Magic Eden has announced a $75 million commitment to Dicey, its crypto casino and sportsbook venture, as the platform exits private beta and opens access to more users. According to the company, the capital will fund Dicey’s bankroll, operations, and marketing efforts as it launches a full-service casino and sportsbook product.
The announcement marks one of the clearest signs yet that Magic Eden is aggressively repositioning itself beyond NFTs and marketplaces. Once considered one of Solana’s defining NFT companies, Magic Eden now appears focused on crypto entertainment products centered around gambling, sports betting, trading cards, and tokenized engagement.
In a statement announcing the commitment, Magic Eden argued that the iGaming industry suffers from poor transparency, restrictive withdrawal practices, and outdated product experiences.
The company said it sees an opportunity to build a differentiated product through new game formats, AI-enabled workflows, and faster payment systems designed to improve settlement reliability. The company claimed that Dicey surpassed 40% of the platforms listed on Tanzanite, an iGaming market terminal, in weekly gross deposits. Magic Eden also stated that Dicey matched Magic Eden's daily active user count during beta.
A Sharp Pivot
The Dicey announcement follows months of restructuring across Magic Eden’s broader business. In February, Magic Eden CEO and co-founder Jack Lu outlined sweeping changes to the company’s strategy, describing Dicey as its highest-conviction growth opportunity.
At the time, Lu said Magic Eden would streamline its marketplace operations and focus primarily on Solana and its Packs products while scaling back several other business lines. The company has since wound down support for its EVM marketplace, Bitcoin (Runes and Ordinals) marketplace, Bitcoin APIs, and the Magic Eden Wallet. Magic Eden also said it would discontinue NFT buybacks, arguing that the initiative had minimal impact. Instead, the company said it would prioritize ecosystem design, product initiatives, and future utility tied to the $ME token.
Lu framed the decision as a necessary move driven by changing market conditions. According to the CEO, roughly 80% of Magic Eden’s costs were tied to products that generated only around 20% of the company's revenue.
Responding to a community member who asked whether EVM and Bitcoin products created that much overhead, Lu said those markets had shrunk significantly and no longer justified the expense. He said the company believed it was better to make a decisive shift immediately rather than continue supporting products with limited long-term revenue potential.
“The future of ME is simpler, faster, and fueled by our original home on Solana and the success of Dicey,” Lu wrote at the time.
Wallet Shutdown Drew Backlash Earlier This Year
The company’s transition has not been smooth. In April, Magic Eden formally deprecated the Magic Eden Wallet, placing the product in export-only mode and prompting backlash from users frustrated by bugs and the wallet’s wind-down.
The shutdown formed part of a broader effort to reduce costs and narrow the company’s focus. To ease frustration among supporters, Magic Eden announced plans to double staking rewards for $ME holders and allocate 30% of protocol revenue toward $ME buybacks and $USDC distributions.
Even so, reactions remained divided. Some community members argued the increased rewards were too small to meaningfully offset concerns about the company’s shifting priorities and shrinking product suite.
Others viewed Dicey as a potentially important long-term revenue engine that could help stabilize the business during a prolonged downturn in NFT trading activity.
Trading Cards and Gambling Become Core Growth Areas
Magic Eden’s pivot comes as parts of the NFT market continue struggling to regain momentum. The company increasingly appears focused on sectors it believes can generate more consistent engagement and revenue.
One of those areas is onchain trading cards. According to Messari data, onchain TCG platforms generated $184 million in gacha volume in April. Magic Eden’s Packs products currently operate through Collector Crypto, a leading Solana-based marketplace and gacha operator. At the same time, the company clearly sees gambling and sports betting as another major growth opportunity.
The company’s changing direction also comes as the price of its native token remains far below peak levels. $ME reached an all-time high of $8 and now trades at roughly $0.12, down 98.5% from its peak. The company has previously stated that $ME would remain the central token of its ecosystem even with its pivot to iGaming. It remains to be seen if the move can generate sustainable long-term growth.
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