Gambling Insider Jan-Feb 2025

THE CEO SPECIAL

Featuring: Andre Carrier, Grainne Hurst, Andrea McGeachin, Peter Jackson, Leonid Pertsovskiy, Petra de Ruiter and Uri Poliavich

EDITOR’S LETTER

Julian Perry, COO, Editor-in-Chief

COO, EDITOR IN CHIEF

Julian Perry

EDITOR

Tim Poole

Tim.Poole@gamblinginsider.com

STAFF WRITERS

Beth Turner, Will Underwood, Ciaran McLoughlin, Kirk Geller

CONTENT WRITER

Megan Elswyth

LEAD DESIGNER

Olesya Adamska

DESIGNERS

Claudia Astorino, Callum Flett, Gabriela Baleva

JUNIOR DESIGNERS

Medina Mammadkhanova, Tsvetomir Dikov

ILLUSTRATOR

Judith Chan

Tim Poole, Editor

adies and gentlemen, we at Gambling Insider would like to extend a warm welcome to 2025, a warm welcome to visitors of ICE Barcelona – and, most of all, a warm welcome to our annual CEO Special.

In a jam-packed January/February issue, our most prestigious edition of the year, I as Editor can't wait for readers to consume seven of the most in-depth, high-profile industry interviews you could hope to see this year. All feedback is more than welcome and I truly hope you enjoy the insights our stellar interviewees have to offer.

This year's CEO Special? Yeah, it's special, alright. Not only do we feature Flutter Entertainment CEO Peter Jackson, the biggest publicly traded operator in gambling, we include Holland Casino CEO Petra de Ruiter and Betting & Gaming Council CEO Grainne Hurst. Providing a US perspective, a truly unique one at that as he runs an employee-owned casino in Nevada and a charitable gaming casino in New Hampshire, is Eureka Casinos CEO Andre Carrier.

However, this is where – this year – we bring a twist. For the very first time, we have included what we call 'the best of both,' meaning our CEO Special is delving into the realm of B2B suppliers as well as B2C operators. As such, joining Jackson, De Ruiter, Hurst and Carrier are Soft2Bet CEO Uri Poliavich, Betby CEO Leonid Pertsovskiy and Neosurf CEO Andrea McGeachin.

Each executive has an individual story well worth telling – and our team, myself included, do our very best to challenge them to tell as much of it as possible.

Naturally, this issue is not restricted to our seven feature interviewees. We have our usual selection of data, Insiders and product reviews, while our Roundtable feature includes a number of suppliers and their predictions for 2025's biggest industry trends.

Elsewhere, we have an array of contributors – new and returning – focusing on topics such as Brazil, the black market, personalisation, AI, India, Germany and Australia. They are accompanied by exclusive interviews on New Zealand and Ireland's new regulatory proposals, while Tammi Barlow-Marang also speaks to us on responsible gambling, and we report from Sportradar's Connect event at the Emirates Stadium.

As we say goodbye to a prosperous 2024, the gambling sector is already seeking new opportunities in 2025. For many, the truly meaningful discussions start in January at ICE Barcelona – so make sure you're armed with the most meaningful insights, which you can only find right here in this magazine.

TP, Editor

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WITH THANKS TO:

Peter Jackson, Petra de Ruiter, Grainne Hurst, Andre Carrier, Leonid Pertsovskiy, Uri Poliavich, Andrea McGeachin, Neil Montgomery, Paul Sculpher, Joerg Hofmann, Paul Newson, Duncan Garvie, Gustaf Hoffstedt, Mark McGuinness, Alex Henderson, Tammi Barlow-Marang, Adam Azor, Sharon Byrne, Georgina Parkinson, Jarrod True, Manav Bhargava, Varges Vardanyan, Arijus Denisovas, Rickard Vikström, Matt Jones, André Faria, Sabrina Qian, Brandon Walker, Viktoriia Degtiarova, Thomas Schmalzer, Paul Kavanagh, Araksi Sargsyan, Phyllyp Sedicias, Spribe, Betcore, Lynon and Revenuelab.

C ONTENTS

GLOBAL GAMING AWARDS

We

CEO SPECIAL

36 Playing to win

Flutter Entertainment CEO Peter Jackson meets us in London, as the biggest publicly traded operator speaks to the industry’s leading media

44 High flier

For Holland Casino CEO Petra de Ruiter, the aviation and gambling industries are not too dissimilar. She explains why

BGC CEO Grainne Hurst discusses her history in politics, her first few months in the role and her goals for the UK market

60 It’s about family

Andre Carrier, Eureka Casinos CEO, breaks down how life went from working in kitchens to running the US’ largest charity casino

66 Culture of innovation

Betby CEO Leonid Pertsovskiy talks about the birth of Betby and more

72 Feeding the fire

Soft2Bet CEO & Founder Uri Poliavich tells his story

78 Imagine payments done differently

Andrea McGeachin, CEO of Neosurf, talks music, learning from Gen Z and standing up for gaming regulation

84 Brazil focus

Neil Montgomery looks at what to expect from Brazil’s regulated market

86 Resort recruitment

Gambling Insider regular contibutor Paul Sculpher talks all things recruitment for new resorts

88 Germany focus

Joerg Hofmann, another Gambling Insider regular contributor, looks at how regulatory decisions are made in Germany

89 Australia focus

Gambling Insider regular contributor

Paul Newson discusses navigating Australian gambling policy

90 UK black market

BetBlocker Founder Duncan Garvie breaks down the threat to players

PETER JACKSON

PETRA DE RUITER

ONTENTS

BOS

Regular, Mark McGuinness, discusses how AI personas have the potential to increase

Consultant

Bally’s VP of Responsible Gaming Tammi

Barlow-Marang tells Gambling Insider how the US can learn from

Segev LLP Head of India Desk Manav Bhargava looks at what India’s iGaming market could learn from Ontario

Digitain Founder Vardges Vardanyan speaks with Gambling Insider on innovation, expansion and the importance of people

Suppliers predict industry trends ahead of 2025...

Thomas Schmalzer Novomatic 122 Paul Kavanagh MiFinity

Araksi Sargsyan DS Virtual Gaming

124 What's new?

Gambling Insider delves into the latest products on offer

Rickard Vikström

128 Phyllyp Sedicias

FACING FACTS

Gambling Insider takes a look at the Q3 results of operators, suppliers and af liates across the market...

Source: Company reports

*As they do not report the quarterly revenue of each of their properties, MGM China and Galaxy Entertainment properties have not been listed

• Having faced particularly challenging circumstances during the Covid-19 pandemic, all of the properties in Macau faced significant declines in revenue in 2020 and 2022, with only a light reprieve given in 2021.

• Of the six recorded properties, only Studio City has exceeded pre-pandemic revenue, making $364.7m in Q3 2024 compared to 2019’s $337.7m and 2018’s $345.2m. Both The Venetian Macao and The Londoner Macao are close to bridging the gap, however, with a difference of $10m and $7m respectively between their 2017 and 2024 figures. Wynn Palace is also not far behind, with a $5.2m between its 2017 and 2024 figures.

Government-owned operator Q3 revenue in France and Sweden (€m)

Source: Company reports

*Svenska Spel figures in equivalent SEK to EUR conversion rate as of 11.11.2024

• Aside from a slight dip in 2023, FDJ has reported consistent revenue growth since 2020, from €503m ($528m) to €669m. It may have been this dip in 2023 revenue, in fact, that encouraged the operator to pursue new growth opportunities; namely, its acquisition of Kindred, which was completed in October 2024.

• However, with legalised online gaming on the cards in France for 2025, this continuous rate of growth may face some hurdles. Though, with the French Government’s suggested online gaming tax rate of 55.6%.

Melco: Studio City

Wynn Palace

Wynn Macau Sands: The Venetian Macao Sands: The Londoner Macao

Analysis

Analysis

Source: Flutter Entertainment

• By dividing the revenue from each of Flutter’s verticals and geos by each segment's average monthly players, then dividing it by three to find average revenue from each month over the quarter, it is clear that US sportsbook and iGaming spending greatly outperforms Flutter’s UK & Ireland (UKI) and International segments, with the average US FanDuel player spending $105.43 on sports betting and $171.08 on iGaming per month –over 160% more than the UKI revenue per average monthly player (AMP).

• Australian and US sports betting revenue per month per average monthly player was relatively similar, with just $2.12 between them. This reflects the betting cultures of these nations, which encourages big spends and big wins (consider the high risk/ high reward glitz and glamour of Las Vegas), while the UK & Ireland holds a betting culture entrenched in smaller bets.

• US iGaming revenue may be as high as it is due to its limited market and potential lack of RG practices, combined with the ea se of use of iGaming platforms. Indeed, across the board, all players spent more on iGaming than sports betting.

• Flutter’s other products, which include exchange betting, parimutuel (pool) wagering and daily fantasy sports (DFS), were the highest value bets in the UKI segment, with AMPs in this category spending an average of $107.14 compared to $40.36 on sports betting and $65.80 on iGaming. This is also more than double the average $48.66 spent on this vertical per month per AMP in the US.

Source: DraftKings

• DraftKings has yet to see a profitable Q3. This came as a surprise for some, as trends from 2021 – 2023 suggested progression that would push the sportsbook into profitability in Q3 2024. This was supported by the sportsbook’s Q2 2024 results, when it reported a net income of $63.8m. This has been the same for adjusted EBITDA, which has also yet to see a positive Q3 result.

• Year-on-year, net loss increased by $12m in 2024, totalling $298.6m.

• Despite this, revenue growth has been surprisingly consistent, growing by roughly $300m each year since 2021. Specifically, up $289m from 2021 to 2022, $288m from 2022 to 2023 and $305.5m from 2023 to 2024.

DraftKings

Analysis by operator

Analysis by operator

Q3 revenue by sportsbook ($m)

Source: Company reports

• Comparing DraftKings revenue to revenue reported from Flutter’s US segment, which primarily consists of the work done by its US sportsbook brand, FanDuel, it shows that, despite a lull between 2022 and 2023 – one that resulted in DraftKings outperforming FanDuel in Q3 revenue, FanDuel has been able to claw back a victory, making $1.25bn in Q3 2024 compared to DraftKings’ $1.1bn.

• While DraftKings has shown better consistency in revenue growth year-on-year, FanDuel has reported the sharpest inclines in revenue. Between 2023 and 2024, for example, FanDuel revenue grew 51%, while DraftKings grew 39% year-on-year.

Source: Company reports

• Bally’s only began reporting the revenue of its North America Interactive segment in 2022. Of the four, it is the lowest earner by a significant margin — however it has shown steady growth year-on-year.

• While RSI led the online operator segment in 2021, by 2023 it was being outperformed by both Penn and Caesars – a trend that continued into 2024. However, with a difference in 2024 Q3 revenue of just $12.5m between Penn and RSI, there is a chance this trend may not continue into 2025.

Bally's (North American Interactive)

Caesars (Digital)

Penn Interactive (Barstool / ESPN Bet)

RSI

DraftKings

Flutter US (FanDuel)

Analysis by operator

Analysis by vertical

TAKING STOCK

Gambling Insider tracks operator and supplier prices of some of the trending names in industry news in 2024. Stock prices are taken across a six-month period (July 2024 to December 2024) – and from the close of the first available date of the month

OPERATORS

• Six-month high - December (805.80 GBp)

• Six-month low - August (555.00 GBp)

• Market capitalisation - US$6.57bn (as of December 4 2024)

Entain announced the conclusion of a strategic review by the Board’s Capital Allocation Committee (CapCo) in May, which evaluated its portfolio of markets, brands and verticals.

• Six-month high - December (278.00 USD)

• Six-month low - July (186.31 USD)

• Market capitalisation - US$50.32bn (as of December 4 2024)

Flutter started trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in January, which then became its primary listing in May.

• Six-month high - December (43.93 USD)

• Six-month low - September (33.65 USD)

• Market capitalisation - US$21.44bn (as of December 4 2024)

In August, DraftKings announced an agreement to acquire Simplebet, a provider of in-play micro market betting content and pricing, with Simplebet’s machine-learning models integrated into DraftKings’ existing platform.

• Six-month high - August (0.58 AUD) • Six-month low - December (0.21 AUD)

- US$386.68m (as of December 4 2024)

The Star Entertainment was suspended from the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), for a period in September, owing to its failure to lodge financial results by the required deadline.

SUPPLIERS

• Six-month high - July (1,105.50 SEK)

• Six-month low - December (941.80 SEK)

• Market capitalisation - US$17.74bn (as of December 4 2024)

Evolution agreed to acquire Galaxy Gaming in July as part of its strategy to supply customers with gaming content and strengthen its presence in the US market.

• Six-month high - November (135.90 SEK)

• Six-month low - December (102.30 SEK)

• Market capitalisation - US$0.27bn (as of December 4 2024)

Kambi signed its first major Odds Feed+ partnership in October, with Hard Rock Digital.

• Six-month high - December (68.19 AUD)

• Six-month low - July (50.04 AUD)

• Market capitalisation - US$27.95bn (as of December 4 2024)

Aristocrat obtained a preliminary injunction against Light & Wonder in September related to the infringement of its intellectual property in connection with Light & Wonder’s Dragon Train game.

• Six-month high - December (17.28 USD)

• Six-month low - August (10.73 USD) • Market capitalisation - US$5.15bn (as of December 4 2024)

In July, Sportradar integrated live sports data and betting content into its ad:s paid social marketing service.

THE EXECUTIVES

Gambling Insider previews the nominees for the Executive of the Year category at this year’s Global Gaming Awards EMEA ceremony in Barcelona

IVAN MONTIK, Founder & CEO, SOFTSWISS

Under Montik’s leadership, SOFTSWISS has established itself as one of the industry’s key suppliers. He guided the company through acquiring South African wagering provider Turfsport, launching three new products in Africa: Lotto Software, Retail Betting Solution and Horse Racing module. He invested in Ously Games, provider of SpinArena.net – the biggest social casino in Europe – also launching a sportsbook mobile app in Serbia and Nigeria.

URI POLIAVICH, Founder & CEO, Soft2Bet

Poliavich is a business leader and philanthropist who has driven Soft2Bet to phenomenal growth in recent years. Since he founded the company in 2016, Soft2Bet has become one of the top turnkey solutions providers in the iGaming industry.

ANDRIA VIDLER, CEO, Allwyn UK

On 1 February 2024, the UK National Lottery was officially handed over to Allwyn as it took over operations. Under Vidler’s leadership, the transition period was smooth and free from any errors. The company reported increased revenue and profit from operating activities, and began the next phase of its retail investment with a new National Lottery permanent point of sale rollout.

WALTER BUGNO, CEO, Games Global Bugno has been instrumental in Games Global’s rapid growth. With a commitment to responsible gaming and fostering a culture of innovation, Bugno has firmly positioned Games Global as a leader within iGaming.

CARSTEN KOERL, Founder & CEO, Sportradar Since founding Sportradar in 2021, Koerl has overseen the company’s transition from a start-up to a NASDAQ-listed major player in the world of sports data and technology, with a simply unmatched product offering. Under his leadership, Sportradar recently upped its 2024 financial outlook for the third successive quarter.

EBBE GROES, CEO & Co-Founder, EveryMatrix Groes has led EveryMatrix through its most successful 12 months ever, setting record growth and profitability. He has driven the business to 56%/57% quarterly profit margins for Q4 2023 and Q1 2024, leaving its competitors behind. He also secured three M&A deals and donated €2m+ ($2.1m) to support 300+ Ukrainian staff and charities.

JONNA DANLUND, Head of ESG, Betsson Danlund is responsible for driving Betsson’s sustainability agenda forward , aligning the company’s initiatives with the UN Global Compact, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Betsson’s own sustainability framework. Thanks to her efforts, Betsson not only meets but exceeds sustainability standards.

GUSTAF HAGMAN, Founder & CEO, LeoVegas Group

After selling the company to MGM Resorts in 2023, Gustaf Hagman has guided the Group to expand the offering of its LeoVegas brand across various markets, and spearheaded the launch of the BetMGM brand in several highly competitive European markets. He also oversaw the acquisition of Push Gaming.

KAROLINA PELC, Founder, BeyondPlay In 2021, Pelc founded a company with a unique vision. She worked tirelessly to develop BeyondPlay’s jackpot management system with customisable jackpot campaigns and multiplayer software, allowing users to play the same casino game sessions and pool their stakes. In 2024, she sold her company to Flutter-owned FanDuel, making BeyondPlay a part of FanDuel Casino and Pelc a Vice President at the company.

SHUK MANOUKIAN, CMO, SoftConstruct

Having joined BetConstruct in 2016 as part of the PR & Media Relations team, today Manoukian is one of the key figures who drives forward the entire SoftConstruct group. Not only did she help establish BetConstruct as one of the industry’s top iGaming and sports betting suppliers, she was instrumental in the successful launch of SoftConstruct’s other brands.

SIMON THOMAS, Executive Chairman, The Hippodrome Casino

Thomas is a key industry figure in the UK market and is actively involved in the European Casino Association. Thanks to everything that The Hippodrome continues to achieve under his leadership, we are now seeing a global interest in British casinos.

PASCAL CAMIA, Chief International Development Officer, Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer

Having joined SBM in 1994, Camia held various management roles throughout his career, the most notable of which were Head of Gaming between 2015-2021 and COO between 2021-2023. He has been instrumental in establishing SBM’s casinos as some of the world’s most luxurious \gaming and hospitality destinations.

AREGNAZ HAKOBYAN, Group CMO, Digitain Hakobyan is a marketing and digital media expert with profound experience gained working for major international companies across diverse sectors and industries. Having joined Digitain in 2022 as Head of Marketing, in 2023 she was promoted to Group CMO. She was instrumental in the signing of Luís Figo as Digitain’s Brand Ambassador.

