real-money-gaming
(6)
Rush Street Interactive
The Chicago operator behind BetRivers turned a casino-floor pedigree into a $1.1 billion online betting business - and it did it while most of its rivals were still burning cash to buy customers.
DraftKings Inc.
DraftKings began with a baseball contest built in a spare bedroom. Fourteen years later, it is a $6 billion test of how deeply a betting interface can be woven into the way America watches sports.
AGS - American Gaming Systems
The Las Vegas machine-maker spent two decades climbing from tribal bingo halls to the main casino floor. Now private again and freshly rebranded around a lightning bolt, AGS is betting its next act on cabinets, table games, and the screen in your pocket.
Lucra
Lucra is a B2B competitive-loyalty platform that lets brands run live social competitions - tournaments, head-to-head challenges and mini-games - inside their own apps and websites through a white-label SDK. Originally launched in 2019 as a peer-to-peer real-money sports gaming app, the company pivoted to selling gamified engagement as a modern alternative to points-based loyalty programs, handling compliance, payments and fraud as a merchant of record. Its clients include Dave & Buster's, Five Iron Golf, TouchTunes and ChessKings, and in April 2026 it raised a $20M Series B led by ARK Invest's venture fund - ARK's first time leading an early-stage deal.
Triumph
Triumph (Triumph Labs) is a San Francisco company that turns ordinary mobile games into real-money skill tournaments. Its plug-and-play SDK lets developers add cash competitions with a single line of code, while Triumph handles the hard parts behind the scenes: payments, KYC identity checks, state-by-state legal compliance, geolocation, matchmaking, anti-cheat, and payouts. Founded in 2021 by Stanford dropouts Jake Brooks and Jared Geller, the company raised $14.1M (a $10.2M Series A led by General Catalyst plus a $3.9M seed) and also runs its own consumer apps - Triumph Arcade for skill games and Rips for card collectibles.
Avia (AviaGames)
Avia (formerly AviaGames) is a San Mateo-based mobile gaming company behind Pocket7Games, a skill-based tournament platform where players compete in puzzle, card, bingo, and arcade titles for cash prizes. Founded in 2017 by Vickie Chen and Ping Wang, the company uses algorithmic skill matchmaking and a single-wallet system across a portfolio that includes Solitaire Clash, Bingo Clash, and Bubble Buzz.