Caesars and DraftKings are two names that show up in nearly every US online betting conversation. Both have spent years building strong recognition through major league deals, polished apps, and nonstop ad spend. But the industry is moving, and a fresh group of crypto-first casinos is starting to win over players who want a quicker, more modern experience. ZunaBet, launched in 2026, is one of the names becoming part of that shift.

Here is how Caesars and DraftKings compare today, and where ZunaBet is starting to make its mark as a different kind of platform.

The Two Big Names in US Betting

Caesars has been part of gambling for decades. The brand built its reputation in physical casinos before moving online through Caesars Palace Online Casino and the Caesars Sportsbook. Everything runs on fiat money, with deposits through cards, bank transfers, and PayPal. The Caesars Rewards program ties online play to perks at Caesars resorts, including hotel stays and dining credits.

DraftKings reached the top another way. It started as a daily fantasy sports site before growing into a full sportsbook and online casino. It is now one of the most familiar names in US sports betting, with sharp mobile apps and partnerships across the major leagues. Like Caesars, it works only in dollars and runs under state-by-state licensing.

Both are reliable picks for players who want a regulated US betting experience. But both also carry the same limits. They only operate in certain states, withdrawals are slower than what crypto sites manage, and their game libraries are smaller compared to global platforms. Their loyalty programs still follow the same tier and points layout that has been around for years.

ZunaBet Joins the Story

ZunaBet is a newer name climbing in player conversations since its 2026 launch. It is owned by Strathvale Group Ltd and operates under an Anjouan gaming license. The biggest gap between ZunaBet and the older brands sits at the foundation. ZunaBet was built around crypto from day one rather than adapted later from a fiat-based system.

The casino offers more than 11,000 games from over 60 providers, including big studios like Pragmatic Play, Hacksaw Gaming, Yggdrasil, BGaming, and Evolution. That library easily outpaces what most US-licensed casinos can carry. Slots, table games, and live dealer rooms all sit under one account.

A full sportsbook is part of the package too. It covers football, basketball, tennis, NHL, and the other major sports, alongside esports like CS2, Dota 2, League of Legends, and Valorant. Virtual sports and combat sports finish out the menu. That puts ZunaBet in the same hybrid space as DraftKings, but with broader coverage rolled into one platform.

Crypto vs Traditional Models

This is where ZunaBet really separates from the older brands. Caesars and DraftKings only handle dollars. That means bank processing, possible holds, and slower payouts.

ZunaBet supports more than 20 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT across multiple chains, Solana, Dogecoin, Cardano, and XRP. There are no platform fees on transactions, and withdrawals move quickly. For players who already use crypto or just want quicker and cheaper transfers, the upgrade is clear.

Crypto platforms also tend to operate globally instead of being limited to specific states. Players in many regions can use the full casino and sportsbook without the patchwork rules that come with US brands. For a generation that already spends much of its time in digital, crypto-friendly spaces, that fits how they expect any modern platform to work.

Welcome Offers Side by Side

Caesars and DraftKings both run welcome offers, usually built around a deposit match or a risk-free first bet. The exact terms shift by state, and wagering rules can be strict.

ZunaBet offers a welcome package worth up to $5,000 plus 75 free spins, spread across three deposits. The first deposit gets a 100% match up to $2,000 plus 25 spins. The second adds a 50% match up to $1,500 plus 25 spins. The third gives another 100% match up to $1,500 plus 25 spins. Marketed as a 250% bonus over three deposits, it gives new players more chances to explore the platform than a one-shot offer would.

Loyalty Programs Compared

Caesars Rewards is one of the most established loyalty programs in gambling. The link to physical resort perks is a strong draw for players who visit Vegas or Atlantic City. DraftKings Dynasty Rewards lets players earn points to swap for bonuses, free bets, and event access.

Both work, but both follow the same loyalty card formula the industry has used for decades. ZunaBet takes a different approach. Its program runs on a dragon evolution theme with a mascot called Zuno. There are six tiers: Squire at 1% rakeback, Warden at 2%, Champion at 4%, Divine at 5%, Knight at 10%, and Ultimate at 20% rakeback at the top.

Players also pick up tier-based free spins up to 1,000 spins, VIP club access, and double wheel spins as they climb. The whole setup feels closer to leveling up in a game than swiping a points card. For players who enjoy that kind of system, it lands harder than a standard VIP program.

Why ZunaBet Is Worth a Closer Look

Caesars and DraftKings still make sense for players who want a familiar, regulated US betting experience. Both brands are strong, and neither is going to lose its place. But what players want from these sites is changing fast. Quick payouts, deeper libraries, and more engaging rewards are turning into baseline expectations rather than nice extras.