SHIMON AKAD, COO, Playtech

Akad has been part of Playtech’s leadership for over a decade and has overseen an important period in the company’s history. He was one of the key figures involved in the landmark deal that Playtech signed with MGM Resorts in 2024, which allows players outside of the US to play games streamed directly from the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

VLADIMIR DOKOV, CEO, EGT

Since EGT’s launch in 2002, Dokov has spearheaded the supplier the entire way. He has continuously evolved the company as the industry went through two decades of rapid transformation. Dokov has expanded into 28 international offices, servicing more than 65 markets in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa.

PER WIDERSTRÖM, CEO, Evoke Widerström was instrumental in steering the operator into more successful waters in 2024.

Under his leadership, revenue is increasing not only in the UK and Ireland but internationally, while average monthly active players are on the rise, too. Widerström also oversaw the acquisition of Romanian operator winner.ro.

JOANNE WHITTAKER, CEO, Betfred Whittaker has focused on Betfred’s strengths overthe past year, including securing partnerships with Boxxer and a complete revamp of the company’s headquarters. Turnover increased by 25.6% year-on-year, EBITDA rose by 72% and the online gambling division grew by 99.9%.

SARAH ROBERTSON, CCO, Kambi As SVP of Sales, Robertson has demonstrated an exceptional understanding of the business and sports betting market. She has been instrumental in driving new partners, including LiveScore Group, Svenska Spel and Bally’s Corporation. She was promoted to CCO in October 2024.

MARINA OSTROVTSOVA, CEO, BGaming Ostrovtsova showcases transformative leadership through empowerment, authenticity and vision. Under her guidance, in the past year BGaming experienced a 95% growth in gross gaming revenue, entered 10 new markets and expanded its team by 80 employees.

STÉPHANE PALLEZ, Chairwoman & CEO, La Française des Jeux

In early 2024, Stéphane Pallez announced that FDJ would acquire Kindred Group in a deal valued at €2.45bn, to create a European gaming champion and become one of the largest gambling operators in the old continent.

TODD HAUSHALTER, Chief Product Officer, Evolution

Haushalter is responsible for all aspects of Evolution’s product development and game innovation. He has been credited with creating the game-show style genre for online casinos. Under his leadership, Evolution continues to release hit after hit, the latest one being Lightning Storm – the biggest, most ambitious \live game show to date.

MARINA ILINA, CEO and Founder, PIN-UP Global

Since its launch several years ago, PIN-UP Global has evolved in many different ways. This year, under Ilina’s leadership, the company made moves into the B2B space and will continue to expand on its B2B offering in the coming months. This has been supported by the continued focus on PIN-UP.Investments in 2024 and acquiring additional licences for new jurisdictions.

MARIJA HAMMON, Marketing Director, Relax Gaming

Having joined Relax in 2019, Hammon has held several key positions within the company, including Brand and Communications Manager and Product Marketing Manager before taking the helm of Relax’s marketing department.

DAN TAYLOR, CEO, Flutter International Taylor is responsible for all of Flutter’s international brands. During his tenure, he has reshaped the Flutter International division. In 2024, the company created an enlarged international division, tasking Taylor with overseeing Flutter’s efforts in five global regions.

THE CEO SPECIAL

PLAYING TO WIN

As the biggest publicly traded operator in gambling meets the industry’s leading media publication in London, Flutter Entertainment CEO Peter Jackson speaks to Gambling Insider Editor Tim Poole about his passion for challenger brands, effective M&A, success in the US and more

As Gambling Insider sits in Flutter Entertainment’s new London office, it is evident we are in conversation with the very pinnacle of our industry. At the time of writing, Flutter boasts a $280 share price, a $49.9bn market capitalisation and Q3 revenue of $3.25bn. Thanks to its market-leading US brand, FanDuel, it was able to generate over $100m in gross gaming revenue in New York – in November alone. Through a series of effective mergers, executive hires and key decisions, the gambling giant has gone from strength to strength, at a time when competitors looking to replicate similar growth have repeatedly hit a variety of different stumbling blocks.

But what about the man charged with leading this near-$50bn company?

At Gambling Insider, our CEO Specials have previously featured personnel at the very heart of the group, such as Dan Taylor, Flutter International CEO, and Amy Howe, FanDuel CEO. Now, though, we speak with Peter Jackson – the executive they report to. From early inspirations to a recently announced restructuring of the organisation’s global divisions, we seek out the goals, motivations and learnings of the CEO at the helm of the entire Flutter empire.

***

“I started my career working in Leeds, in the tax department for Arthur Andersen, before I went to university,” Jackson tells Gambling Insider, keen to emphasise his Yorkshire heritage. “I worked for them for a year, studied engineering at university and then went to work for McKinsey for three years, where I mainly did media work. I’m from Yorkshire originally so, when I looked around at interesting opportunities after those three years at McKinsey, I found HBOS, the Halifax Bank of Scotland. The beauty of my role there was I got to spend time in Yorkshire and London. I was in London as a consultant, but actually spent more time in Yorkshire – which was a good thing for me.”

Now heading up one of the biggest firms in gambling, Jackson’s career spans a number of industries – including plenty of time in the banking sector. Indeed, the executive “didn’t imagine” he would be at HBOS for long – and yet ended up with the bank for seven years. During this time he experienced “quite a lot of ups and downs” – not least the global financial crisis. In September 2008, three days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Lloyds Bank rescued HBOS, taking over the company and moving Jackson up to run its consumer bank.

Over time, the culture changed “a lot” and Jackson found himself seeking a new challenge. One day, he read that the Chief Executive of Travelex was leaving his role, prompting a phone call to Chairman Lloyd Dorfman. Jackson went from “slightly pulling his leg” over the opportunity to actually being offered the role, accepting it and going on to run the foreign exchange company. “I discovered afterwards that many very well-qualified people had turned down the opportunity because they thought it was a basket case, which it was initially, but the team were great. We turned the business around and sold it.”

CHALLENGER BRANDS

This precise point in Jackson’s career brought about his first experience of gaming. While at Travelex in early 2013, he joined the Board at Betfair. Far from envisioning becoming the CEO of Flutter at this point (Betfair had yet to even merge with Paddy Power), Jackson made the move to gain some experience at a public limited company. “Travelex was owned by private equity and one of the likely exit mechanisms was to list the business. I’d never been on a board, never mind run a public company.”

Other factors Jackson attributes to what would become a pivotal career choice include his passion for technology and, in particular, “challenger brands.” “It was very exciting,” he recalls. “I joined the Board at Betfair, which then merged with Paddy Power in 2015 and I was fortunate enough to be selected to stay on the Board. In the meantime, I’d left Travelex – we sold the business. I did several different things in and around payments. I worked for Santander for a while running their digital business, then I ran the UK and European businesses for Worldpay.”

In late 2017, however, Paddy Power Betfair CEO Breon Corcoran decided to step down, prompting Jackson to throw his hat into the ring as his replacement – and succeed. This step up began a journey that has lasted seven years and counting. It is not a position Jackson ever imagined holding in his younger days, he admits, although he did always envision a future in “something commercial.” He adds: “I think there’s a degree of genetic influence that impacts things. My dad was always an entrepreneur, often involved in the car trade, so I’ve always been interested in business.”

Jackson’s enthusiasm for challenger brands can specifically be traced back to his time at McKinsey – an organisation FanDuel CEO Howe also spent 14 years with. He learned plenty during his time in the London office but “by far the most influential thing that happened” was a lunch Jackson attended one Friday. He explains: “In those days at McKinsey, they’d often invite external speakers and, one day, we had a chap called Adam Morgan come in, who had written a book called Eating the Big Fish. It’s all about challenger brands and what Adam talked about really resonated with me. Ultimately, do you want to work for a challenger brand, which is going to be focused on serving what customers want and attacking the soft underbelly of the incumbent? Or do you want to work for the incumbent, doing today what you did yesterday? It’s not a difficult decision. I’ve always tried to work for challenger brands.”

BANKING ON A GOOD BET

When Gambling Insider asks Jackson about the similarities between banking and gambling, the CEO acknowledges a plethora when dealing with customers across both sectors. After all, whether in financial services or gambling, Jackson has “nearly always been in the consumer space.” He says: “Making sure you hold what customers want at the forefront is important. When you’re looking at cohorts of customers, you have to ensure you’re not fooled into thinking that consumers behave like they do across an average. They don’t. You often get distinct behaviours within cohorts, which you can miss if you look at a cohort on aggregate.” Jackson also highlights the importance of technology: “We all use our mobile phones now to access our current accounts. That’s changed the way banks have to go to market – and it’s the same for the gambling sector.”

Fast forward to today and there is crossover, too, between Jackson’s day job as Flutter CEO and another role he currently holds: as an Independent Non-Executive Director at food delivery business, Deliveroo. Once again, both organisations are “ultimately focused on consumers,” with an international focus and basis formed by technology. “I think it’s a very privileged thing to be able to sit on the Board of another business, experience how it works and the drivers and mechanisms; it definitely helps me. You take lessons back into your business and hopefully I can contribute something to that team.”

FanDuel the best decision the company has ever made?

There's a lot of revenue we switch off, a lot of customers that we turn away and block from the platform. I think often people don't appreciate that - Peter Jackson

At Flutter, the operator’s focus on customers (and the differences across customer cohorts) is built into a decentralised, federated operating model. This gives local teams “full empowerment” to run their businesses and do “what’s needed to win” in local markets. Here, Jackson refers to Howe as a perfect example. Running FanDuel in the US, she has access to “all the capabilities she needs.” This means access to the Flutter Edge, a “very important” component for the organisation in bringing products, expertise, technology and scale benefits to different parts of the group. “Having worked in many different organisations over the years, some serving them as a consultant, one of the big lessons for me is you have to be really close to what your customers want,” Jackson reinforces. “I don’t think I ever remember anyone coming

from head office to help, which is often what they claim.”

“THE BEST DEALS WE’VE DONE ARE THE ONES WE HAVEN’T”

In May 2018, Jackson’s Flutter – then still named Paddy Power Betfair – acquired a 61% share in US fantasy sports brand FanDuel for $158m, agreeing to increase its stake to 95% in December 2020. The acquisition proceeded to transform both Flutter and the wider industry landscape in the years that followed. Today, the group is primary listed in the US and, for Q3, reported $1.25bn in US revenue – 38.5% of Flutter’s worldwide total. Given the common nature of big-money deals not living up to their full potential in the gambling sector, is buying

“Look, it’s definitely stood us in very good stead,” Jackson tells Gambling Insider. “But we make decisions every day trying to serve our customers. At the time, it wasn’t seen as an obvious ‘best decision we’d ever made’ type deal. A lot of people were worried, and people were worried we were spending too much money on acquiring customers. But we were always very focused on having the best product in the market. We actually started building the product even before we acquired FanDuel and way before PASPA was overturned (giving individual states the power to legalise sports betting, also in May 2018). Having the best product helps you win for customers; it’s the most important thing you can do. But there have been many other businesses that haven’t been as successful, despite having some of the ingredients. So luck definitely plays its part in a similar light again.”

Flutter’s acquisitions have gained industry recognition for their success and efficiency. Unlike with some of the operator’s rivals, there have been no activist investors protesting highprofile takeovers, and a history of dealmaking has led to a strong position across multiple international markets. Significantly, in 2019, it was agreed that Flutter would merge with The Stars Group, bringing brands like PokerStars and Sky Bet under the same umbrella. Even as recently as this September, Flutter bought Italian operator Snaitech from Playtech for €2.3bn ($2.43bn), while in the same month acquiring a 56% stake in Brazilian operator NSX Group for $350m.

Dan Taylor, Flutter International CEO

Peter Jackson, Flutter Entertainment CEO

CEO SPECIAL PETER JACKSON

And yet Jackson provides a telling insight when we ask him for a ‘secret M&A formula:’ “The best deals we’ve done are probably the deals we haven’t done. We definitely say no many, many more times than we say yes. You see the ones we say yes to but the market doesn’t see the ones we say no to. So I think that’s a very important consideration. The other thing, though, is that we know when we acquire these businesses, we empower the local management team by having that local hero strategy, wanting the podium positions in local markets. It’s very difficult to do that from an office in Dublin, New York or Leeds. We find the right teams locally, that we can empower and give access to our products, providing them with expertise, technology and scale that will help them thrive.”

WHERE DOES THE RESPONSIBILITY LIE?

In today’s gambling market, with the proliferation of online activity and a greater offering of betting options than ever before, it is inevitable that individual players can end up accruing significant losses. If Flutter – or any other operator in the industry – is reporting billions in quarterly revenue, someone somewhere is losing money betting. That is the unavoidable formula behind how the industry works, and it is one that raises both philosophical and practical questions. The gambling sector of the present is more focused on gaming as an entertainment option, attracting as many customers as possible to place casual bets – or even flutters shall we say. But there will be times when customers deposit huge amounts, creating the issue of

exactly when an operator must step in to help them from a responsible gambling perspective. It is an issue that, following heavy losses, can even result in individual cases being taken to court.

“Since I started at the beginning of 2018, we’ve always been very, very serious about safer gambling and responsible wagering,” Jackson says. “We invest heavily, last year $100m. There’s a lot of revenue we switch off, a lot of customers that we turn away and block from the platform. I think often people don’t appreciate that. They think we talk about it, but they don’t see that we actually do it. And if you read our Positive Impact Plan, you can see some of the statistics we have in terms of the actions we take. So it’s something we take very, very seriously; it’s something I am very involved with alongside the rest of my management team, and we want to lead the race to the top. If we’re uncomfortable with what a customer’s doing, we’ll engage with them and intervene.”

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

One of the most mature gambling markets in the world – and a market where the question of responsibility is perhaps asked most in today’s climate – the UK will always hold huge importance for Flutter. Following the drawn-out Government White Paper on gambling, a number of new rules are now being put into place – such as £5 ($6.37) stake limits for online slots (and £2 for under-25s). In Ireland, too, the Gambling Regulation Act was passed in October, creating a period of considerable change in the markets where it all began for Flutter.

For the company itself, however, change

is also afoot internally. In November, Flutter announced the promotion of PokerStars CEO Kevin Harrington, who will succeed Ian Brown as Flutter UK & Ireland CEO. Under a new structure, Harrington’s division will be one of five reporting to the aforementioned Taylor, Flutter’s International CEO, while Howe will continue to run the US division.

“At the moment, we’re a big, complicated business and it’s a little while since we made any changes to our organisational structure,” Jackson explains. “This is a small change we’ve made; we will run our FanDuel business under Amy’s leadership, and Dan Taylor will run the rest of the world under what we’ll call this International segment.

“Dan will have five regions, each of which will have a CEO and, as part of that new structure we are putting in place at the beginning of 2025, Kevin Harrington is going to take over and run that UK & Ireland business. I’m delighted, as I’ve known Kevin for a very long time. He was at Befair when I joined the business and he’ll do a tremendous job for us. I was sad to see Ian go, he’s done a great job for us in terms of the trajectory he set for the UK & Ireland business. But he decided it’s time for him to leave and we’ve got a great person who can step into his shoes.”

FORZA ITALIA

Moving in a south-easterly direction, another European market that has generated plenty of headlines for Flutter of late is Italy. As already mentioned, Flutter recently spent €2.3bn to onboard a new B2C Italianfacing operator in Snaitech. But its presence in Italy is already noteworthy, given its

Peter Jackson with Gambling Insider Editor Tim Poole

The best deals we've done are probably the deals we haven't done. We definitely say no many, many more times than we say yes - Peter Jackson

question about America. “We’re struggling with what to ask about the US, because you are in such a good position there. But perhaps there’s a question there in itself: how do you maintain that position in the long run?” Here, Jackson wants Flutter to “stay hungry” and “humble” to avoid becoming the very type of company he “always worried about.”

December 2021 acquisition of Sisal. This September, industry analysts told Gambling Insider that Flutter is considering heavy investment in Sisal ahead of a potential lottery bid, perhaps inspired by the changing of the guard in the UK – Camelot losing its National Lottery licence, to Allwyn, for the first time since 1994.

Jackson himself said as much in Flutter’s Q3 conference call, and here he tells Gambling Insider : “Italy is a tough market. It’s one where operators that have retail footprints are doing better than the digital-only players. That’s something we have seen over the years with different brands: when they’re all owned separately, Italy becomes a difficult market. When you look at

Francesco [Durante] and the team at Sisal, they have done a brilliant job. I couldn’t be more proud of the results they’re delivering in terms of market share and the work they’re doing for their customers. They lead with responsible gambling and all aspects of the business are very strong. So I think it’ll be exciting to see what they can do. When the regulators close the Snaitech acquisition, we can bulk up the business and have even more great customers to serve.”

A STAR-SPANGLED FUTURE

As we round off our London interview with the Flutter CEO, Gambling Insider can admit to being stuck for an original

Heading into 2025, that means delivering short-term incremental changes from a product perspective, as well as “longerterm exciting developments” for customers. “Look, we’re not going to rest on our laurels. We continue to acquire as many customers as we can in the US and let them have access to our fantastic product. If we can keep doing that, I’m sure the business can keep growing.” Naturally, the aim is for Flutter to maintain its US leadership position, where it was always #1 for market share in sports betting but, in 2024, also became #1 for online casino. Howe and her team are doing a “tremendous job,” Jackson says, a job that has seen her named American Executive of the Year for three years running at the Global Gaming Awards. Yet there is “lots more to go” – both in potential new states and the states in which FanDuel is already live.

More broadly, Jackson feels Flutter’s strategy is “clear.” Internationally, there remains a huge total addressable market the CEO is as keen as ever to target. “There are many markets where we are number one – but there are more we’re not in yet.” There are no surprises as Jackson tells us M&A, too, will continue to be an “important component” of the company’s strategy. “We’ve got to keep winning in the markets we’re operating in. I think Dan will take that business from strength to strength and the glue that holds all of Dan’s regions together, making us so powerful, is the Flutter Edge. I think Phil [Bishop, COO] and his team will continue to make sure that, from a product perspective, expertise, technology and scale, we can drive those benefits across the business. So we’ve got our strategy, we understand the benefits of those three areas and, of course, it has to be underpinned by our Positive Impact Plan.”

