Can Free-to-Play Disrupt the Real-Money Gambling Industry?

Real-money gambling has a design flaw baked into its own compliance process. 

A player deposits, wins, and requests a withdrawal. Then comes the wait. KYC checks, verification, sometimes hours, sometimes days. 

And in that gap, something predictable happens.

"In real-money gambling casinos, I could see a repetitive pattern. Users put their money in, win a good amount, then request a withdrawal. Normally, due to compliance and KYC procedures, they have to wait a while (hours or even days). However, during those first few minutes, players often retract their withdrawal request and continue playing, ultimately losing everything again," says Sérgio Paulino, Director of Brand & Design at All Bettors, and a decade-plus veteran of the gambling industry through senior roles at Lottoland Group and WeKnowGaming.

It's this pattern, among others he's watched play out across markets for over ten years, that led Paulino to build something that removes the mechanism entirely. 

All Bettors is a free-to-play platform for prediction markets and casino games, built on the premise that a large share of gamblers were never chasing money in the first place. 

The question worth asking is whether that premise holds up, and whether free-to-play has a genuine future in an industry still overwhelmingly built around real-money stakes.

Two types of player

Paulino's starting point is a split he's arrived at through years of watching how people actually behave across lotto, casino, sports betting and now prediction markets.

"I see the gaming and gambling industry as an entertainment industry, with two main types of users: those looking for financial gain, and those looking for entertainment," he told SportsBoom.us in an exclusive interaction. 

The first group, in his telling, is smaller than the industry's marketing suggests but louder than its numbers deserve.

"Financial players are those looking for a fast, big win with minimal effort. They may study strategy, sports, game rules and odds extensively, solely with the aim of winning (a notion that is greatly boosted by fake influencer winners). Then there are the entertainment players, who make up the majority. They enjoy the thrill of placing bets and winning through luck," Paulino added. 

It's the second group that All Bettors is built for, and deliberately not for the first.

"With All Bettors, I'm looking for the latter. However, I don't offer real money for two reasons: licences are required (both local and offshore), and it puts off players who only want to have fun without taking financial risks (or feel they can enter into the 'dark-room' of a casino and lose it all).” 

What 'All Bettors' actually is

All Bettors launched at the beginning of July 2026. 

Its own description of the platform is straightforward about what it is and isn’t. 

All Bettors is a free-to-play social gaming platform built for people who love making predictions, playing casino-style games, and challenging friends all without the pressure of real money.

Powered by Curvs, our virtual in-game currency, you can jump into prediction markets, spin the wheel, play Blackjack, test your instincts in HiLo, survive the Crash game, or simply see how good your predictions really are.

No pressure. No complicated barriers. Just great games, smart predictions, friendly competition, and a community that makes every session more fun.

Because the platform is only weeks old at the time of writing, All Bettors wasn't able to provide in-depth performance numbers for this feature. 

Paulino has committed to sharing factual figures with SportsBoom in six to twelve months, once there's enough data to speak to. That's a fair position for a young platform to take, but it also means the case for free-to-play's future here rests, for now, on argument and outside precedent rather than All Bettors' own track record.

Is there actually a market for this

The strongest evidence Paulino offers isn't from his own platform, but from the wider free-to-play and social gaming space, where the entertainment-only player has already been proven to exist at scale.

The read he takes from those numbers is that non-paying, entertainment-driven users are not a rounding error in these businesses. They're the majority, in some cases by a wide margin.

"These figures show that there are a large number of users looking solely for entertainment. Some are willing to pay; others are not. All Bettors is free to play, focusing on those who don't want to risk losing themselves in the 'dark side' of gambling," Paulino says.

Where he departs from a straight social-casino playbook is in how he wants the product itself to be shaped.

"Genuine entertainment puts the player at the heart of the experience. Rather than building the castle and letting players in, we'll shape All Bettors based on what our bettor community defines. We'll conduct regular polls and ask questions to involve players in deciding what comes next. Then we will take that feedback and offer the best possible solution.” 

Winning without money on the table

If there's no real money and no redemption, what does winning actually mean inside the app? Paulino frames it as a deliberate design choice rather than a compromise.

"In terms of winning, a tokenised platform that doesn't allow users to redeem for real economic value provides the thrill of a parallel currency that mimics the real world, where you can see your coins going up and down depending on your decisions and daily luck.” 

Since launch, he says the core motivation hasn't shifted from what he expected going in.

"Players mostly want to keep playing. The core motivation is still the same. To be entertained.” 

Status and recognition inside the community do the work that a cash payout would otherwise do.

"At All Bettors, winning means showing up in the leaderboard ranks, getting lots of Curv coins, making a big bet on a prediction and claiming victory in front of the community. Different players experience victory in different ways.” 

Where All Bettors sits in the market

Paulino is careful to position All Bettors as occupying a gap rather than competing head-on with either social prediction platforms or social casinos.

"I believe there's a market for All Bettors. Manifold Markets are purely for social predictions, whereas there are plenty of social and sweepstakes casinos. I'm combining social predictions, where the outcome is usually known within a few days, and social casinos, which provide an instant thrill," he says.

On the broader online casino landscape, and what sets a handful of operators apart from the rest, he points to community as the real differentiator.

"We also have to consider the number of real-money casinos online today, ranging from local to offshore. They all tend to offer similar products and propositions, and some take more risks than others with their bonus promotions. They all end up looking and doing the same, except for a few, such as Duel.com, where the community plays a more central role.” 

Within the product itself, the classics still dominate.

"Our players tend to spend time on predictions and casino games. Since our games are proprietary, we have complete control over themes, odds and prizes. As in most casinos, slots are also our most popular game.” 

What's next

Sports betting is the obvious gap in the current product, and Paulino isn't ruling it out, though he's letting the player base decide rather than forcing it.

"If the community thinks that adding a sports betting feature would be suitable for All Bettors, we will implement it and provide the best possible solution. For now, I envisage that the best mainstream solution to cover different players' wishes is to have sports through social predictions. However, I could easily see this happening in the near future.” 

More broadly, he frames the entire venture around one goal.

"That's what I'm pursuing with All Bettors. I want to build a fun community offering real entertainment.” 

He also points to a wider shift he's watching play out elsewhere in the market, where the line between free and paid modes is starting to blur inside single brands rather than staying split across separate products.

"There's another brand called mint.io that is launching now as well, allowing users to switch between free and paid modes. Ultimately, it's the brand that matters more than the product. What experience do you give users to make them feel part of something and get what they're looking for?" he added. 

Can real-money bookmakers learn anything from this

Given his background sits mostly on the real-money side of the industry, it's worth asking Paulino directly what, if anything, bookmakers could take from what he's building. 

His answer is notably restrained for a founder talking about his own platform.

"It's difficult to say what real-money gambling can learn from All Bettors. Right now, not much. Once I can demonstrate this with better numbers, perhaps the concept of community and user experience will be more relevant," he concluded. 

It's a more honest answer than the pitch usually gets, and it's arguably the most useful one in the piece.