One fortuitous connection: Derek Rathbun on how a chance meeting with Nolan Bushnell led to Gamers.bet

Welcome to Coffee.Press.Play., brought to you by The Business of Games Podcast, powered by Xsolla. Recorded live at GDC 2026 inside the Xsolla Clubhouse, this series puts a twist on the traditional interview format: guests play a round of a classic video game against our Xsolla host and the outcome determines whether they face an easy question or a hard one.In this episode, host Ed Lin sits down with Derek Rathbun, CEO and co-founder of Gamers.bet, who takes on a round of Super Smash Bros. and earns himself the easy question.Derek's path into games didn't start in games at all. He spent about 20 years in technology, primarily in the automotive space, before an acquisition sent him looking for what was next. Through a mutual friend, he found himself in conversation with a former president of Atari and Sega, who brought in none other than Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari himself, to talk through where gaming might be headed. What came out of those conversations was the idea that real-money gameplay had never been made truly native to games, and Derek realized he had the technology background to build it. That idea became Gamers.bet, and he hasn't looked back since.What you'll hear:How two decades in automotive tech led Derek to an unexpected introduction to Nolan BushnellWhy Derek landed on "fortuitous" as the one word that captures his path into gamingHow a casual conversation about the next evolution of competition turned into a businessWhy Derek believes real-money gameplay can benefit both players and the games themselves as a new monetization layerCoffee.Press.Play. is an ongoing mini-series, and more conversations with our GDC guests are on the way. Listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch full episodes on our YouTube channel. Missed us at GDC 2026? Stay tuned to our LinkedIn page for announcements on where we'll be next. And catch up on recent episodes at xsolla.com/podcast.For more insights and resources, visit xsolla.com/podcast. Want to join the conversation? Follow and comment on our LinkedIn page at The Business of Games Podcast. That’s where we’ll be sharing updates, highlights, and continuing the discussion. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share the podcast with friends who want to learn more about the business of games.