Indeed, given his passion for challenger brands, Jackson’s firm faces a different type of hurdle in today’s landscape: how to remain a market leader without becoming the complacent incumbent he alluded to earlier in our interview. But, after 84 months in the job, there is certainly no air of complacency we can sense here . With Flutter, Jackson is playing to win.

Amy Howe at the Global Gaming Awards Americas

HIGH FLIER

Pe tra d e Ruiter , Holland Casino CEO, speaks to Gambling Insider about a career flight path that spanned over 20 years in aviation, ending up with a destination in gambling. Words by Beth Turner

While the two may seem worlds apart, for Petra de Ruiter, CEO of Holland Casino, the gambling and aviation industries are like two peas in a pod.

Having worked with Transavia Airlines, and its parent company KLM, for the majority of her career from 1991 to 2022, De Ruiter left the company with close to 25 years of experience under her belt. Yet, despite being with the “low cost, holiday airline” for longer than expected, the jump to the gambling industry seems to have caused minimal turbulence.

MANAGING A GOOD TIME

“I started with hotel management school,” reflects De Ruiter, looking back at where her career started. This was all about hospitality for De Ruiter, learning how to have fun and bringing fun, care and finery to guests. Combining both strategic teaching and hands-on experience, De Ruiter worked on a range of hospitality traineeships; one of which just so happened to be at London’s Luton Airport (not the most glamorous airport she has worked at, she laughs), sewing the seed of things to come.

“After hotel management school, I went to university. But, somewhere the airline industry grabbed me,” she says. De Ruiter joined Transavia Airlines in 1991 as an Account Manager, with her journey within the business seeing her take on roles across a range of departments. In 1998, she became KLM Netherlands’ Product Manager, being promoted to Senior Account Manager Leisure in 2000. In 2004, she shifted to being the Project Manager of Air France for KLM Brussels, before becoming Director of Marketing from KLM UK that same year. From July 2007 until November 2011, she was the Sales Manager of Leisure Market Netherlands for Air France KLM, before becoming VP, Cabin Operations for Transavia for close to five years. Finally, she became COO of Transavia, holding the role for just shy of six years. With any career in one industry of such length, De Ruiter has been present through a lot of change. While the internet certainly would have been influential, the complete overhaul of commercial aviation in the early 2000s was also cause for adaptation. But this adaptability seems to have proven helpful, both in her ability to move around the business and now, as a CEO working in an industry that changes year on year.

Looking back, she says: “I could work in the commercial department, marketing department, operational department. It meant every four years I had another job. I’ve headed up the cabin crew as part of Transavia Airlines. I’ve been a Marketing Manager in the Netherlands. I worked in London as a Marketing Manager for KLM France for the UK and Ireland. I got to see the world, but I also got this combination of commercial, operational and strategic jobs.”

The role of CEO is one that benefits from a diversified skillset. After all, when you are the head of everything, having insights across the board can prove more useful than having specialised knowledge in just a single aspect of business. Maybe this was why De Ruiter was approached for the role of Holland Casino CEO –an option opened to her following her exit from KLM during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Across many of our CEO Specials, the impact of Covid has been

unavoidable. Just look at 2024’s CEO Special, when we spoke to MGM China President & COO Hubert Wang on the pandemic’s impact on Macau, or former Massachusetts Gaming Commission Chair Cathy Judd-Stein on the authority’s move to Zoom. This is unsurprising, given how it affected just about everything, both in and outside of the gaming industry. Of course, Holland Casino itself was also hit hard by the pandemic – but more on that later.

De Ruiter says her orientation began when she was asked “Have you ever thought about CEO of Holland Casino?” She had been to casinos before, though admits the workings of the industry itself were relatively foreign to her. “I remember when I was at an airline conference in Las Vegas, I stayed in the Bellagio and it was where Ocean’s 11 was being recorded at the time. I did see George Clooney there in the lobby, being recorded. That attracted me,” she recalls.

However, despite stepping into a new industry after over two decades with aviation, similarities between the industries soon became clear for De Ruiter. “Like the airline industry, we’re an asset-heavy industry, and land-based is very interesting. But, also like the airline industry, years ago you saw the development of online.Though, most importantly, the land-based casino industry allowed De Ruiter to utilise the skills she had been educated on and honed in her career: Combining operational and strategic planning with working with others and, ultimately, giving guests a good time.

Even now, two years into the role as CEO, De Ruiter does on occasion return to her roots and take time on the casino floor. “I don’t mind sometimes cleaning glasses and things like that,” she says; something she doesn’t “get to do that a lot these days,” understandably. “But, we have something at Holland Casino we call ‘Sylvester Night,’ just after Christmas but before New Year, and we’re open longer. I really enjoyed joining one of the casinos one night.” While she admits her role for the evening had her relatively on the ground, it was a nice experience – on that likely feels a little nostalgic, given where her career has taken her now.

A plane belonging to KLM, the parent company of Transavia

STEPPING INTO SOMETHING NEW

The industry was kind to De Ruiter when she joined, she notes. For many, this will not come as a surprise – as so many will tell you, once you’re in, you’re not likely to be going anywhere anytime soon. “It’s a warm industry,” she explains. “If you’re new in the industry, always, people like to explain to you how it works and that’s very nice. It’s easy to enter an industry if people approach you like that.”

Such teaching was critical when entering a senior role in an industry so prolific in its regulation. Though, tight regulation is something else the gaming industry has in common with the aviation industry. Considering the circumstances, that makes a lot of sense. They’re “very strongly regulated, both industries,” comments De Ruiter. “A lot of complexity in processes, that’s also the same. Everybody has an opinion on it. It doesn’t matter what you do, you can quickly land on the front page of a newspaper if you work for an airline or a casino.”

Best method to avoiding the headlines? Learn the rules, learn the regulations and don’t stop learning. “I had to learn the real skills of the casino world. I wasn’t aware of

all the rules around table games and how we do it. It’s real craftsmanship you have if you work in a casino. I didn’t know that at all. I wasn’t aware of everything behind the scenes. I had to learn a lot when I joined.”

Of course, other factors besides the pandemic influenced her decision to make the leap. She also noted that both industries were predominantly male-dominated, and while it was not her reason for making her move to gaming, it is interesting to note.

Primarily, though, moving into gaming two years ago simply felt like the right thing to do at the time. Being in a leadership role for some time is good, De Ruiter points out: “It’s good if management doesn’t stay only two to three years. But, it’s also good if you, after a certain period, move.” Indeed, moving on and allowing someone else to take the reins allows for fresh faces, ideas and innovation to take centre stage. It is what De Ruiter did coming into the gaming industry with no prior experience. “I bring different things because I’m not from the industry. Everybody had to think, ‘Why do we do it that way?’ The answer: We’ve done that for 20 years, it’s good. But, you still need to understand why,” she says. “My predecessor did a very good job innovating

Holland Casino. A lot of entertainment was added in his period, and when I spoke to him, he also said, “I think it’s good that somebody else now moves in and has the next focus and vision. So, in that sense, it was good for me to change.”

Her predecessor, Erwin van Lambaart, is now the General Director of Casinos Austria, having joined the business in April 2022 after being named Bettina Glatz-Kremsner’s successor at the end of 2021. During his tenure at Holland Casino, and as such during the pandemic, Erwin worked on restructuring within the business, accounting for additional online regulations introduced around the time. The pandemic took recovery, but “together with the team, we brought some stableness, some rest and some enjoyment in our organisation again. Covid is finally gone. It has been my task to leave that period behind and look forward again and find ourselves, specifically online. We have to deal with a lot of changes from new regulations, learnings and findings.”

This need for change and a fresh perspective also goes for the role De Ruiter left behind at Transavia, as COO. Despite being “good at it,” getting someone else in

Holland Casino

that “could bring fresh ideas” following her almost six-year tenure was, in her eyes, the right move both for herself and the business. Plus, while she believes “there are people who can run a company for 20, 25 years and do it with the same freshness every day,” this is “more an exception than the rule.” Keeping things fresh requires fresh faces – and for Holland Casino, this is what De Ruiter has strived to be.

LEADING A LEGACY

Being an executive in any business comes with its own stakes and pressure, but when you are the leader of a legacy brand like Holland Casino, with a longstanding national reputation, there is a lot on the line. After all, no one wants to be the person to bring down a cultural staple. However, legacy brands do come with a few perks; namely, a well-tested infrastructure. “It’s a real pleasure to work for a company that, in a year and a half, will celebrate its 50th birthday,” says De Ruiter. “That means you are joining a brand with history, with people who have experience, but also people who recently joined. It’s a privilege to work for a company with heritage. I also said, in introducing myself, that staff always make the difference. We’ve got 3,800 people working for us,” of which 800 have been appointed in the last two years, “so, working at the casino is still quite popular!”

Still, legacy brands are not immune to changing times, markets and requirements. The Covid-19 pandemic was proof of this. The brand was “hit hard” during the period, leaving Holland Casino with a tax debt “we still have to pay” and “guests trying to find us again.” Recovering from this, re-establishing business norms (“Holland Casino is quite known for always looking for new innovation,” De Ruiter explains) and picking up the pace was key for De Ruiter – something made possible in no small part due to

the team “which is focused on bringing it forward” at her disposal. “We refreshed our strategy going forward. We were able to get the guests back in the casino... We have a vision going forward. We know what we stand for. I think we’re good to work towards the future.”

PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE

For De Ruiter, the future of Holland Casino, and indeed, the Dutch market as a whole, is a big picture with a lot of moving parts to consider, both regulation-wise, market-wise and player-wise.

On the player front, finding out “what the guests of the future will look like” is a big task on De Ruiter’s agenda. “We see that the age of casino visitors is rising. We see we have to

innovate our products. Not tomorrow, but we need to think about how a casino in 2035 looks. That’s a big challenge.” Moreover, the cost of living is on the rise, limiting disposable income among some groups.

It doesn't matter what you do, you can quickly land on the front page of a newspaper if you work for an airline or a casino

In terms of market trends, a growing interest in iGaming – and an expected government revision on its stance on the vertical in Q1 – is a notable point for De Ruiter. While the “land-based industry has been very stable, actually, over the past year,” the same cannot be said for iGaming, which will be entering its third year of regulation in January. “I would wish for the stable situation in the land-based market in the Netherlands for the whole industry,” she says. For Holland Casino, the instability of the iGaming market has been less of a threatening issue, with the operator’s online offering accounting for just 10% of the business. Still, this does not mean the operator does not understand the challenges that come with the market. Having received warning from the Dutch gaming authority (KSA) “primarily on our online products,” De Ruiter and the Holland Casino team learned quickly that what works on land does not always work online. “We were a land-based operator which joined the online market because we wanted to be a player. We had to learn our lessons on how to do that, if you don’t come from a tech background.”

Moreover, with the long-term establishment of the land-based industry, and Holland Casino’s place in it, things such as RD and AML are “well taken care

We see that the age of casino visitors is rising. We have to innovate our products. we need to think about how a casino in 2035 looks

of,” allowing focus to be placed towards the “fun part of our industry;” after all, “there’s a lot of people having a nice night out” when they head to a casino.

Legal and regulatory changes must also be considered when looking into the future. Just around the corner in the Netherlands is a banning of sports sponsorships, which is set to go live on 1 April 2025. The nation is also expected to face not one, but two gambling tax increases over 2025 and 2026, that will have “a big financial impact on us as a company. I have to make sure business continuity is well taken care of. That’s not very easy when you have such an enormous tax increase.”

Generally, “we need to work together with our stakeholders, and the regulator is one of those stakeholders, just as the ministries, the public and the sector are. We need to talk together on what is good for the industry.”

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Still, despite all the plates she needs to spin, De Ruiter has not only been able to balance them all, but has done so while never losing sight of the guests the casino is there to please in the first place. But what is next on the agenda?

Of course, 50th birthday celebrations are high on the priority list, with 100 “maybe a little bit far away” to think about just yet. Keeping the land-based market stable is also another high priority, though “making sure we also get that in the rest of the market,” providing legal online products to dampen illegal market growth.

A few smaller innovations are currently in the pipeline, she says. A “big bingo show” is currently being experimented with, with Holland Casino’s NXT zone debuting in late November at Holland Casino Scheveningen, Utrecht and Venlo, which targets smaller bets with bigger emphasis on entertainment. “We also renovated our casino in Enschede, and we have our casino in Groningen, which sadly burned down in 2017,” she adds, noting that the Groningen property, hopefully, will be back up and running in two years’ time.

Before we wrap up our chat, De Ruiter makes a point of her position on the board of the European Casino Association (ECA). She speaks on a recent trip to Slovenia, where she met with other ECA members, and the importance of collaboration between operators across the continent. “I think they’re there as operators to make sure we are in contact and learn from each other,” she says, noting how, among European operators at least, many issues are universal. “Let’s try to work together and learn from each other. I think that would be very good.”

Wise words to end on.

LEARNING THROUGH CHANGE

Betting & Gaming Council CEO Grainne

Hurst speaks with Gambling Insider Editor Tim Poole , just as predecessor Michael Dugher did, reflecting on her first few months in charge, why she never

wanted to become an MP and her goals for a very busy UK market

For someone with so much experience in politics, Grainne Hurst is surprisingly unequivocal about one thing: “I quickly realised I didn’t want to become a Member of Parliament (MP).” Despite beginning her professional working life in said UK Parliament, and going on to amass an established political career, the path Hurst chose has led her to a very different position today: the CEO’s seat at the Betting & Gaming Council (BGC). While the trade body’s office sits right next to the Houses of Parliament, and politics will always play a crucial part in gambling regulation, the last 12 years of Hurst’s career have seen far more company Town Halls than Prime Minister’s Questions. Hurst’s journey had taken her from the likes of Asda to Entain, until September 2024, when she officially became CEO of the BGC. Several months in, Gambling Insider stops by her Westminster office to find out how it’s going.

“I started in Parliament as an intern for the wonderfully outspoken Philip Davies (now Sir Philip Davies) who was the MP for Shipley in West Yorkshire until the 2024 UK General Election, when he lost his seat,” Hurst reflects. “But I kept going for jobs in and around Parliament and not getting any; they said you don’t have enough experience, but I couldn’t get a job to get the experience! So I ended up taking an internship. I did that for a couple of months and then was in a position to take a researcher role. When that came up, it was a real eye-opener to both the parliamentary process, but also broader communications and political life.”

Davies was an “interesting” MP to work for, as he never wanted to be promoted. It was always “very obvious” that he wanted to remain on the backbenches and stand up for his constituents, speaking more freely than a frontline politician ever could. This led to some interesting “debates and interventions.” During this time, Hurst managed to win the Researcher of the Year award – but it was then that the realisation struck that she had no intention of becoming an MP. Instead, pursuing a public affairs route, Hurst joined an agency called Luther Pendragon in April 2012 and juggled “10 to 12 different clients.” Another realisation followed, however, in that Hurst discovered she didn’t necessarily like being a “generalist.” As such, she started searching for in-house roles that focused on a single industry or business.

ASDA, ESTHER MCVEY AND JOINING LADBROKES

Hurst was successful in this pinpointed job hunt, managing to join supermarket chain Asda as its Senior Public Affairs Manager. At the time, Asda was owned by US retail giant Walmart, which had an office in Leeds. Asda boasted an “amazing culture,” with a “real focus on its people and customer base.” She adds: “I remember most of our meetings started or ended with the Asda chant, which had actions and everything to go with it!” It was also a time when Aldi and Lidl were growing as challenger brands (see Peter Jackson’s CEO Special interview for more on this concept). But perhaps just as crucially for Hurst, here was where she was first introduced to crisis communications – as she worked through the UK’s infamous horse meat crisis. Indeed, in 2013, international headlines were made as it was discovered that beef products sold in the European Union actually contained meat from horses. A “rather

unpleasant subject matter” ended up giving Hurst a “real insight” into how to deal with an evolving crisis at speed. Several different stakeholders wanted to be updated every half an hour and Hurst took a liking to the “thrill and adrenaline” of working under pressure on a challenging subject.

In July 2014, this professional form of thrill-seeking, if you will, took Hurst back to her political roots. She was approached by Esther McVey to become her Special Adviser, when McVey was given the Employment Minister brief in 2014. It was “too good of an opportunity to pass up” and Hurst duly joined the Department for Work and Pensions in the run-up to the 2015 General Election. The role brought Hurst exactly what she had sought – a challenge, with McVey trying to hold on to a marginal seat in Wirral West. When the election was called, Hurst went to live in Wirral West for six weeks, working tirelessly on McVey’s campaign. “We were out door-knocking and canvassing from 7am until 7pm every day. It was really a grassroots mobilisation style of comms, completely different from what I’d ever done before.”

Hurst quickly learned that grassroots election campaigning was an even greater challenge than she’d anticipated – and admits it “wasn’t local constituency campaigning at its finest.” “It was pretty brutal,” Hurst recalls, “and, unfortunately, Esther lost her seat by 417 votes – which is a number etched into my memory!” As Special Advisers are tied to their Ministers, McVey’s defeat “very publicly” meant Hurst no longer had a job. Finally, here was when the gambling industry made its first real appearance in Hurst’s life – and hardly the last. “I knew somebody who was leaving Ladbrokes, so he approached me and asked if I would be interested in the lobbying comms role for the operator.” Hurst had an interview, it went well and, in “various guises,” working at Ladbrokes formed the next 10 years of her career.

