The payments platform announced the new arena Monday (Aug. 24), calling it “a destination focused on game discovery, rewards and community” where players can find new titles, access “exclusive” content and promotions, engage with creators and unlock rewards.
“We’re creating a bridge between gamers and game publishers,” Bob Legters, chief product officer at Paysafe, said in a news release. “The gaming arena combines discovery, community engagement and the seamless purchasing experiences enabled by PaysafeCard and PaysafeWallet to help players find new experiences and help publishers grow their reach.”
Using PaysafeWallet, gamers can “experience seamless purchasing, funding and checkout experiences,” the release added, while the arena gives developers and publishers another path to acquiring new customers, as Paysafe’s gaming audience includes approximately 19 million people worldwide.
“The initiative reflects Paysafe’s vision of expanding its role in gaming beyond payments, creating new opportunities for players and publishers to connect and grow,” the release added. “For publishers and developers, the arena addresses one of the industry’s biggest challenges: discoverability. The platform enables developers to showcase games, run campaigns, distribute promotions and gain insights into customer engagement and performance.”
Paysafe reported quarterly earnings earlier this month showing 17% growth in iGaming for its merchant solutions business with processing volumes up more than 25% year over year in June and more than 30% in July. Chief Financial Officer John Crawford specifically pointed to higher iGaming growth, ongoing strength in Latin American and double-digit active user growth as supporting the company’s outlook for the latter half of the year.
Meanwhile, recent PYMNTS Intelligence research—collected in the report “Apple Pay @11: Usage Is Up, but Competitors Are Gaining Ground”—shows that digital wallet usage is increasing both in stores and online.
More than 3 in 10 consumers surveyed by PYMNTS said they had used a mobile wallet in a store during the prior week, more than double the share reported in 2024. The research also showed that consumers increasingly fund wallet purchases using balances held directly with digital platforms.
“The movement toward stored balances gives digital wallets a broader role in the payment process,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this month. “A wallet that once acted mainly as a digital sleeve for a physical card can increasingly function like a small account of its own. The change could help providers create a smoother checkout experience while giving consumers another way to organize funds and make purchases.”
