds another gate between acquisition spend and conversion.
6. «Спортбет» cut its retail points-of-sale network by 43% after launching a new platform. That kind of shrinkage usually tells you where the business is moving: away from physical distribution and toward the new stack.
7. In the US, medical students are seeking tuition money through prediction markets and OnlyFans. Not a payments-infrastructure story on its own, but it is a reminder that alternative income channels are now part of the consumer risk picture PSPs keep running into.