THE LADBROKES CORAL MERGER

Hurst began working at Ladbrokes’ Rayners Lane office in North London (where she once shared a floor with this very Editor) and then “survived” the Ladbrokes Coral merger – which we think is a great word to describe that particular episode in Ladbrokes history. Gambling Insider has written extensively about that merger, not only how it impacted the wider market but how things unfolded within the Ladbrokes Coral offices, which saw many teams move from Rayners Lane to Stratford. Hurst’s experience is very personal, given the potential merger was announced on her first day with Ladbrokes...

“It was an interesting time and a real shock to the system,” Hurst remarks. “The Ladbrokes and Coral cultures were very different; the former was not overly corporate, I would say, while the latter was very corporate – and there was quite a divide. It was a case of ‘were you team red or team blue?’ There wasn’t much of a merging initially and there was a kind of ‘us versus them,’ which can happen with any merger. But it was a clash of cultures, which took a while to work through and understand. I think internally at the time, because these were two very similar brands with big high-street presences – now it makes sense with hindsight – but at the time it was a relatively difficult sell.”

Having survived, in her own words, Hurst lived through the Kenny Alexander-led GVC acquisition of Ladbrokes Coral, before then leading GVC’s rebrand to Entain in 2019. Her communications

remit increased with time, going from handling the firm’s UK lobbying at first to looking after public and regulatory affairs for UK, Europe and the rest of the world at Entain. “It felt like the only constant was change.

I think I worked for six or seven CEOs in 10 years, a countless number of Gambling Ministers in that time, changes of government and new markets coming online. It was a fascinating time.” Taking those learnings and progressing to her final role at Entain, that of Group Corporate Affairs Director, Hurst was now ready to succeed Michael Dugher (now Chairman) as BGC CEO.

VOTE FOR SUCCESS, VOTE FOR MAGEE

As we trace Hurst’s motivations back to the very beginnings of her career, we discover her political interest began in primary school –during a fake general election. Moving house as an adult, Hurst actually found the posters she made during that first election. Hurst being her married name and Magee her maiden name, her slogan was ‘Vote for success, vote for Magee.’ It was an experience she “thoroughly enjoyed,” especially loving the debates around the process. And, even though Hurst never stood for election as a real MP, her dealings in politics brought her many lasting memories.

When Gambling Insider asks for her fondest one, Hurst looks back on “impacting positive change on policy.” She explains: “It was back when I was Special Adviser for Esther McVey. Through the various meetings we would have with stakeholders, we kept hearing that there was a real gap between people who were leaving the workforce. This was either through maternity leave, needing to care for elderly relatives or simply just wanting a career break. They would spend time out of work, then want to go back but not have the resources or assistance to do so, because they’d been away for so long. So one of the things we helped create was the return ships programme, which was mainly directed at women. But it was open to anybody who could actually get assistance and resources from the Department for Work and Pensions, if they were wanting to come back into the workplace without going to the job centre and doing the usual route. That was my favourite moment.”

Hurst’s worst memory is intrinsically linked: the aforementioned Wirral West election defeat in 2015. The narrow margin of that loss – 417 votes, remember, that number is etched in Hurst’s brain for life! – did feel “like a kick in the teeth” given the hard work she and her team put into their campaign. “You think: if you only had a couple more hours or a couple more days, could you have persuaded people?” With every challenge, though, comes a learning curve and it remains, in Hurst’s eyes, a great learning experience.

A similar experience, this time in a

It felt like the only constant was change. At Entain, I worked for six or seven CEOs in 10 years and a countless number of Gambling Ministers...

gambling-industry context, came when Hurst faced the toughest personal situation of her career to date. It is something she has since “made peace” with, even though she admits that peacemaking process was far from immediate. During her second period of maternity leave, Hurst was approached to return early and take on a promoted role. Naturally, the decision led to some serious conversations with her family, with Hurst holding “lots of mum guilt.” She is keen to highlight that no pressure was put on her but, in

the end, she decided the benefits of returning early outweighed the negatives.

After a year in the promoted role, however, there was a change of CEO and restructuring of Entain’s Executive Committee. Hurst was no longer part of it. “While I don’t think it was personal, because it wasn’t just me, there was a restructure and I wasn’t on the Executive Committee any longer,” she recalls. “There was a redefining of what that remit should look like, and it was a lot smaller than it

previously had been. But that’s very tricky to stomach because I’d made the decision to go back early. I felt ‘what was the point?’ So picking yourself back up from something like that is hard. I was given an extended remit, which obviously helped keep me busy. But remaining loyal, doing the best you possibly can for your employer, is hard when you’ve had a kick in the teeth.”

Here, Hurst feels one noteworthy lesson is that careers are “not necessarily linear.”

A “bumpier” trajectory does not have to be a “bad thing,” gaining one greater experience and knowledge of other areas. “It has actually made me a better colleague and employee as a result. But it was tricky at the time. You have to not take it personally, which is really difficult to do because you feel like you’ve done something wrong, or you haven’t performed to the best of your ability; whereas a lot of the time it’s just a restructure on paper.”

GLOBAL GAMING WOMEN

Before we delve further into Hurst’s current dealings at the BGC, there is “a real passion” that has been close to her heart throughout her career: Global Gaming Women. “It is an amazing not-for-profit organisation,” she tells Gambling Insider. “It was founded in the US around 10 years ago but I joined the Board in 2021. We wanted to really bring the success that’s happened in the US to the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. And I’m delighted to say that, while it started off as only me, we now have a growing merry band of women who are volunteering their time and efforts. We are going around as many conferences and events as we possibly can, banging the drum for Global Gaming Women, raising awareness about the fact that it doesn’t just operate in the US and is open to everybody internationally.”

Hurst is keen to outline the many benefits of becoming a member. It is a free membership, with access to educational training courses –‘lean-in circles’ where you can band together with peers for a year, meeting up regularly. Hurst likes to call them her “personal board of directors,” who you can go to and “talk about any issue under the sun with.” The beauty, for Hurst, is that every woman in those circles will know the industry – but they won’t necessarily know your business or your colleagues, creating “the best of both worlds.” She adds: “We really exist to encourage and inspire women within the gaming industry to be the best they can be, whatever that looks like. I would encourage anybody to check it out and the more the merrier.”

MAKING THE CASE

In October 2024, reports, primarily in one UK newspaper, suggested the gambling industry could be subject to a rise in tax rates. From the current remote gaming duty of 21%, this report suggested a doubling to 42%, with land-based tax also rising from 15% to 30%. Share prices across the UK sector – much to Gambling Insider’s surprise, it has to be said – fell significantly. The market seemed to react as though this was a done deal. Except for the fact that, when the Autumn Budget was announced on 30 October, there was no tax rise at all – the initial reports turned out to be mere suggestions from thinktanks, and rather wild ones and that.

For Hurst, though, this was the first real test of her lobbying response as BGC CEO. The BGC was immediate in its public reaction, with Hurst making the case for the industry. Tax rises might still be a realistic proposition further down the line but an instant doubling, simply because an industry is doing well, made little economic sense while the UK Government looks to plug a reported £22bn ($28bn) hole. Annually,

this proposal would have generated less than £1bn...

However, given the revenue and profits announced by UK operators in 2024 – led by Flutter Entertainment and even with Entain, dwindling of late, reporting sizeable figures –Gambling Insider puts it to Hurst that a modest tax raise would not be unreasonable. “So, funnily enough, we saw those same reports and it took up a lot of time at the BGC,” the CEO responds. “There was a real, I would say, existential threat of tax rises in the Budget. The BGC made our case very clearly that any tax rise of any shape or form would simply hit customers. It would prevent growth, risk jobs and all it would do is fuel the black market, which unfortunately, is on the rise in the UK.

“The BGC published a report recently which showed that 1.5 million people play on the black market, spending £4.3bn a year. So I think it’s incumbent on all of us not to increase that figure any further, and obviously try and reduce it. I was pleased to see the Government rejected the calls from antigambling campaigners for any tax rises in the Budget. There is a tax harmonisation consultation out next year, so the industry is waiting for that and obviously willing to liaise with the Government to make our case. What I would say is the industry cannot afford to pay any more taxes because, if it did, all that happens is there’s a hit to customers. As I said earlier, it prevents growth; it fuels the black market; it hits the millions of pounds of sponsorship that BGC members provide.”

POLITICS OR GAMBLING?

Given the BGC’s place in the gambling

ecosystem – right at the intersection of the political world – it is evident Hurst won’t escape politics anytime soon, nor does she want to. But Gambling Insider can’t resist asking which sector she prefers overall. “Can I say, gambling on politics!” she quips. “Probably gambling just because there is more variety. I like using a lot of BGC member products: I like sports betting; I like betting on politics; I also like playing blackjack and roulette in land-based casinos. But I also like playing roulette online. So I would say I probably get more joy out of gambling, whereas politics can sometimes be a tad frustrating.”

Taking care of her members is Hurst’s “number-one priority” as she looks beyond her first few months in the role, “which is easier said than done sometimes in a trade association,” she adds with a smile. But, for both Hurst and the BGC, delivering the outstanding elements of April 2023’s White Paper is the immediate short-term goal. Those remaining elements will be helpful for both BGC members and their customers after a “relatively long period of instability.” A period of “stability and growth,” by comparison, is Hurst’s vision for the coming years.

“Hopefully during a period of calm, we have a few key focus areas for me as CEO. I’m hugely excited and honoured to be the first female CEO of the Betting and Gaming Council and I hope I can bring some of my learnings from Entain to the role. My key focus areas are going to be being louder and prouder of the BGC members’ role in the leisure and entertainment sector. We have, in and around the industry, 22.5 million customers each month. I was having this debate on LinkedIn over the weekend, but customers vote with their feet and, you know, having that many returning customers shows that BGC

members offer products and services they love. Yes, we have to be mindful of the small number who might be at risk of gambling-related harm. But we have over 20 codes and 100 measures to help customers stay in control of their play.”

As such, Hurst is keen to be more “positive and proactive” about the “joy” gambling products bring. This is certainly a message she has been consistent with throughout her career, previously discussing this on the Huddle during her time at Entain. She wants to bring the “voice of the customer more into the debate about the future of betting and gaming,” given the UK’s default emphasis on perpetuating the voice of gambling critics. No one is denying the existence of problem gambling; no one is denying that standards can improve. But what many refuse to acknowledge is that gambling is an inherent human desire, an activity that will always continue – whether it is regulated or not.

We therefore have two alternatives: get regulation wrong and see increasing levels of problem gambling, or accept the undeniable truth that gambling will always occur – and regulate it properly (meaning neither overzealously nor too leniently). Hurst concludes: “Grounding ourselves at the BGC in evidence, research and insights will be so important going forward, ensuring any debate is based on evidence rather than political agendas, which is often the case.”

Whatever happens, though, Hurst is “excited” and ready for the task ahead. Having worked through executive overhauls, the narrowest of election defeats and some of the most complicated mergers in UK gambling history, there is no one better prepared to take the BGC forward.

Grainne Hurst with Tim Poole

IT'S ABOUT FAMILY

Eureka Casinos CEO Andre Carrier speaks with Kirk Geller about how a life in the kitchen led to running not only the first 100% employee-owned casino, Eureka Casino Resort, but also the largest charity casino in the US, The Brook

By definition, an entrepreneur is one who organises, manages and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise, which seems like the proper way to describe Eureka Casinos CEO Andre Carrier. Carrier has lived an entrepreneurial lifestyle since before he could drive a car, having opened a restaurant with a friend – after his father gave the young aspirers a budget to kickstart their new endeavour.

At 16 years of age, Carrier was learning what it meant to not only run a business and provide for himself, but for the service he required to keep operations maintained. The experience helped ripen Carrier’s knowledge of the culinary and hospitality industries, as well as showcase what it meant to be a leader. Now, he sits in his Nevada office alongside Gambling Insider, having become just that – a leader – with decades of experience within the casino business.

TASTE OF RESPONSIBILITY

“You could not make enough money to pay yourself. You could not make enough money to buy food for next week’s service,” Carrier reflects. “That was really helpful, because effectively by the time I was 15-16 years old, I was getting an understanding of those very real issues. I was asking friends to come work with me in the kitchen but realising I needed to pay them all first. Do I have enough money to buy the chicken and the seafood I need to start service again Monday if I pay them on Sunday? That entrepreneurial experience very early in my life would scare most away but, for me, it felt natural. It was something that actually energises me. I loved the fear behind it a little bit.”

Referencing popular television show The Bear, Carrier outlines a scene wherethe main character is told the reason why chefs cook in the first place: to nourish people. For that same reason, the Eureka CEO fell in love with the hospitality and culinary industries, to “nourish the internal customer.” Getting the opportunity to work with people he knew also helped build confidence in one another and utilise the excitement of trying to bring a business to life. That “spark” can be the origin story of numerous successes, something Carrier would come to understand greater when he’d eventually make the move to Las Vegas.

While other teenagers around the age Carrier had begun a culinary career were stressing about what university degree to pursue, the young restaurateur knew exactly what direction he wanted to take. He joined the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, an institution with over a century’s worth of sending future professionals into hospitality.

Carrier’s entrepreneurial desire did not end in high school, as he quickly started a catering company. And supplying a US-based university meant most of his stock would be alcohol-related, recounting that “90%” of his inventory was liquor. That particular discovery did not come as a shock to Carrier, nor Gambling Insider...

Soon, though, Carrier was offered a more conventional job in Las Vegas after graduating from Cornell, the Assistant Executive Steward position at the Four Seasons. “I would still tell you it was a great job offer because it was the Four Seasons, but I’m pretty sure Assistant Executive Steward translates to Head Dishwasher. That’s what that is. But my friends would still call me and say: ‘Oh my god, you got the Four Seasons shot, good for you man.’ There were only three or four of us that had ended up at Four Seasons out of Cornell.”

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

Despite the excitement that came with the Four Seasons position, a

fortuitous meeting would prompt the budding chef to change course. Carrier had the opportunity to meet Chris Lowden, whose father Paul owned the Sahara Resorts in Las Vegas. After also meeting Paul’s wife and daughter, Carrier felt he had the chance to work for the type of company he knew well: a family-run business. What was meant to be a three-month trial run on the casino-resort side of the hospitality industry has now reached more than 30 years, and Carrier doesn’t appear to lament the decision to pass up on the “Head Dishwasher” position at Four Seasons.

“It just felt like home. And even though it was casinos, which was not something I had directly contemplated before coming out and visiting with (Chris) and his dad, there was just a sense of ‘I get this.’ This is a family business, I know a family business, and I chose it over Four Seasons,” Carrier recalls.

Having started with Sahara Resorts in July 1992, Carrier began to realise the opportunity surrounding gaming in Las Vegas and the growth about to be seen from Tribal operations. At a time when states were still considering the possibility of legalising gambling and Tribes were beginning to file for property contracts in areas such as Washington, Sahara looked to Carrier to help push the company forward in an ever-changing scene.

“They were interested in my grit and my desire to work hard. My natural instinct is to behave like somebody who has ownership and stake in the game, someone who is ultimately accountable. I think that’s just in the DNA of kids who come from family-run experiences,” Carrier adds.

Carrier served as the VP of Marketing and Administration as well as VP of Development during his tenure with Sahara Resorts, gaining executive experience while taking his first leap into the industry. Given the opportunity to “work way outside his lane,” such as being on-site in Missouri and Mississippi to oversee the construction and opening of a dealer school, Carrier describes the Lowden family as “essential” in helping him enter the gaming scene.

A CROSSROADS AND A PHONE CALL

Carrier had begun working within various departments in the casino and whatever the Lowden family needed his expertise in. Leaving behind the food and beverage life for a short time, he was beginning to understand the inner workings behind what was helping Las Vegas grow into the gaming capital of the world. Carrier had the opportunity to work with Sahara Resorts for seven years until 1999, when he began to contemplate leaving the growing city and joining Four Seasons after allowing its original offer to pass.

He also found himself looking around at his peers, as most were returning to school for a Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA). Deciding a call to his father may help, Carrier evaluated this very option. His father, however, had no problem reminding him what he had already accomplished thus far, questioning what an MBA would do for someone so heavily involved in a growing sector of the industry already. Carrier’s father was also high school friends with Bob Halloran, the former President of Sports for Mirage Resorts...

“I had been considering leaving Las Vegas and returning to the Four Seasons or staying to continue my career here, but my dad had known Bob Halloran since high school and decided to give him a call. He asked me how I would feel about beginning an executive career in Las Vegas. He really advocated for me to stay

and make the most of my experiences,” Carrier explains.

Halloran made his own mark in Las Vegas by producing various sporting events that have turned the area into a common site for any highly anticipated competition. Indeed, many today champion Las Vegas as a contender for sporting capital of the world. For Carrier personally, Halloran gave him the opportunity to become President and COO of the Golden Nugget Laughlin, a resort casino located near the Colorado River in Nevada. His new position would bring him front and centre with one of the most recognisable and historic families in the city’s history, Steve and Elaine Wynn, as well as Mirage Resorts CFO Bobby Baldwin. Carrier then began learning under the tutelage of Steve Wynn and Baldwin, as the first lesson taught continues to be used by Carrier to this day.

“They would always say ‘Andre, it’s okay if you don’t know, but please, very quickly, just tell us. You don’t have to have all the answers, just don’t tell me something that isn’t true. You’re not here to do any harm or to blame anyone for what doesn’t get completed.’ It’s something I knew I had to learn very quickly, especially so early on in my career,” Carrier says. He oversaw Golden Nugget Laughlin until September of 2005, when Wynn decided to bring him back to the city in which his gaming career began, as he became the COO of Golden Nugget Las Vegas.

LEARNING FROM THE BEST

He would only hold the position for less than a year before Tilman Fertitta, Owner, Chairman

I learned so much from Tilman Fertitta about knowing your business, knowing your numbers and finding ways to say yes to the customer

and CEO of Landry, bought Golden Nugget Las Vegas and Golden Nugget Laughlin for a combined $140m, while also assuming $155m in debt. The Fertittas were well known in the Las Vegas area after Frank Fertitta Jr. had founded Station Casinos. Learning under Tilman (who has previously appeared in the CEO Special of sister publication Gaming America magazine) provided Carrier with the chance to develop a greater understanding for the numbers side of business operations.

