Edge Markets: Could a single-use Visa card be the answer to gamblers’ payments woes?

Hannah Gannagé-Stewart

4 September 2025 at 11:50am UTC-4

Source: LinkedIn

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Every now and then, an idea comes along that is so simple, it’s a wonder that no one has done it before.

There are countless online payments providers for gambling, all with their own pros and cons, but wouldn’t it be easier just to use a payment method with which we’re all familiar? Seni Thomas, Founder and Chief Executive of Edge Markets, thinks so.

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Having studied at the New York University Stern School of Business before getting into advertising and media sales, Thomas is not your typical gambling entrepreneur. But a foray into the industry via a business partnership with Sports Illustrated a few years ago seemed to reveal some white space in payments for gambling.

In 2022, Thomas launched the Edge Boost account, a simple payment solution that allows bettors to segment their spending. The account includes a Visa debit card that can only be used for gambling. It will not be accepted for any other kind of transaction – even buying a drink in a casino.

It has a $250,000 per day debit limit, is compatible with all operators via Visa and offers a load of responsible gambling tools, which it plans to incentivise the use of with cashback opportunities.

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Recent research conducted for the company by Betting Hero Research revealed that 70% of high-value users reported issues with funding their play over the past year. This can be down to numerous issues, among them blocks on gambling transitions, caps on withdrawals, and spending limits.

Bringing Edge to market

The research went on to find that 40% of that same cohort of high-value gamblers had set up a dedicated bank account for gambling to reduce the friction, keep tabs on spending and to provide a separation between gaming and day-to-day expenditure.

So, why has no one done this before? A dedicated banking product for gambling appears to be a no-brainer. The answer is that the idea is simple but, as Thomas explains, the execution was more complicated.

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“It was almost four years to get through all of the banking regulations,” he says with a lingering air of exasperation. “We actually had to get a special Visa waiver, because Visa’s whole thing is ‘Visa anywhere,’ and we needed to limit the card’s use to just gambling.” It was the first time anyone had created a single-use Visa card.

Thomas recalls his early explorations of the gambling industry, when he found himself working with Sports Illustrated as it set up its betting operation in Colorado in 2021. The sportsbook closed in 2024 when the joint venture that operated it between 888 Holdings and Authentic Brands Group concluded it was unlikely to achieve “sufficient scale.”

Nonetheless, Thomas had spotted opportunities for scale in payments.

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“It’s a huge market, and moving money in gambling is just a nightmare,” he says. “There’s incredible friction. Online is a little bit better, but especially for the VIPs… if I’m trying to get in US$10,000 or US$20,000, I’ve got to use my debit card, but it gets capped at US$3,000 by my bank. So, then I’m using PayPal, but PayPal might freeze my accounts. I keep money in Skrill and Venmo and ACH. It’s a mess,” he adds.

Why cash isn’t always king

Life isn’t any easier for land-based gamblers who face similar friction with their banking providers or have to carry around eye-watering sums in cash. “On the offline side, 80% of the money going into a casino is still cash. It’s the single last bastion,” Thomas remarks.

“We took a Silicon Valley approach to this. If you take a tech-first principles approach, you trace the money, and you start to understand where the bottleneck is. The real bottleneck is in banking.

“The average American cannot get more than 600 to 800 bucks out a day on a debit card. I’ve been with Chase for 17 years, and my daily cap on my debit is only five grand. I literally have to call them to buy a sofa.”

The Edge Markets team decided that if they could solve the banking side of it, everything downstream would solve itself. “Everyone already accepts Visa debit. That’s what was so elegant with this solution,” he says.

Despite the elegance of the solution, as Thomas said, it took almost four years to get the product through all the banking regulations and ready to launch. But by working closely with senior management at Visa, Edge achieved sign off for the first single-use Visa card.

The fact that the account would be single use made it an easier sell from a compliance perspective because every dollar coming in could be traced from a personal account and every dollar going out was only going to be used for one thing.

The card is linked to a checking account in the holder’s name, so it can’t be linked to a business account, for example, and must line up with all of Edge’s know-your-customer protocols.

Because it’s limited to just gambling transactions, Thomas argues the card is completely transparent in KYC terms – contrary to a regular debit card where the gambling transactions appear among all sorts of other day-to-day spending.

What next for Edge Markets?

Asked whether he has been tempted to explore other uses cases for a single-use account and Visa card, Thomas says “we have plenty to chew on in the casino industry, and what we like about it is how highly regulated it is.”

For the next 12 months, the Edge Markets team will focus on refining the product and further reducing friction in the space.

“The bones are there, and this NFL season will be our first major season with most of the feature set live,” Thomas explains. “In five years, we see ourselves as a full-service specialty neobank, comparable to Chime for the gaming industry with unit economics that are 40-60x stronger.”

As the industry continues to grapple with innovation and buzz technologies, such as blockchain and AI, Edge Markets is a refreshingly straightforward concept that might become, in Thomas’ words, the most “elegant” payments solution for high-value gamblers, online and in brick-and-mortar casinos.