ZunaBet is built around that baseline. The crypto-first foundation means fast payments and low fees. The game library outpaces what most established brands carry. The sportsbook covers traditional sports and esports together. The dragon loyalty program turns regular play into a journey with clear rewards at every step.

For players who want speed, variety, and a more modern feel, ZunaBet is one of the most exciting options on the market right now. It is still an emerging platform, but the direction is clear. A new generation of players expects crypto support, gamified rewards, and global access as standard features, not extras layered on top.

Caesars and DraftKings shaped what online betting looks like today. ZunaBet is one of the platforms shaping what comes next.

Disclaimer: This is a Press Release provided by a third party who is responsible for the content. Please conduct your own research before taking any action based on the content.

Two Texas brothers pleaded guilty in a federal case tied to the armed robbery of a Minnesota family and the theft of more than $8 million in cryptocurrency. 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota announced the pleas on June 18.

Isiah Angelo Garcia, 25, and Raymond Christian Garcia, 24, both of Waller, Texas, pleaded guilty to one count each of Interference with Commerce by Robbery. Prosecutors said each man faces up to 20 years in federal prison. Sentencing dates have not yet been set.

Guilty pleas follow armed crypto robbery

According to the Justice Department, the Garcia brothers traveled from Texas to Minnesota in September 2025 to carry out the robbery. Prosecutors said they held a family at gunpoint in their home in Grant, Minnesota, while demanding access to crypto accounts.

The defendants admitted in their guilty pleas that they used firearms to threaten the victims and help carry out the robbery. They also agreed to pay more than $8 million in restitution.

“The guilty pleas entered today reflect our commitment to holding the defendants accountable for the choices they made,” U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen said.

Prosecutors describe hours-long ordeal

Court records said the robbery began on Sept. 19, 2025. Prosecutors said the brothers zip-tied the victim, his wife and his son, and held the family at gunpoint for more than eight hours.

Isiah Garcia then took the main victim to a family cabin in northern Minnesota, where prosecutors said he forced him to retrieve extra crypto storage devices. The brothers ultimately forced the transfer of more than $8 million in digital assets.

The victim’s son later called 911 when one of the suspects left the home. Deputies found the wife and son still zip-tied inside the house. Investigators also found a disassembled AR-15-style rifle, ammunition and other items near the property.

Evidence led police back to Texas

The Justice Department said investigators used items left near the home to identify the suspects. Earlier charging documents said a Wendy’s receipt, rental car records, motel records and video surveillance helped track the brothers after they fled Minnesota.

Police arrested the brothers in Texas on Sept. 22, 2025. Prosecutors said Isiah Garcia later admitted that he and his brother drove to Minnesota, held the family at gunpoint and forced the crypto transfer.

The case moved from state charges to a federal case. The brothers were originally charged in Washington County, Minnesota, with kidnapping, robbery and burglary counts before the federal prosecution moved forward.

Case adds to wrench attack concerns

The guilty pleas come as law enforcement and security firms track more physical attacks against crypto holders. These attacks are often called wrench attacks, a term used when criminals rely on force, threats or kidnapping to steal digital assets.

As previously reported by crypto.news, France has faced a wave of crypto-linked abductions and attempted kidnappings in 2026, including a failed attack involving the wife of The Sandbox co-founder Sébastien Borget. The same report said security experts urged crypto holders to reduce public exposure and improve personal safety.

CertiK reported 34 verified wrench attack cases worldwide between January and April 2026, with estimated losses of about $101 million. Its earlier 2025 report counted 72 verified physical coercion incidents, up 75% from 2024.

The Minnesota case forms part of a wider pattern of physical crypto crime tracked by law enforcement and security firms. Prosecutors will next seek sentencing in federal court. Until then, both brothers remain convicted by guilty plea and await punishment.

The setup was built over several weeks, where the attacker deployed dozens of fake token contracts and fake liquidity pools – a term for a pile of tokens locked on a decentralized exchange – that looked like profitable trades. Some mimicked familiar assets such as wrapped ether (WETH), and dollar-pegged stablecoins USDC and USDT.

That bait did what it was supposed to do. Jaredfromsubway.eth’s bot saw what looked like MEV opportunities and generated approvals for attacker-controlled helper contracts to spend tokens on its behalf. Those approvals were used immediately as part of the trade in earlier tests, but later, the attacker created routes where the approvals stayed open.