“I learned so much from him about knowing your business, knowing your numbers and

finding ways to say yes to the customer. He just has such a level of detail and veracity because he ran such a diverse enterprise. The largest restaurant company in the US, hotels, casinos and now he’s got sports. He’s able to do that because he has a system; he knows and understands the numbers to a level of detail most entrepreneurs don’t,” Carrier remarks. “I don’t think a week goes by where I’m not disappointed in myself because I know Tilman would be disappointed in me for not knowing my numbers as well as I should. But that motivates me to get back up and grind!”

Eureka Casino Resort

Carrier was able to meet the Fertitta family, including Tilman’s children, who currently help run operations for various casino resorts in Las Vegas that fall under the Station Casinos brand. He began to acknowledge how much work they put into their business, how demanding it was and the moments it could take away from spending time with one another. “Having your family business means doing what you can to serve them as well. The cues I learned from the Fertitta family were some of the teachings I passed down to my children and the way in which I raised them. It wasn’t even just a professional experience, it actually helped grow my personal life as well. Those people were not just mentors of business for me; it went beyond that.”

PARALLEL PATHS

While staying with the Golden Nugget and continuing to learn under Fertitta was certainly an option, Carrier had begun speaking with good friend Greg Lee about the possibility of working for a casino resort in Mesquite, Nevada. Having worked in what Carrier described as “parallel paths” for many years, the two had talked extensively about what it was like to build their respective skill sets in gaming. Like the Fertittas, Carrier had the chance to spend time with Greg’s brother Ernie and his parents, Ted and Doris.

Greg made the move to Las Vegas in 1988 to help his parents transition into gaming, beginning with the original Eureka Casino that was located on Sahara Avenue.

Having departed Las Vegas to continue his studies in southern California and New York City, Lee returned to Las Vegas to help build the Eureka Casino Resort in Mesquite, which opened in 1997. By September 2006, the property had become a familiar name in the southern Nevada region, not only as a place for casino players, but for tourists and locals that wanted to escape the bustling pace of Las Vegas for a short period. Lee then approached Carrier and asked if the then-Golden Nugget executive was ready to help him grow their own business from the ground up. While Eureka was well known in Mesquite and the surrounding area, there was still plenty of room for growth and opportunity, and Lee wanted one of his closest friends by his side to help the casino resort turn into a premier destination.

“We always had these great conversations about going through the life passage together until this one day where we said ‘Hey, we enjoy spending time together, we have similar

ideologies but slightly different skill sets, what would it be like to work together?’” Carrier says. “My origin story is working with my best friend since the fourth grade, Matt Von Ertfelda, and here I am working with my great friend Greg Lee. So it’s interesting how my life has had these weights on either side of it that are so identical. I consider myself really fortunate.”

FINDING A FOREVER HOME

From the moment his father first handed him a small amount of money to start a restaurant

because I had known the step-by-step process of how Eureka came to be.”

Building up Eureka Casino Resort also meant supporting the nearly 1,000 employees that help the property run its day-to-day operations. In appreciation of their staff, Carrier and Lee were looking to innovate and create a sense of opportunity. Through their aligned experiences, both executives knew family businesses like Eureka needed a “different level” of accountability for the communities in which they operate in. Much like what Wynn and Baldwin had taught him years prior, Greg’s

I hope a lot of people begin to consider ESOPs as a structure of their business, because it’s a powerful path for people to see and attain financial independence

as a teenager, Carrier knew how important being a family could be for a business. That support and accountability is what led Carrier to accepting the role of COO with Eureka Casino Resort and the Lee family, despite how difficult it was to say goodbye to Fertitta, the man who helped prepare him for the task he was about to undertake.

“We did it over time and we did it methodically; it happened very naturally. It was difficult to leave the family, it was extremely hard. But it’s funny, because Tilman’s an entrepreneur and this was an entrepreneurial decision.” Carrier comments. “I remember stopping by after the first remodel of the coffee shop at Eureka Las Vegas and cutting the cake at the opening of the hotel in Mesquite. Every step of the way, being present for that helped the whole process feel much more natural. It made it feel like home almost,

father instilled a lesson upon the two that those decisions would not always be perfect, but that did not mean it had to be seen as a failure.

“Mr Lee always used to say ‘The most important thing in business is staying in business.’ While he also said there is no one secret in how to do that, the main idea was don’t ever pony up and bet everything because you have to be prepared to live another day. You will make imperfect decisions, or you might even make perfect decisions at an imperfect time,” Carrier reflects.

“If you think about all the great entrepreneurs in history, they deployed similar strategies to stay in business even when close to extinction. They didn’t go extinct right? They lived to see another day and wrote more chapters of their story. That’s why it was such great advice, especially for a family business. When you have an

operation such as ours, you need to think over long periods of time even if you’re struggling in the short term.”

PROTECTING THE FAMILY’S FUTURE

Those beliefs have been challenged with great strength throughout Carrier’s tenure with Eureka, including the global financial crisis that spanned the late 2000s and the Covid-19 pandemic that caused many businesses to cease operations entirely. While Carrier always believed his operation

but there was no clear path for them to be financially independent,” Carrier explains. “So that acted as a breadcrumb for us and we had to find ways to incentivise them to participate in the 401k program. But the truth is that has to come from your pay, which means less money for groceries, for car payments, right? Nobody has ever said ‘jeeze, I’m just making so much money let me put some aside for retirement.’”

Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) are company-funded accounts for retirement that provide employees with shares in the

would persevere, the CEO and his family of employees “didn’t have a business plan for zero revenue like others during the pandemic.”

What they were planning for, however, was turning Eureka Casino Resort into the first-ever fully employee-owned casino in the US, after noticing participation in the company’s 401k plan was under 18%. Employees that had been with the property for the majority of their careers found themselves unprepared for retirement, an issue Carrier took seriously as someone who appreciated the generational value of family-businesses. Here, the opportunity for real worker accountability Carrier and Lee had been seeking presented itself.

“In a family business, you think about generations, or Greg likes to compare it to fine wine. We have the most valuable, hard-working and knowledgeable people in the business,

company as part of their compensation. The shares usually range from 6-10% of their salary and must be bought back at fair market value when the employee leaves or retires. It was not an easy concept for Carrier and Lee to teach their employees at first, as many were left confused as to how they went from just putting in a typical 40-hour work week to becoming a stakeholder in the business. Carrier was determined to make this new program a reality, though.

“I hope a lot of people begin to consider ESOPs as a structure of their business, because it’s a powerful path for people to see and attain financial independence. I think it takes several years of receiving your ESOP statements, seeing your name, the number of shares you have before people go ‘Oh damn, this is real.’ It can be a powerful force,” Carrier said. ESOPs allow for more financial independence

after retirement age is reached, as an employee is paid a fair-market rate for their respective shares, instead of having money taken out of their paycheck each month. Carrier also noticed the tax ramifications of switching to an ESOP program, with the Internal Revenue Service providing clarity on how his employees could use the ESOPs to plan for a better future.

A PURPOSE IN LIFE

In early 2019, Eureka purchased the former Seabrook Park, a greyhound racing track in southern New Hampshire that opened in 1973, now named The Brook. Eureka has entirely reimagined and transformed the entire 75-acre property, creating a 90,000 sq ft casino entertainment destination. The facility features a new showroom, a DraftKings Sportsbook that represents the largest in New England, two full-service restaurants, poker room and a casino floor that offers more than 500 gaming machines.

Primarily, however, The Brook is now the largest charity casino in the US. Since Eureka stepped forward in 2019, it has donated more than $28m to hundreds of local charities. As such, Carrier found himself not only in charge of the first 100% employee-owned casino, but also operating the largest charity casino in the US.

“We were coming to terms with the fact that we needed to diversify our business. If we were evaluating a long-term retirement plan that had only one investment in one industry in a single geographical part of the world, we’d probably think the fund manager should be fired. And so all of those things made it really palatable to look at this opportunity in New Hampshire,” Carrier says.

“There’s no doubt what really got us engaged is the charity casino structure. You are giving money to Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Meals on Wheels, Make-A-Wish. Greg and I got super enthusiastic about that because it aligned with what gets us up in the morning. That renegade entrepreneurial vision – it was our moment. It was the right scale for us, it was affordable and we realised how great the people are. We wanted to add them to our family.”

Carrier’s care for others extends past his own, now quite large, family. He led food drives, the creation of a vaccine centre and filmed motivational videos to keep spirits high in Mesquite during the Covid-19 pandemic. But Carrier is also driven by those around him. He remembers that bettering himself is needed every day.

“We always keep our mind focused on getting better together, especially being employee-owned, or I prefer to still say family-owned,” Carrier concludes. “If I’m not pleased with myself today, I have all of tomorrow to try and improve. If you have 1,000 people trying to do that together, it makes it really easy to achieve everything we set out to do.”

Betby Co-Founder and CEO Leonid Pertsovskiy sits down with Gambling Insider Editor Tim Poole to discuss his entrepreneurial journey – and the Betby story – so far. Words by Megan Elswyth

What do you get when you mix an aspiring ninja, a passion for skateboarding and ecommerce experience in the cake business?

Well, if Leonid Pertsovskiy’s story is anything to go by, these are the ingredients that create a sports betting CEO and entrepreneur. His career is, of course, not that simple or straightforward – but the story behind the Betby Co-Founder and CEO incorporates each of the points above at one time or other, demonstrating a rather varied journey. Sports betting supplier Betby, Pertsovskiy’s brainchild, has grown considerably during that journey, gaining greater and greater recognition within the industry. Gambling Insider meets the leader behind the organisation to find out more about both Pertsovskiy himself – and Betby…

STARTING BY INNOVATING

“I’m more or less following the same path I chose when I was 17 and entering university,” Pertsovskiy tells Gambling Insider. “I’m still on this path of trying to bring innovation to niches where innovation isn’t always an integral part of the business, but I want it to become very important for them.

“I remember when I was a very, very small kid, my dream was to become a ninja,” he laughs. “Then I had a period when I wanted to be a truck driver because I thought it was very romantic. I think when I was in the second year of my university course I realised I wanted to somehow be involved in business.”

It was during his time at university that Pertsovskiy entered the first stage of his career. “I was a junior marketing manager, helping companies sell telecommunication equipment like cables and peripherals.” Pertsovskiy soon moved to the Research and Development department, while at the same time studying Innovation Management at the State University of Management.

After graduating, he would find himself leading an IT company as its Marketing Director. This suited Pertsovskiy well, but it also introduced him to something new. “During this transition, I started thinking I should start my own project, because I’d been very deeply involved in ecommerce.” It was this online aspect that caught his attention. “I like to analyse the efficiency of online stores, the retention and all this as well as, generally, what’s possible for the marketing that I was doing for my company.” This was in 2008, which means that, while ecommerce had already existed for around a decade, the emergence of accessible payment solutions meant online sales were about to balloon in popularity.

Pertsovskiy didn’t let this opportunity go to waste, either. He saw the potential in this growing trend and threw himself into it. The dream of exploring espionage in feudal Japan may have been difficult for the younger Pertsovskiy to pull off, but understanding unique opportunities in ecommerce came easily to him. “I started creating small websites, some online stores for my friends and wider network. The start of my business was creating a website for a relative who ran a bakery. I had just gotten married at the time and I understood that there is a high margin in cakes for special occasions. It’s more or less the same cake, but just much more expensive… My relative said he didn’t want to mess with all this, but if I wanted to try, then ‘good luck, Leo!’”

Between Pertsovskiy wanting to make a website and his relative being cautious, they came to a compromise. “I created the website. I started doing some marketing campaigns on Google and I saw that

there was some demand for this, so I decided to quit my job and try to focus on this business. In three years, it became one of the top three cake companies in the area. It became quite successful and continued like this for seven or eight years. It was my main focus and I made some money, so it was fun.”

FROM SKATEBOARDING PASSION TO COMPANY BOARDS

“During the period when I was creating websites, I was reading a lot of blogs and websites and news about startups, and I was quite keen on this,” he explains. “I thought I could create an idea and then get an investment, or something like this. At that time, I didn’t know that the idea cost nothing. I thought that the idea was everything.” He notes that the $1bn acquisition of Instagram with only 13 employees by Facebook was a significant inspiration for him and a testament to what can be achieved with only a small team. This wasn’t the only example that motivated him, though.

Pertsovskiy leans forward and lights up as soon as he begins discussing one of his idols. “Tony Hawk is the most famous skateboarder and, at the same time, he had some businesses related to skateboarding too. Such people inspire me, particularly him, because they’re doing what they really love, not what they’re forced to do. They just do what they were born to do and they enjoy what they’re doing. I initially thought passion couldn’t be combined with business, but they proved to me that it can.”

Pertsovskiy spent many nights thinking about running his own skate shop, but he admits with a soft laugh that he wouldn’t have known the first thing about running one. Pertsovskiy knew he wanted to run a business of some kind, however, He’d seen others establish corporate careers out of their passions and he’d also helped his family find success by creating marketing campaigns, so he just needed the right niche for himself.

“I didn’t think about gaming and sport much at that time. Even if I had, it would be considered a shady area because it wasn’t legal,” he admits. Gambling may have been blocked in his home country, but it certainly wasn’t blocked everywhere. In fact, online gaming really began to take off in the 2010s thanks to rapidly evolving smartphone technology. Several operators launched mobile casinos for the first time during this decade, including bet365, Paddy Power and FanDuel. Nowadays, modern bookies are only as good as the technology behind them.

“I had a friend who was already involved in gaming at that time,” Pertsovskiy explains. “I was really focused on ecommerce, customer retention and optimisation of the client, so I looked through his websites.” As for what Pertsovskiy found, he wasn’t impressed. He looked to his friend and said: ‘Listen, I don’t think that it is optimal, but I have some ideas on how to make it more effective.’ Just like that, he became an advisor on the UI, UX and efficiency of the website. Something about this process caught Pertsovskiy’s attention...

“After working on different parts of the online gaming business, including slots, payments, B2C operators and other third-party sportsbook providers, my friends and I realised that none of them could satisfy us as the sports provider’s client. So we thought to ourselves, why not try to build our own? We could end up being the best… That’s how we started almost seven years ago now. I was never seeking to start making big money; it never truly drove me.

It was more about the creativity, the process to create something,” he emphasises. “I wanted to create something we could be proud of. At the same time, I wanted the chance to work with people with whom I want to work with, and who enjoy working with me in turn. With this group, we can all create a very good environment and build something together.”

And, thus, Betby was born.

EVOLUTION VS REVOLUTION

Pertsovskiy put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard and brought sports and book together. “I really feel like we’ve still just started,” he reflects. “If somebody had asked me about our growth or size five years ago, I would never have thought we would be as big as we are now. Every industry needs something new and there’s something new happening here. I would call this organic growth and organic change.”

Betby’s approach is, technically speaking, not only limited to sports betting. “We’re creating frameworks that can easily be used outside of our industry,” Pertsovskiy explains. “For example, the business intelligence tools, systems for the databases and the backoffice. It’s not about

We're really proud of the partnership, Magnus is not only the greatest chess player, but he's also a good businessman - Leonid Pertsovskiy

betting; it is about talking to the data. It doesn’t matter if you’re handling bets, spins, transactions or even something like medical results. If there is a large amount of data and there is somebody who wants to understand what is going on in this data, our software can be used to literally talk by voice or by text, to the data.”

As for specific trends that have grown in popularity recently, Pertsovskiy says “bet builders have become more popular

because math models and technological availability have allowed us to have a lot in life.” Recent changes, however, have been more evolutionary in the CEO’s opinion. “I don’t think this is a revolution. This is just expanding the coverage of what people used to see in bookmakers.” Sure, the products may have become “more beautiful or more friendly,” but Pertsovskiy sees this as a natural evolution of an industry which has far greater resources at its fingertips.

CEO

“If we talk about AI, it can bring many new people to the industry. Sports betting is following an overall trend. AI is everywhere. Companies, not just in our industry, are using AI tools to optimise costs.” As for how Betby is using it, Pertsovskiy is clear: “We’re very involved with AI. It is interesting and important, but it is just a tool to do something innovative.” The ideas and drive still come from the company and, while AI can assist with building that dream, the effort and expertise have to come from people, if they want to produce something that they can be proud of.

“I think sports betting should find some way of revolutionising itself, not just following overall trends. But I’m confident this will come about somehow. For five years or maybe more, people have been talking about Netflix-style or Tinder-style bookmakers… I haven’t seen any success here. At Betby, we have some ideas of our own… I’m not going to reveal them right now, but I think something important should come from within the industry, not just consuming ideas from the outside.”

FROM COMPANY BOARDS TO CHESS BOARDS: PERTSOVSKIY E4, CARLSEN E5

It’s not uncommon for sports betting companies to appoint sporting legends as ambassadors. After all, it’s only human nature to see someone we admire and be inspired by them (think Tony Hawk!). Towards the end of 2024, Betby went for a slightly more strategic play here and, by this, we mean the supplier partnered with the King of Strategy himself: Magnus Carlsen. The GOAT of chess becoming a Betby ambassador might not have been an easy prediction for anyone outside the company, but as Pertsovskiy explains, it was an obvious choice for him. “Magnus is involved in several projects, all of them around chess,” he says. “For example, recently he launched a product called Take Take Take. Which, again, is very innovative in a super traditional area.”

It is easy to simply stick the word ‘innovative’ on a product, especially in marketing, but Carlsen understands his audience perfectly. Casual fans had complained that it was difficult to keep

up to date with chess players and the tournaments they were entering, so Take Take Take updates them on what the top players are doing through instant and personalised alerts. They also introduced interactive viewing and the chance for professional players to break down and explain different moves on the platform. Chess might have a huge

growth further and to show everyone what we can do to bring something new to the industry. It won’t just be the sports betting industry either, because we’re very strong with our technology in general.

“From time to time, we have some small spinoffs. They’re not businesses, but ideas and small projects, products that we

Every industry needs something new and there's something new happening here. I would call this organic growth and organic change

following, but it is notoriously difficult to follow the professional side of it.

“Chess is one of the oldest sports ever and it is super limited in creating something interesting, right?” Pertsovskiy continues. “There are only 8x8 squares, not a lot of pieces and all the rules are obvious, but at the same time, Carlsen and his team created something new. They want to make chess great and popular again.” It’s this kind of innovation that captured Pertsovskiy’s attention and one that reflects his business too.

“We’re really proud of the partnership,” his demeanour lights up as he explains, “because Magnus also realised we share the same values. Magnus is not only a good chess player, the greatest chess player, but he’s also a good businessman.”

AN INNOVATIVE FUTURE

We’ve seen how Tony Hawk shaped Pertsovskiy’s past and how Magnus Carlsen is entwined with Betby’s present, but what does the future hold for all the players on his hypothetical chess board? It’s clear how much Pertsovskiy values innovation and how this one word will continue to drive the business. “I really think, right now, we are at the stage where we have all the resources to boost our

think can be used outside of betting and gaming. This is an example of how we do not limit ourselves to the industry that we’re working in.” As for the ideas that have worked in the company, Pertsovskiy notes that it’s important to monitor trends without feeling the need to commit to them wholeheartedly.

“Every sport that is popular should be present in a bookmaker’s website,” he states, but not at the expense of other markets. You cannot force people to bet on something. Growth “should be organic.” The best example he has for this is esports. “We will continue developing our esports section, for sure. We will continue focusing on that, but I can’t say that it will be the biggest part of our business. I think it will maintain between 15% and 20% of the bookmaker business in the next five years.” While esports is nothing new, for example QuakeCon stretches back to 1996 and the first Counter-Strike Major was in 2001, regulated esports betting is still considered somewhat of a novelty. Some saw the trajectory of the esports betting market and assumed this would continue until it overtook traditional sports, but Pertsovskiy isn’t as convinced: “A lot of new sports appear, but they cannot

overtake football in the coming, I don’t know, 50 years or so.”

But esports betting is still a multi-billiondollar industry. For that reason, Pertsovskiy has assembled a team that really understands the needs and demands of both the leagues and the fans. It’s a delicate tandem many have walked before and fallen from, though Pertsovskiy remains confident. “I think our esports product is the best in the industry. I don’t see anything compared to it.”

It’s one thing to be the boss of a company, but quite another to be a leader. Pertsovskiy started out as a website builder, and then was part of advising UI and UX. But, as a CEO now, how does he spend his day to day? “My role has changed a little bit because now I work less with products and I work more with people,” he tells us. “In every single department, we have a lot of people who are much smarter than me and they know how to do their job much better than I do. So I cannot give them a lot of advice on how to build infrastructure, or how to do risk management or marketing. But at the same time, my role now is to work with all these people to oversee the processes and the culture.”

Tireless innovation drives Pertsovskiy and he is constantly looking for areas that have untapped potential. “In the AI department, I can still contribute ideas because it’s so fresh.” This seems to be something that’s caught the mind and soul of Pertsovskiy, without affecting his commitment to the company. “Within the next 10 or so years, we could have a few AI projects that could become spin-offs of Betby, maybe even outside of the industry. It would be interesting for me to be involved in this – but only if they don’t need me here on a daily basis anymore!

“We aren’t just satisfied with what we have achieved already; we have big, big plans,” Pertsovskiy concludes.

“That means I’m here and I’m not going to be focused on something else. I’m focused on Betby and I really love it here.”

LEONID PERTSOVSKIY

FEEDING THE FIRE

Uri Poliavich , Soft2Bet CEO & Founder, sits down with Gambling Insider’s Will Underwood to discuss his faith, family and the global journey that has led him to his current position as a business leader

The best place to start is, typically, the beginning. For Uri Poliavich, the beginnings were humble.

Born in Ukraine in 1981, Poliavich has come a long way – a fact he is reflective of, as he settles into his home-from-home in the Soft2Bet Limassol office for our meeting. Behind Poliavich stands a giant Batman figurine which peers over the immaculately designed room bathed in a Cypriot sunset.

Over the past eight years, Poliavich and his wife have built Soft2Bet from the ground up, turning it into one of the most recognisable suppliers in the industry. Full of gaming and company paraphernalia, the Maltese office is now one of many Soft2Bet locations across the globe, a fact that is representative of Poliavich’s driven approach to both life and business.

“I’ve always moved around a lot from a young age,” Poliavich tells Gambling Insider. I’ve lived in Ukraine, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and now Cyprus. I think once you do that switch and start travelling, you realise how many interesting places there are out there. For me, that started when I left Ukraine at 14-years-old, and my family moved to Israel. That’s where I finished high school and did my three years of national army service, as everybody does in Israel, and then I went and got myself a degree in law and continued to become a lawyer.”

Although the worlds of gaming and law are, of course, deeply intertwined, Poliavich’s initial forays into the working world showed no indication of bridging the gap between the two. Indeed, his route from one profession to the other was, while highly interesting, perhaps a little unconventional. After working in commercial and real estate law for a short stretch, Poliavich reflects on the distinct feeling of requiring a major change, “I understood that what I was doing was not for me.”

Poliavich jokes about the trials of law and the long working hours of the job, saying: “One day, I found myself just sleeping on the mountain of folders, and I thought ‘I need to do something different.’ I ended up job searching on Google and, after a while a position popped up – a lawyer was needed to run some business activity in Kyrgyzstan. Before I knew it, I found myself leaving the office and moving to a completely new country that I had never visited in my life!”

FROM THE BOOKS TO THE BOOKIES

Kyrgyzstan’s relationship with gambling was, until more recently, relatively uneventful. 2012 saw the nation place a blanket ban on the practice, only to re-regulate again in 2021. Poliavich’s time was before all of this, though, as he recalls that, upon his arrival, gambling wasn’t exactly on his mind.

“Kyrgyzstan as a country is a little bit out in the middle of nowhere. The country itself is very small and surrounded by mountains. There is a lot of sun and it’s very chilly. It’s very beautiful, but as I said, it’s a bit out in the middle of nowhere. It’s not Asia, it’s not Eastern Europe, it was a lot to walk in to.”

Despite running a handful of operations for WK Group in Kyrgyzstan, including schools and construction businesses, it was the adrenaline of the betting shop experience that reeled Poliavich in, thus giving him his first taste of life in the gambling industry.

“Straight away, I knew I liked the betting shop business the most because it was such high energy, so many people in the shops, so many emotions, someone is winning, someone is losing, people are experiencing a full range of emotions in the space of seconds. When you see it happening in front of your eyes, it really clicked with me.

“The company had around 100 employees and I was just a manager. I was a sergeant in the army, so I had some transferrable managerial skills, but that was it. I landed there from Israel to run the whole thing and, as

someone who was 31-years-old, to run this standalone business with 100 employees and around 100 cashiers? It was amazing – and a fantastic education for me.”

A WHITE-LABEL DEBUT

As firsts go, introducing the first-ever white-label gaming platform to Kyrgyzstan is something so niche only Poliavich can boast the feat. But after introducing the first white label to the country for BetConstruct, Poliavich decided that after two and a half years, his time in Kyrgyzstan was coming to an end – but not before the country made its final contribution to his life’s trajectory. “Just before I left the country, I met the love of my life and we got married! We now have two kids, three and one years old – who were born here in Cyprus.”

Poliavich’s time in Kyrgyzstan was eventful, to say the least. Alongside getting married, he became closely involved with Playtech, which had a major breakthrough in the country. “We got the licence for the national lottery and what happened is I was tasked with finding the provider, and

The 1990s in Ukraine were very tough. My mother and father were collecting for two or three years to take us to the seaside

also with bringing in some investment. I was supposed to do it myself, but things went wrong. It was a very long process. We visited different cities in the country, travelled to different, extremely remote villages in the mountains. Because it’s a national lottery, it’s supposed to reach as wide as possible. What that means is that your distribution network is supposed to be as large as possible. Subsequently I did a lot of homework there – and visited parts of the country even the President has probably never been to!”

Poliavich recalls his first ever visit to ICE London, in 2010, during which he details manoeuvring the hectic streets of Camden with the business plans of the Kyrgyzstani state lottery stuffed into his backpack.

“This was all around the time when regulations start coming in one after another. Regulated markets, regulated businesses. The UK got regulated, Spain, Greece, Portugal, one after another.”

By 2012, however, Poliavich and his wife looked to relocate somewhere closer to the European hub. After landing a job to manage white labels for a gambling firm in Moldova, Poliavich was still searching for providers and contracts while developing his own platform. After sourcing an office in Moldova, he made his first hires – one of which, he says, is still sitting

Straight away, I knew I liked the betting shop business the most because it was such high energy, so many people in the shops, so many emotions

in the next room in the Soft2Bet Cyprus office, “he and his family have been travelling with us for years!”

“I was also combining this job with a sales position for Playtech where I was reselling their software. This was another good education for me, to understand how to deal with a big business. Playtech was then – and is now – a huge machine. It’s a huge ship, so it’s more difficult to make those sharp moves. If you want to change the route of an organisation like that, it takes years. By this point I had decided, I need to do something myself.”

Working two jobs for two years in Moldova led to the development of a platform. That is no mean feat, though Poliavich remains humble about the achievement. “We called it a platform. It was not a platform. It was a registration and some place to put thumbnails of the games, no more than that. That’s how we started out, that’s how everyone starts out. Yet, once again, I found myself looking for investment.

ME, MY WIFE AND THE DOG

Poliavich fondly reflects on relocating back to Ukraine with his wife, Yael, and the family dog, “and a couple of chairs from the local Ikea.” He recalls reaching out to some prior contacts at Pragmatic Play to pitch them the platform, detailing that the call went well. “They told me, ‘You know what? Once you have a licence, send it to me and we will get started.’”

Within two weeks of arriving in Kyiv in 2016, Poliavich and his wife released their first brand. Thus, Soft2Bet was officially launched and enjoyed huge success within its first four years, expanding into larger offices in the Ukrainian capital to house the 350 employees the company had already managed to amass. “It was time for us to move to a bigger location.”

After deciding to broaden the scope further, Soft2Bet’s technology arm was launched in Cyprus in 2020 in a move that sought to well and truly introduce the company on an international stage.

“That’s how we made the jump from Ukraine to Cyprus, which has been an amazing place for us. The local authorities have done everything to support us. It’s probably the one country I could advertise forever. They did us a huge favour by allowing us to move our team and their families to Cyprus. Giving them state permits, work permits, helping get all the kids into schools – everything. Having our two kids here – who are aged one and three –they have their home here with our (now two) Labradors!”

“Needless to say, it’s also affected the business. We had to move faster because the expenses here are much higher than in Ukraine – so that gave us a good push. While I’m saying all this, we can’t forget Malta – our HQ! We established Malta in 2018 and that’s our home, really. Where the heart is!”

The opening of Soft2Bet’s new Malta HQ, which currently accommodates over 200 employees, was celebrated in April 2024. The ceremonial ribbon cutting of the new complex, located between St. Julians and Mdina, was, of course, attended by the company’s CEO.

For someone as well travelled as Poliavich, the culture of internationality, diversity and inclusion is one he has managed to foster within his business; while his CFO and CBDO were hired to reside in Malta, Poliavich visits frequently. However, the ideology of a universally inclusive, international business culture is one that comes from his formative years.

“I always felt like something of a stranger. As I was Jewish, I felt I was stranger in Ukraine. Then, as a Ukrainian, I was a stranger in Israel. I would get this feeling of being a tourist almost all my life. Especially with all the travelling. That’s why, being an international company, unlike so many other companies that have one identity, we want to make sure we have a mixed identity. For Soft2Bet, the whole business is built around diversity. This mixture of people and cultures is what really allows us to have a truly international identity, which comes from respecting others, learning a lot about other cultures and other approaches. It’s the only way for me.”

THE NEXT STEPS

The big questions after a certain amount of time becomes: how far can this go? For Poliavich, the constant pushing of boundaries is precisely what Soft2Bet has become about. Prior to the number of expansive moves Soft2Bet has managed to manoeuvre over the course of 2024, Poliavich was recognised at the start of the year for his exceptional leadership in 2023. This recognition came in the form of a Global Gaming Award Executive of the Year nomination, off the back of a 2023

which saw Soft2Bet move into seven new markets, alongside a tripling of the company’s EBITDA.

Expansion is, it would seem, always on the mind. Poliavich name-checks Scandanavia as having become a key European region for growth for the company in recent years, with his sights now set on Denmark as the next step. Indeed, Soft2Bet launched CampoBet in Denmark in April, soon after it opened its new Malta office. The brand’s Danish launch follows its successful ventures into the Swedish and Maltese markets – however, European expansion isn’t the only thing on Poliavich’s mind.

Keen industry observers will know that Soft2Bet’s expansion into New Jersey is also something that has been in the works for some time. “The North Star for us is New Jersey. We’re quite sure it’s going to happen now. We’ve already got all the KYC and the approvals we need from the regulator. We signed market access deals and everything else is in place.

“Now, it’s just certification of the platform. It takes time but we’re almost there. I believe that in Q1 we’ll finalise everything and, in Q2, we will go live with the first brand in New Jersey. We’re live in Ontario already. New Jersey, for me, has been a personal task and a personal challenge. This is because I see a lot of European companies that move to the US market and, after a while, they come back. They close offices and admit defeat. For me it’s a personal challenge to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

The rapidly developing landscape in the US is stringent for operators for many reasons, differing regulations from one jurisdiction to the next pair with widely fluctuating consumer habits and cultural nuances that have proved tricky for gambling companies to navigate in recent years. However, Soft2Bet is now

established in Ontario, which is a vital and thriving North American market that has proved to be a safe introductory route for many suppliers entering the landscape.

“We want to fill the market, to understand its needs, establish an office, hire all the personnel that we need to grow there. The goal is to showcase our product as a B2C and then expand into B2B. States are opening one after another. We see huge potential once again. It will be a lot of blood sweat and tears, but we’ll get there.”

MAKING IT HAPPEN

Motivations are an interesting human concept; they differ from person to person, they change, multiply, fade and then materialise again out of nowhere over the course of a lifetime. When asked about the complexities of his own motivations, business and personal, Poliavich states that, for him, it’s actually quite simple: “My father was a coal miner in Ukraine. Not an easy job, we had very limited resources, so to speak. I remember my family were collecting money to go on summer vacation to the seaside. In the 1990s in Ukraine, it was very tough times. My mother and father were collecting for two or three years to take us for away to the seaside one week somewhere else in Ukraine. Every day we would walk down to the seaside for 30 minutes and, on the beach, there was a kiosk selling bananas and potato chips. And that was our choice, one of the two, bananas or chips. I still remember this moment when I said to myself: let’s get to a position where I don’t have to worry about making this kind of choice. It’s still a big motivation for me.”

Feeding this fire despite having come so far is exactly what separates the weak from the strong in today’s gambling sector. However, translating this kind of motivation to the now hundreds of Soft2Bet employees scattered across

the globe is a different kind of challenge entirely. Finding people that can handle the pace, Poliavich believes, is the key.

“It’s very hard to keep yourself hungry and to keep people around you hungry. That’s maybe one of the main challenges now, not just to find the right people. We always look for people who can grow fast; things move very quickly here. This year, I think we broke a record by acquiring three licences in two days. People have to be able to keep up, which is a motivator in itself, really.”

Fostering a culture of innovation starts with leading by example for Poliavich, as well as encouraging employees to feed off the energy of their peers. Poliavich specifies this as the reason Soft2Bet opts for a 100% in-office working culture, with no remote or hybrid-remote working. “There are some exceptions, of course. However, I do believe in having people next to me, seeing them face to face and resolving things in the office. It can be much more helpful than having thousands of calls, If I don’t feel the people beside me, I don’t feel the energy and it will never work. Having this exchange, this energy in the room with designers and art leads – that’s what motivates us, too.”

THE YAEL FOUNDATION

“Being Jewish outside of Israel. I suffered from having no education, being a stranger, having zero support and zero understanding when it came to things like our customs, our holidays, our culture. That means that you’re losing your own identity, really, as a Jewish boy or girl. Sometimes, it feels as though everyone knows you’re Jewish except yourself.”

That’s why, in 2020, Poliavich and his wife Yael founded the Yael Foundation, a philantrhopic initiative currently working across four continents, 35 countries and impacting 13,500 Jewish students starting even earlier in 2017. Currently, the organisation

provides financial grants to Jewish communities worldwide with education projects, and supports 47 day schools, 15 Sunday schools, 15 after-schools, 10 kindergartens and two proud Founders.

“We want to ensure Jewish children and families worldwide have the opportunity to connect to Jewish tradition and identity. Whatever they need, some kosher food, schools, kindergartens, after school, Sunday schools all over the world. We are active nowadays with

TWO WORDS; WHAT’S NEXT?

Being CEO of a modern-day multinational gaming supplier requires a certain knack for making tough decisions on the spot, so when asked how he would sum up his Soft2Bet journey in two words – Poliavich is surprisingly stumped for a moment, before settling on the phrase; ‘what’s next?’