This left the attacker with standing permission to pull funds. And they used those open approvals to transfer WETH, USDC and USDT out of Jaredfromsubway.eth’s contracts, draining more than $7.5 million.

Some of the stolen funds were later sent to Tornado Cash, onchain data reveiwed by CoinDesk showed.

The irony was hard to miss, meanwhile.

Jaredfromsubway.eth has long been one of the most visible symbols of toxic MEV on Ethereum. Sandwich attacks cost Ethereum traders about $60 million a year, with 60,000 to 90,000 attacks per month between November 2024 and October 2025.

Pump.fun’s new GO bounty feature is facing fresh criticism after reports said users completed or posted tasks involving tattoos, public humiliation and high-risk stunts for crypto rewards. 

The Solana meme coin launchpad introduced GO in early June as a marketplace where users can create paid tasks and lock rewards in escrow.

According to the New York Post, the feature has paid out more than $370,000 since June 4. The report said about 270 open bounties still offered more than $200,000 in rewards, with some tasks ranging from charity actions to stunts that critics called unsafe or degrading.

How the GO bounty feature works

As previously reported by crypto.news, Pump.fun launched GO as a bounty marketplace with more than 320 active tasks and $144,000 in unclaimed rewards shortly after going live. Users could connect an X account and crypto wallet, then post or complete tasks for payouts starting at $5.

Pump.fun promoted the feature with the phrase “Pay ANYONE to do ANYTHING.” Bankless reported that rewards sit in escrow until Pump.fun reviews a submission, and that the platform has final authority over approval, rejection or cancellation.

Reports point to strange and risky tasks

The New York Post reported that one man in the Philippines received $15,000 in crypto after tattooing “bounty.fun” on his forehead. Other listings reportedly included putting a face in a toilet, quitting a job on camera and climbing Mount Everest for a large reward.

Some listed tasks were harmless, including feeding stray animals or donating clothes. Others raised safety and dignity concerns. Wired reported that several bounties pushed people toward embarrassment, harassment or possible legal risk, while some submissions appeared to use AI-generated images as proof. Wired also noted that payouts can be split among several entries.

Public criticism grows

New York Governor Kathy Hochul criticized the platform on X, calling it a “dystopian nightmare” and saying she would support the first bill introduced to ban it. X head of product Nikita Bier also criticized the feature, saying it showed people using money to push others into shameful acts.

A Japanese corporate pension fund plans to start investing in crypto assets in fiscal 2026, in a rare move for the country’s retirement sector. 

The National Business Corporate Pension Fund, based in Okayama City, serves about 1,200 small and medium-sized companies and manages about 21.3 billion yen, or roughly $136 million, according to CoinPost, citing Nikkei.

The fund reportedly plans to allocate about 1% of total assets to crypto. The exposure would come through a passive fund managed by a major hedge fund and would hold multiple crypto assets. The fund has not disclosed the exact tokens or the manager.

Fund cites currency risk as main reason

The reported allocation is not being framed as a short-term bet on crypto prices. CoinPost said the main goal is currency risk diversification. The fund’s fiscal 2025 asset mix stood at 80% yen, 15% dollars and 5% other currencies.

For fiscal 2026, the fund plans to cut yen exposure to 70% and add a 10% allocation to developed-market currencies. Another 5% would include emerging-market currencies, gold and crypto. Aiyu Kiguchi, the fund’s investment executive director, reportedly said the dollar “may lose its status as a reserve currency,” explaining why the fund did not raise dollar holdings.

Six years of research led to decision

Kiguchi also reportedly said the fund reached its view after about six years of research. He said the market had “matured” as the investor base became deeper. The fund is also studying funds that use arbitrage strategies across several crypto assets.

The plan remains small by design. A 1% allocation would give the pension fund exposure while limiting direct pressure on its wider portfolio. That matters because defined benefit plans must protect retirement savings and manage losses with care. CoinPost said the fund has a funded ratio above 140% and an effective equity ratio above 30%.

Japan’s crypto rules are changing

The pension plan comes as Japan moves toward a wider rewrite of crypto rules. As previously reported by crypto.news, Japan’s lower house passed a bill on June 11 to move crypto assets from the Payment Services Act to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.

Crypto.news also reported that the linked 20% tax rate is a target for 2028, not an immediate change. The same legal shift could help open a path for regulated crypto exchange-traded funds in Japan, although further upper-house review and rulemaking are still needed.