It’s a fitting sentiment for a company that has expanded so much, so quickly –

We want to ensure Jewish children and families worldwide have the opportunity to connect to Jewish tradition and identity

around 90 projects. Right now, we are involved in five big construction projects all over the world. The latest ones are Georgia in Tbilisi at kindergarten. We are building a high school in the old city of Rome. Here in Limassol, we have a huge project to build a school from scratch for 1,200 kids that will open in 2027. We have a school in Ukraine which we are renovating; it’s in South Ukraine so it is taking a bit of time because of the war.”

especially one with a CEO that displays no intention of resting on his laurels. “What’s the next challenge? The next licence? The next continent? The next feature? The next technological advancement, what will happen next quarter, next year? When thinking about Soft2Bet, this question is probably by far the one I have asked myself the most in my life. So that’s how I would sum it all up – what’s next?”

IMAGINE PAYMENTS DONE DIFFERENTLY

Neosurf CEO Andrea McGeachin sheds light on an often-overlooked corner of the gambling industry, as she speaks to Gambling Insider about a culture of trust, compliance and how she leads her team through the ever-changing landscape of payment providers

In the 1980s, Great Britain looked vastly different to how it does now. Punk was in, Princess Diana’s wedding was the height of conversation and everyone was watching the skies as they eagerly anticipated the next rocket destined for space. It was a decade defined by societal change, and Andrea McGeachin felt this too. “I studied politics because I had a real aspiration in the early 1980s that this was something I could do.” However, she first joined Sainsbury’s as a graduate. “I’m not a corporate person, that’s for sure,” she tells Gambling Insider with a soft laugh. “But I do have a passion for the working world because my parents had their own business; a greengrocer and a florist.”

RETAIL IS DETAIL

McGeachin speaks fondly about her first job, especially as she takes us through the different things she was taught and even how something as specific as shop floor doors can be applied to any industry. “We called them buffer doors,” she says. “One of the things you’re taught in retail is what’s going on out the back is very different than what you see on the shop floor. There’s even a different language spoken behind the buffer doors.” This dichotomy between the business and the people working within it caught McGeachin’s attention early on. Even when she was sent all around the world to learn from other stores, it was always the connections she made with others that resonated the most with her. “We were bringing back a new product, the delicatessen, but I learnt far more than that. The experience was also about understanding how to listen to other people before you make your own decisions and how to gather information,” she explains. “The passion is, and always will be, about the people and how they work.”

It wasn’t long before McGeachin moved on from Sainsbury’s. She’d gained experience working for the retail giant before she made a rather drastic career change and moved to ExxonMobil, the oil and gas corporation. “I’m a retailer that works in other industries now, but I’ll always say that,” she laughs. And there’s some truth to this. Whether she was the Retail Shops and Marketing Advisor at Exxon, the Retail Manager at Cable & Wireless Communications, the Sales Director at Scansoft or the Sales and Operations Director at Pixology PLC, there was always one constant – McGeachin understood what it took to take a product and win the trust of the public and clients alike. “Retail is detail!” She says excitedly, “At least, that used to be a phrase which was around in the eighties, but it’s true. You’ve got to think about the customer. You’ve got to think about all of your colleagues, and you have to know how to bring those two sides together.”

Success in retail came easily to McGeachin, but it was when she moved to Ukash in 2007 that she wondered whether this was an industry she truly belonged in. “For the first three months, I would get off my train at London Bridge and I was petrified.” This was during the ecommerce boom of the late 2000s. Earlier that year, PayPal had announced a partnership with MasterCard and more people were understanding that cash was no longer the only way you could pay for things. “Don’t forget, this is the payment side, not just the gambling side, and you’re walking through and trying to understand in your head all of these new concepts and ideas.” McGeachin leans back in her chair and shakes her

head as she remembers these early days. “I did not fully understand this world.

“I soon learned that in the payments industry, you’ve got some people who genuinely get it. Those that really get it are great to be around,” she pauses, before continuing. “And then you’ve got some people who are in the business, but they don’t really get it. If you don’t get it, you use all the buzzwords. You just go through life, you go through the motions, but you’re not really thinking or understanding what’s happening.” Thankfully, McGeachin was surrounded by a team who were all too eager to welcome her and teach her the ropes of this evolving world. To this,

You've got to be ready. Being a CEO is a 365-day-a-year, 24/7 thing because you're going to get called on. But you also have to trust and believe, mentor and grow your leaders and your teams

she credits Martin Prout, one of the most beloved people in the payments industry. They met at Ukash, and would go on to work together in a few different companies, including Neosurf. “He was one of a number of people I came across, but he was wonderful. Sadly, he passed away three years ago, way before his time. He was very different. Early on, he took me into a particular room for two days and told me how to split the bullsh*t from reality and how it works. I’ve never forgotten that. We have the Martin Prout Breakthrough Award at our Christmas party. We have this in memory of somebody like that.”

DON’T BE AFRAID OF A LITTLE GEN Z

McGeachin understood the human element of business, which is something she preaches even from her position as CEO. “I am addicted to my work. I’m guilty of doing work when I don’t need to, but it’s because I love what I do,” she admits. “One of my core strengths is that when something hits the fan or something urgent happens, it’s all about having a calmness and understanding of how to organise that and not let it upset something else that’s going on. I personally know that this is one of my core skills, because that’s what people have always told me in my career. But it’s about everybody else.”

So, her team knows they can rely on McGeachin, but does McGeachin know she can rely on them in return? “Still, to this day, if I’m going to ask somebody to do something new, I’ll want to know how it works first. I don’t have the same skill sets as everybody,” she breaks the idea down for us. “Our decision science team is a great example of this. I love using the data that comes out, but I’m not somebody who can go and put all of that data together like they can. So I sit with my decision science team at least once a week to talk about where we’re going and what we’ve got to work with.

“The principle of people is the cool thing. Whether that’s a young 17-year-old who’s doing a till job, or a very Senior Director who’s been in the company for 30 years, you can learn from both of those people equally.” Once again, McGeachin finds herself drawn to the intricacies of the power of individuals, rather than seeing business as ‘just a company.’ “I learned that I have a lot of Gen Z in our business, and they’re just phenomenal. I’ve seen so many businesses trying to figure out how to work with Gen Z, just because of how they go about things differently. But as I said, you’re learning new things from new people every day and to not learn from those people is limiting yourself in your perspective.”

It hasn’t always been smooth sailing, though, and it’s not always easy to understand other points of view. As an accomplished businesswoman, McGeachin knows the value of this. She explains how there “was something that was a bit of an incident” with one of the Gen Z employees. Her immediate reaction was to say something along the lines of, “Oh God, really? Well, you know, in my day, I had to…”, but she knew this was counterproductive. She knew it was her responsibility as CEO to understand her employees so, instead, she sat down and worked at learning their perspective on the matter. “It made sense to me and then I realised they just had a totally different way of thinking about it. From a people and a learning perspective, that whole concept is fantastic.”

Perhaps this generational shift can be best comprehended if we take a look inside the Neosurf office itself. On one of the walls, Neosurf has a massive mural filled with art, photographs and anything else that’s sentimental to the employees there. “There are people’s children, dogs, grandparents, all the people that are really important to them”, McGeachin explains as she points out all of the different faces and pets on the wall to us. “There is a computer chip up there for a young person – they built their own computer, so this graphics card chip or something or other was important. We said: Okay, if that’s important to you, then we’ll put that up.” It may seem like a strange thing to older generations, but this level of easy acceptance is completely natural to McGeachin. “Yeah, I embrace my Gen Z people here. They’re amazing. And people are like, ‘Really?’”

COME WITH ME, AND YOU’LL SEE…

We asked McGeachin how she manages to stay healthy while being a self-admitted overworker. A CEO, whether in this industry or any other, will know how draining this position can be. “I swim a kilometre every day. It is one of the best things in the world. It is for me; it’s my thing. Just jumping in the water, I think of nothing but breathing and swimming for 35 minutes every day. Preferably in the morning and preferably in outside waters.” She shakes her head and laughs as the CEO nature of always pushing further and outdoing yourself tries to bubble up, but she manages to catch it. “Some people swim a mile. That’s lovely. But I’m not going to swim a mile every day. I haven’t got time. I’m happy with my kilometre. It will do.”

As for how she’s managed to get to this

headspace, it’s been an uphill battle. “I’ve recently taken up life coaching, and that’s really helping me be a little bit more measured, because you’ve got to be dedicated. You’ve got to be ready. Being a CEO is a 365-day-a-year, 24/7 thing because you’re going to get called on.” She explains. “But you also have to trust and believe, mentor and grow your leaders and your teams – that’s how you balance it. You’re not in control of everything. You are the leadership. It’s about leading and it’s about helping. The rest of your team and your leaders will grow alongside you.” She nods, taking on a more solemn expression for just a moment. “If you don’t do that, then you will burn out. Don’t forget your family. Don’t forget where you come from. Take some time for yourself and the old adage is make sure you get your night’s sleep if you can, and I do. Even if you haven’t done what you’ve wanted to do today, you know you’ve got tomorrow to achieve it and you’ll sleep better.”

It doesn’t take long before she’s once again animatedly talking about the interests she’s maintained outside of work. McGeachin has a passion for music, and that’s something that’s immediately evident. She’s seen David Bowie nine times, Adele four times, and even Echo and the Bunnymen before they were famous. As is any 1970s kid’s dream, she’s also very proud of the fact she’s seen Queen, The Cure and Gary Newman live – although understandably, not all at once.

“Musicals aren’t my normal genre,” she claims, “but if I had to have a theme song, it would probably be ‘Pure Imagination’ from Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.” McGeachin is quick to emphasise the Gene Wilder one, specifically. “It’s a song about the power of creativity and it talks about how kids and adults alike have to dream, pretend, play, be silly, think abstractly and make up and imagine the possibilities that do not yet exist. The reason I like that from a work point of view is that it’s a constantly changing world, and that’s our world. We’re a payments company that serves the gambling industry, and several other industries, and that’s what it’s like every single day.

“And so, the word ‘imagine’ makes us all feel quite cosy at the moment in a hectic world.” The Willy Wonka of the payments world, we interject? “Well, I don’t know whether I’d call myself that!” she chuckles. “If you quote that, it will make some people really scream and laugh because we’ve a very particular nuance in the payments world for sure. I mean, our statement is ‘Imagine a payments company that does things differently…’ and where we’re coming from.”

CHECKING IN AND CASHING OUT

Running a company smoothly from the inside is one thing, and McGeachin understands

Martin Prout was one of a number of people I came across, but he was wonderful. Sadly, he passed away three years ago, way before his time. He was very different

that working with others is another kettle of fish entirely. In the beginning, it wasn’t easy to sell alternative payment methods to casinos, thanks in part to the strict AML compliance needed in this area. “There was Neosurf, Paysafecard and a couple of other smaller players, and we all had the same issue of what we were trying to do and explain that,” she says. “We were having to explain what an alternative payment method was to the gambling industry.” They managed to pull it off, though, thanks to the patience, resilience and knowledge of McGeachin and her team. “I also really got to the point where I understood that you’ve got to be in everybody’s path to pull it off. We had to get to the point where we believe we are part of that sector and not just a payments company that serves the sector. Everyone has different views, insights and outcome requirements so pulling all of that together really struck me. You’re either in it or you’re not.”

The UK is just one of the countries pushing for advanced technology when it comes to contactless payments, but with so many years of payment provider experience, McGeachin knows this won’t always be for everyone. “Yes, there’s a lot of cash in circulation,” she nods and leans forward once again as her tone gets serious. “You want to empower the consumer to use cash, if that’s what they want to do. Stop saying, ‘Oh, we don’t need cash’, because you’ll feed into a negative area that will impact us all. The black market is a really big thing. We can still mitigate the risks for the gambling industry.” McGeachin has found in her experience that many regulators and authorities can forget about prepaid cards or other alternative options. “It’s our role in this position to go and engage with

them. Not all regulators make such mistakes. We have a collective responsibility in the gambling industry to help and share knowledge. But, in some regulated areas, collaboration and listening are not great. That comes down to trust and who is perceived to know best.”

There are a few examples that have stuck with McGeachin over the years as she’s tried to navigate this emerging sector. The first was while listening to a Radio 4 programme. For readers outside the UK, this is a talk show aimed at an older, more mature crowd, and often focuses on news, current affairs and cultural programming. McGeachin remembers vividly how someone on a programme said that gambling operators should only accept the main banks and none of these ‘challengers.’ She remembers thinking, “Goodness, how shortsighted is that?” Another time, she was dealing with a Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) who was keen to work with them, but admitted casually that, “I’ll take you and I’ll take Paysafecard, et cetera, and I’ll decide how much you can transact later on.” When pressed by McGeachin on what this would be based on, he said, “I don’t know, by how I feel. What I think is going on in the industry at the time.” It is safe to say this relationship did not work out.

McGeachin is quick to defend the industry as a whole, however. “Rather than judge them, let’s go and see what we can do about it. We can all do this without being pretentious and acting like we know more than anyone else. You’ve got to really work at it and a payments company doing that in this industry is novel. It is novel – I wish it wasn’t. I wish we would all do it, but I’ll keep banging on about that while doing our action.” As for this ‘action’, McGeachin is no stranger to speaking up, both

literally and metaphorically. “I am standing on a pedestal on a constant basis and wanting other payment companies to not just tick a box, to not just say they support the industry but actually do something responsible. Responsible gambling starts with a deposit. If you wish to be part of this ecosystem, then step up and take a role. Don’t just sit on a panel and say, ‘My opinion is…’. Actually do something. I am a payment company that serves the gambling market, therefore, I am part of the gambling market. So, I will sit in front of a gambling regulator, as well as a payments regulator, and sort this out. There are some very, very big payments companies and big brands that truly say: ‘That’s not my responsibility.’”

In this industry, every compliance person in every country may have at one point or other complained that they have the most difficult task, the most complicated ecosystem, and the most inane laws to deal with. “Actually, everybody has a difficult task. Everybody.” McGeachin affirms. “There’s a principle behind understanding what we wanted to do and how to use our skills, science and data to make it happen. But we did it and, earlier this year, we launched our Compliance Handshake.” This product is designed to be a data-sharing service that supports compliance, responsible gaming, and analytical efforts. “The Compliance Handshake is designed to help an operator use our payment route and not feel scared. A compliance person will never tell you they’re scared,” she nods. “But if we don’t really work on sustainability, the growth of the black market in these regulated markets is just going to get worse.”

NEOSURFING THE WAVES OF SUCCESS

“Now that I’m CEO of the company, we’re taking it up a level. We’re going for an international push.” McGeachin’s face lights up as she says this. “We’re going from just being in the UK and Europe, to now being across Australia, New Zealand and Canada. We’ve spent a good deal of time this year preparing for our New Year launch.” As for what that is, it’s no secret that Neosurf has had its eye on North America for some time. “When I was with Ukash, there was a saying that ‘if it gets scary, get out’, but that was during a time when the infrastructure didn’t exist. Now, we take our time and we get it right. At Neosurf, we have our own mantra: ‘If we’re going in, we’re gonna stay.’”

This isn’t how everyone has approached the US in the past. “There are some of our competitors who just walk out and leave operators standing, and that’s not collaborative or being part of the ecosystem at all.” She goes on to describe that it has been necessary to leave jurisdictions in the past, but that this was part of a wider industry decision, rather

than as a singular business. “You need to work well and be sustainable,” she clarifies. “It’s happened in particular countries where regulations change and large parts of the industry are no longer legal. So as a collective decision, we all left together. It happens. There’s now a black market there, but there you go. I wish it was different. But like I said, it needs to be a community effort.

“I do believe in having trusted people in territories or regions to support us, even here in Europe, because you need people who understand it.” She says firmly. “And so 2025 is switching on the countries that we’ve done all the leg work for this year. We’ve just gone live in Switzerland and Mexico, then the US will be in the New Year. We’re hoping to have Argentina, Brazil, the Philippines, Japan and India either in Q1 or following just

afterwards.” McGeachin laughs, “Dear God, that’s what we’re doing!”

As for any sneak peeks into what she’s got planned this year... “I can’t say what it is,” she admits coyly. “But in early Q1, we will be announcing something that’s very specific for the gambling market with our wallet, and it’s based on the research that we’ve done. We have announced it carefully, but not necessarily publicly. The operators have seen it, if they’ve been in meetings with us, but it will be something that is going to formally address that research and hits some specifics, it’s not a generic position.” We tried to press further, but McGeachin simply chuckles and shakes her head again. “Let’s just say we’ve talked to an awful lot of players, so that it’s qualitative as well as quantitative.”

Whatever unfolds, McGeachin will no doubt embrace any new ventures with her usual charm.

GAME ON

Brazilian gaming law expert Neil Montgomery takes a look at the nation’s federal regulated market, the thrills of 2024 and what to expect in 2025

2024 was always bound to be an exciting year for gambling in Brazil. However, no one could anticipate the thrills and challenges the industry would face prior to the official launch of the regulated market at federal level – set for 1 January 2025.

The market started the year by cheering the enactment of the new law. Congress then overturned President Lula’s vetoes of the provisions governing personal income tax payable by bettors, because it meant that operators would have to withhold players’ personal income tax at source. Surprisingly, the Federal Tax Authority is yet to issue an ordinance determining the format and contents of the report which operators will now have to deliver to their customers on an annual basis.

At the end of January 2024, the Ministry of Finance created the Prizes and Betting Secretariat (SPA), to become the federal body responsible for issuing the ordinances needed to regulate Law No. 14,790/23. Despite

expectations that José Francisco Mansur, who had spearheaded the governmental efforts culminating in such law, would step in as the head of the body, Regis Dudena was appointed at the end of April and remains in office at the time of writing.

The SPA had the mission of rolling out all ordinances required to regulate Law No. 14,790/23. Despite initial scepticism, Secretary Dudena showed the market that he was serious by delivering the full set of ordinances by the deadline of 31 July.

Of the ordinances issued, Ordinance No. 827/2024 was particularly important, as it laid out the federal licensing process having established a transitional period that would end on 31 December. This ordinance specified when the first wave of licences were to be issued and further detailed that applicants submitting their applications by 20 August would be included, subject to regulatory approval. 113 applications were submitted before this checkpoint, with more than 200 others (and counting) having been submitted since then.