Osaka Exchange also eyes Bitcoin futures

Separately, CoinPost noted that Osaka Exchange, part of Japan Exchange Group, aims to launch Bitcoin futures in 2028 if spot Bitcoin ETFs become legal in Japan. The exchange would use futures to meet hedging demand from institutional investors. 

Reuters reported this month that a ruling party panel also urged Japan to build a legal framework for crypto ETFs and promote yen stablecoins in Asia. Together, these moves show how Japan is trying to place crypto inside regulated market channels rather than leave it only to direct exchange trading.

The pension fund’s plan marks a cautious step by a medium-sized Japanese asset owner. It does not change the risk profile of crypto assets. It does show that some domestic institutions now see limited crypto exposure as part of currency and portfolio planning.

Bitcoin steadied near $64,000 over the weekend, clawing back part of Friday’s drop, as traders weighed the start of US-Iran ceasefire talks against a renewed threat to close the Strait of Hormuz.

The token traded around $64,200 on Sunday, up 0.9% over 24 hours but roughly flat on the week, per CoinDesk data, after dropping below $63,000 on Friday. Most majors firmed alongside it.

Ether rose 0.5% on the day and 3.3% on the week to $1,734, solana gained 1.5% to $73 and tron added 1.2%. Hyperliquid’s HYPE slipped 2% on the day but remains the week’s standout, up 14.8%. Dogecoin was the weakest major, down 4.9% over seven days.

Bitcoin has gone nowhere on net this week, rallying early on the signed Iran deal, selling off Friday in a broad risk-off move, and stabilizing over the weekend.

The weekend’s focus is Switzerland, where US and Iranian officials, including Vice President JD Vance, are due to open talks on a permanent ceasefire, per Bloomberg.

The negotiations follow the memorandum of understanding President Donald Trump signed last week, which set a 60-day window that can be extended.

Ethereum’s well-known MEV bot JaredFromSubway was drained after an attacker used contracts that made its automated trading system grant token approvals, according to Blockaid.

The security firm said the incident was not a normal phishing case and not a direct bug in the victim contract. 

“This is not a classic phishing attack and not a traditional smart-contract vulnerability in the victim contract,” Blockaid said. 

The firm said the bot approved attacker-controlled contracts during routes that appeared to be profitable MEV trades.

Blockaid says approvals stayed open

Blockaid said the attacker first tested routes where approvals were used at once, leaving no open allowance. Later, the attacker changed the route design so the bot gave approvals that were not spent or revoked.

One example cited by Blockaid involved an approval of about 92.16 WETH to an attacker helper contract. Etherscan data for the transaction showed jaredfromsubway.eth interacting with its MEV Bot 2 contract before the later sweep. The transaction record also showed ERC-20 movements tied to the same automated route.

Final sweep hit WETH, USDC and USDT

The final transaction used the open approvals to pull WETH, USDC and USDT from the JaredFromSubway MEV bot contract through transferFrom. Etherscan showed transfers from “jaredfromsubway: MEV Bot 2” to the attacker wallet beginning with 0x3e37.

Blockaid put the drained amount at about $7.5 million. The JaredFromSubway account later claimed the loss was $15 million and offered a $1 million bounty for the full return of the funds. That difference has not been fully explained in the public posts reviewed.

How the attacker turned the bot’s logic against it

The attack appears to have targeted the bot’s own trading workflow. MEV bots watch Ethereum activity and act on transactions that look profitable. In this case, attacker-controlled contracts made the route look useful enough for the bot to approve spending rights.

The attacker used 66 fake token contracts that copied the look and function of WETH, USDC and USDT. These contracts were paired with fake liquidity pools. The setup pushed the bot toward approvals that later became the path for the drain.

JaredFromSubway’s record is back in focus

JaredFromSubway is one of Ethereum’s most watched sandwich bots. In a sandwich attack, a bot places trades before and after a user’s swap. This can give the user a worse price while the bot captures the spread.

As previously reported by crypto.news, JaredFromSubway targeted a small swap by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in April, using about $1.14 million in WETH volume across SushiSwap and Uniswap V2. Crypto.news also reported in 2023 that the bot used 455 ETH in gas within 24 hours and accounted for about 7% of Ethereum gas use during that period.

The exploit now puts attention on token approvals used by automated systems. The case shows how a system built to act quickly on open market data can be steered into unsafe permissions when controls around approvals are weak. It also adds a new chapter to the wider debate over MEV, sandwich trades and user protection on Ethereum.

For now, the key public details remain split between Blockaid’s technical thread, the on-chain records and posts from the JaredFromSubway account. No recovery had been confirmed in the reviewed updates.