It was around that time, however, that the industry started to face fierce criticism and opposition from many sectors of society and the economy. Brazilian public opinion started to point fingers at the industry as being responsible for losses in the retail and banking sectors and for increasing rates of family debt. Even President Lula made public announcements strongly criticising the industry and hinting that if regulations failed, he would see to the industry being closed.

Amid this turmoil, Secretary Dudena was pressured for action, and did so by issuing Ordinance No. 1475/2024, which cut the transitional period by three months for operators that had not applied for a license by 17 September. It also announced that a whitelist of authorised websites would be issued at the beginning of October for applicant operators that informed the SPA by 30 September of their intentions to operate until 31 December. Currently 101 applicant operators have their websites indicated in such whitelist and, since October, thousands of unauthorised websites have been blocked by the Brazilian Telecommunications Agency (ANATEL), as requested by the SPA.

This frenzy also led to several Direct Unconstitutional Actions being filed with the Supreme Court, aiming to have the entirety of Law No. 14,790/23 (as well as Law No. 13,756/2018) being declared unconstitutional. The outcome of the hearing was an order to anticipate the regulations on advertising, particularly ones designed to protect vulnerable persons and minors.

While such actions move forward, the SPA is now gearing up to ride the first wave of federal licences issued by the end of December. Therefore, the question then becomes; what can we expect in 2025?

For starters, everyone is waiting to see how many of the 113 operators that applied for a federal licence will make it to the finish line. With some having pulled out from the process and many others likely not satisfying all the requirements or paying the hefty fee, speculation has it that the initial number of licensed operators will be around 80. However, each operator can exploit up to three brands per licence.

One positive feature for 2025 is an increasing number of M&A and joint venture transactions. In the context of the foregoing, many applicants are said to have applied for a license to monetise the work put into obtaining a federal licence, valid nationwide.

Another recent trend is the onshoring of foreign B2B providers that has been triggered by licensed operators urging their suppliers overseas to incorporate Brazilian subsidiaries so that they can be invoiced locally.

It is in the consumer market that operators (especially subsidiaries of foreign newcomers) will face probably one of the most daunting experiences of doing business in Brazil: extensive litigation in the form of extensive amounts of consumer claims.

Finally, it is also worth mentioning that legal issues will likely arise from this fledgling industry hiring a new category of workers not yet recognised by the Brazilian legal framework and in relation to which there are currently no specific unions.

Therefore, it is needless to say that gaming lawyers across Brazil will be kept very busy well into the New Year, which, hopefully, will see a strong regulated market being launched after a wait that has spanned decades.

Neil Montgomery

HIRING THE BEST

Gambling Insider regular contributor Paul Sculpher, Director of GRS Recruitment, discusses how resort casinos can best plan their hiring

While new countries (and US states) opening for online business are the centre of attention, there are some enormous opportunities in the offline world. With lead times in some cases into doubledigit years, between laws changing and doors opening for business, these projects tend to sit at the back of people’s minds but recall there are three territories headed towards the finish line, with vast buildings and inconceivable budgets – Japan, UAE and Thailand. The excitement is building, the financiers are forecasting saucy EBITDA numbers, and shareholders are looking forward to years of prosperity. But to us, one pretty large question is yet to be answered – offline casinos, even with plenty of online gaming, are immensely staff intensive – who’s going to man the tables?

My background is operational, and I’ve been involved in 11 UK casino launches and relaunches, so I’m familiar with the challenge. To be fair, our budgets might have been in the single to double-digit millions vs the big boys with their double-digit billions, but the basic challenge is the same – except all three of those territories have no (legal) gaming staff pool from which to draw.

Most offline operators would be twitchy about opening with more than about 25% or 30% of their staff being pure trainees, so while no doubt in all three cases there will be some truly enormous training programmes, that’s only a quarter of the problem solved. In any case, even the best-organised casino launch, in a territory with casino experience, tends to be a bit of a

mess at first (ideally just behind the scenes). Trying to deliver a functional gaming floor, with a Supervisory and Surveillance team still finding their feet is risky enough. Add in too rich a proportion of zero-experience staff and you’re asking to upgrade your potential cheat roster from just the professionals that’ll have booked your opening week as a feeding frenzy, to all the opportunist losers that spot an easy target on the tables. So, you’ve got 75% of your gaming team to find from overseas, assuming you have a way to get them permission to work in the first place. You could be in the teeth of a three-way competition to source these people too, if the timings of UAE / Japan / Thailand happen to coincide. What are you going to do?

Well, you’ll be expecting the “talk to the specialists at GRS” line, but realistically there aren’t a whole lot of other options. In fact, we’ve been talking to one of our clients, MGM Resorts International, for three years now –they have an interest in all of the above territories. Those conversations have been all the wideranging pre-scoping you’d expect, with some salary benchmarking, geographical profiling and other early research – they’re an organised bunch!

Yes, these schemes are enormous and will generate a fair amount of interest organically, but if you’re trying to reach gaming staff en masse there aren’t many resources to do it through.

Social media is one option, but we know intimately all the Facebook groups that cater for gaming staff – the obvious easy route – and those that aren’t spam-filled hell holes are largely ones GRS have developed or have admin rights to.

Let’s leave access to one side for a moment –obviously you’re going to give us a call, there isn’t really anyone else with a 12,000-plus database of dealers and inspectors ready to access – and consider what you actually need. Of course, there are tens of thousands of trained casino staff all over the world, and many of them are adventurous enough to want to go halfway round the world for the same or less money – but most won’t be. That said, you can’t afford to be paying wildly over the odds when you’re looking for 3,000-plus gaming staff; so you need a strategy.

Part of that will be to recognise that maybe your overseas staffing is a temporary solution, until the whole machine cranks up, and you can feed more local trainees in as your initial cohort develop their skills. However, that doesn’t help you on day one, and you’ve got a mountain to climb. First port of call will inevitably be Philippines, home to a huge number of resort

casinos with staff who are well trained but aren’t particularly well rewarded. We have about 3,000 gaming staff on our books purely from this country, and it’s going to be a resource for any operator – perhaps until the staff drain on those casinos forces their wages up locally.

After that, you’re into the rest of the world. Nepal, Goa (India) and South Africa are options for less well-rewarded staff – we’ve 1,000 or so people all set to go from this combination. From there you’re looking at countries with a far higher wage, who’ll be correspondingly more difficult to prise away from their current employers.

All is not lost, however. It’s not quite “if you build it, they will come” – dead baseball players aren’t much use in a casino anyway – but if the message goes wide enough, projects on this scale will attract attention. We bombed our social media channels and database for a new resort casino in the Mediterranean recently and had 3,300 applications, and just a couple of months ago had 1,300 applications for dealer roles in a Caribbean casino. Shame there were only a couple of jobs, really…

There are also subtleties to consider when you’re trying to convert interested staff into immigrants to run your games. We’ve dealt with gaming staff for years now – I started in the business as a dealer myself – and it’s important to understand what you’re dealing with. In places like Vegas, you’re looking at career dealers, rewarded (and treated) well enough to make it a lifelong job, but those types of people aren’t your target.

Most staff who are going to start a new life thousands of miles from home will be at the younger end of the spectrum, and they need a bit of TLC. It’s no use, for example, just booking them a plane ticket and saying “report here on this date” – if you want them to turn up, it’s a sales job on your part. They’ll need initial accommodation provided and be able to see what they’ll be moving to before they commit to a 50% exciting / 50% scary new life. You’ll need a sense that it’s a genuine team, that cares about them, even a named person to meet them at the airport – that’s what’s going to make the difference and get them to make the leap. These and many other factors are key to importing the amount of skilled labour these resorts are going to need. Those factors, and a runway measured in years.

I’d argue if you’re planning on opening a resort casino in a region with no existing staff pool in, say, 2030, you’d better be a good way towards sorting your recruitment plan. If you aren’t, come find me on LinkedIn and we’ll get you started….

Paul Sculpher

LET THEM WORK!

Dr Joerg Hofmann, Senior Partner at Melchers Law and regular Gambling Insider contributor, discusses the workings of the GGL in Germany. He asks: why shouldn’t the body be left alone to make its own independent decisions?

In Germany, the proverbial “feather that breaks the balance” (tip the balance – the decisive factor) refers to a person or entity that ultimately determines the direction of decision-making processes. This can decide on “yes” or “no,” on “a lot” or “a little,” or on “pro” or “contra.” In the context of gaming regulation in Germany, its interpretation and application, there is such a “feather.” This, surprisingly for many (especially for observers from abroad) lies outside the competent authority. It is the Administrative Board of the Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL).

To understand how and why decisionmaking processes in pivotal matters of German gambling regulation and supervision often occur outside of official structures and can thus be lengthy, one must take a look at the processes stipulated by the Interstate Treaty on Gambling and the participation structures of the federal states. The German Gambling Supervisory Authority (GGL) is a public law institution. It is owned and funded by the 16 German states. It has two co-Chairs, currently

and temporarily only one, namely Ronald Benter. The second position is currently vacant. Another body of the GGL is the Administrative Board. Each federal state sends a representative to this board. These are usually senior ministerial officials from the federal states’ ministries competent for gambling supervision.

The Interstate Treaty on Gambling grants the Administrative Boards significant decision-making power by stipulating: “The Administrative Board decides on binding decision guidelines for the Board of Directors in essential matters. It may decide on further decision-making guidelines and instructions in individual cases.” This means the Administrative Board has the authority to issue directives. It can provide the GGL with directional guidelines or even issue specific instructions. Examples include sample licences, guidelines for conducting legal proceedings or enforcement against illegal operators, interpretation of regulations, or simply specific instructions in individual administrative procedures.

This is intended to ensure the political influence of the federal states on the application of the Interstate Treaty on Gambling. What does this mean in concrete terms? Let’s take a typical (small) matter. At the end of 2024, the permits for deviating from the monthly deposit limit of players expired. The standard limit is €1,000 ($1,055). It could be increased to €10,000 in individual cases under certain conditions and up to €30,000 per player per month under further increased requirements. Without a new decision, the possibility of an increase would have lapsed on 31 December 2024. From 1 January 2025, all players would only have been able to deposit a maximum of €1,000 per month into their gambling account. This limit applies across operators and is monitored by the GGL through the LUGAS server system. Not least in the context of a partial evaluation of the Interstate Treaty on Gambling, there was consideration of fundamentally revising this regulation. It was unpredictable what a better alternative from the states’ perspective might look like.

As the end of the year approached, uncertainty grew as to whether and with

what content a new regulation would be decided in time. Numerous licensed operators had finally submitted precautionary applications in October or November 2024, to extend the existing regulation by administrative act until further notice. It became apparent that the GGL could not make a decision without consulting the Administrative Board. The Board placed the issue on its agenda for the meeting on 21 November 2024. The result: No agreement could be reached on a new regulation. So it was decided to extend the existing practice by one year.

This process is symptomatic. Decisionmaking paths in important matters have been decentralised away from the GGL. This significantly increases the duration of procedures: important decisions are delayed.

Operators from abroad find it difficult to understand why the GGL, as a specialised authority with nationwide competence, cannot simply make the decision here. It possesses maximum expertise, knows the market, its operators and can assess how urgent the need for adjustments may be in individual matters.

This is due to the federal system. The states have established the GGL on a contractual basis. They all want to have a say. This involves political influence, which sidelines the developed competence of the authority if the political course does not fit. In the long run, this leads to a paralysis of the GGL’s ability to act.

In federal law, it is different. Based on federal legislation, authorities are established, whose actions are bound by law and order but are otherwise determined autonomously by the authority’s leadership in matters of substance. The greater independence given here creates faster and competence-oriented decisionmaking processes, which, unfortunately, the GGL can only dream of.

To improve the situation in terms of appropriate gambling policy, no change to the federal system is needed. The Administrative Board itself can step back and leave the business to the officials it has entrusted. Just let the guys do their job!

Dr Joerg Hofmann

TURN THE SHIP

Paul Newson, Regulating the Game Founder, Australian policy expert and Gambling Insider contributor, discusses Australia’s complex landscape of gaming regulation

Australia’s relationship with gambling is paradoxical. Despite boasting one of the highest per capita gambling expenditures globally, research suggests problem gambling prevalence in Australia aligns with typical international ranges. This may challenge assumptions that a high appetite for gambling directly correlates with elevated levels of harm. However, the reliability of such metrics, often derived from self-reported surveys, invites scrutiny, as they provide only a partial view of gambling harm’s nature and extent.

While Australians’ enthusiasm for gambling appears culturally entrenched, recent developments in public policy and regulation underscore a growing unease with its argued societal impact. Notably, the saturation of gambling advertisements has provoked widespread public disapproval, with critics decrying their omnipresence during sports broadcasts and family viewing times. This sentiment culminated in the You Win Some, You Lose More report, issued by a parliamentary inquiry in June 2023, which contained 31 recommendations, including a bold call for a comprehensive ban on online gambling advertising.

The report also proposed the establishment of a national online gambling regulator, a notable departure from Australia’s state-led regulatory framework. This ambitious recommendation faces significant political and economic hurdles, particularly as gambling taxation is a significant revenue stream for state governments.

The federal government’s restrained approach to gambling policy reform, including the deferral of determining the extent of any advertising restrictions until 2025, reflects the inherent complexities of navigating these competing interests.

THE AFTERSHOCKS OF CASINO SCANDALS AND AML FAILURES

The Australian gambling sector continues to grapple with the fallout from scandals that exposed significant governance and compliance failures, particularly within major casino operators. These controversies have reshaped the regulatory landscape, prompting enhanced scrutiny from regulators such as AUSTRAC, Australia’s financial crime watchdog. AUSTRAC has prioritised the

gambling sector in its strategic agenda as an enduring focus, initiating investigations into sports betting operators and land-based venues such as pubs and clubs, which host the majority of Australia’s gaming machines.

The 2022 NSW Crime Commission report tempered fears of widespread money laundering in clubs and pubs, noting that while cash-intensive venues attract illicit funds, more efficient laundering methods exist. Nevertheless, the Australian Financial Review recently reported that prominent club groups remain under AUSTRAC investigation for potential anti-money laundering (AML) failures. These developments spotlight a persistent gap in AML compliance across certain segments of the gambling industry, which must urgently be addressed to restore government confidence and public trust.

THE PUSH FOR CASHLESS AND CARDED PLAY

Mandatory carded and cashless gaming solutions have emerged as a policy response to mitigate money laundering and gambling harm. These measures align with broader societal trends toward digital transactions and offer potential advantages, such as improved monitoring of gambling behaviour and enhanced consumer protections. However, critics argue that such interventions infringe on privacy and individual autonomy, disproportionately targeting recreational players to address issues affecting a minority of at-risk individuals. Striking the right balance between regulatory oversight and personal freedom remains a key challenge for Australian policymakers.

NAVIGATING THE BLACK MARKET AND EMERGING TRENDS

The proliferation of offshore, unregulated gambling platforms – often enabled by cryptocurrency – adds a new dimension to regulatory challenges. Despite Australia’s recent prohibition of credit card and crypto payments for online gambling, the black market’s appeal persists due to its faster transactions, anonymity and generous betting bonuses. Policymakers must carefully calibrate restrictions to avoid inadvertently driving consumers toward unregulated operators,

which lack essential safeguards and economic benefits for local jurisdictions.

A WAY FORWARD

Australia’s gambling policy landscape is emblematic of broader tensions in public governance: balancing economic interests with social responsibilities while navigating a politically sensitive and culturally entrenched industry that makes a considerable economic and social contribution. As the sector faces sustained scrutiny and elevated and dynamic regulatory expectations, fostering innovation, ethical leadership and accountability will be critical to influencing policy discussions, avoiding draconian policy interventions and securing long-term sustainability and public legitimacy.

Ultimately, while no doubt the alarming failures surfaced in Australia’s casinos are mimicked in jurisdictions elsewhere, its approach to gambling regulation while differentiated across states, offers caution for jurisdictions worldwide on the risks of inadequate funding, successive disruption and disempowering gambling regulators while eschewing substantive policy engagement.

Paul Newson

DEFINING THE BLACK MARKET

We hear a lot about the black market and the threats it poses within gaming. But what exactly is it and how best do we deal with the threat? BetBlocker Founder and Trustee Duncan Garvie gives his take

Over the last few months, there has been a lot of conversation about the “black market,” but what actually is it? The term is amorphous, encompassing a range of business types. It means different things to different people. So let’s discuss...

In its broadest sense, the black market is any gambling operator that accepts traffic from a country where either; a) the country has a national regulatory system that the operator is not licensed by or, b) the country has laws prohibiting online gambling. The black market does not include gambling operators accepting traffic from jurisdictions that have not set clearly defined rules/laws around their population’s engagement with online gambling.

However, even with that clear definition there are layers to the black market.

Principally I see three:

i) Gambling operators who hold an ‘international’ licence that offers reasonably robust regulatory standards to protect consumers, but continue to flout national regulations or laws in some countries. An example of this would be Malta Gaming Authority (MGA)-licensed operators who persist in accepting traffic from Holland, Sweden, Germany etc, without holding the relevant licensed required by these countries.

The arguments the operators would make for doing this is that their actions are legal, as the MGA licence does not prohibit them from accepting traffic from these countries. At best, this is a shaky argument, given that the MGA licence includes woolly standards around respecting local licensing laws. But with Bill 55, the Maltese Government appears to be making a concerted effort to defend this position.

Nevertheless, this is technically black-market activity, even if it is the mildest form.

ii) Similar yet very divergent, another example would be gambling operators who hold an ‘international’ licence but one that offers little or no consumer protections. Think the likes of Curaçao, Kahnawake and Anjouan.

iii) Unlicensed operators. While, by technical definition, the operators that fall under my initial example (i) are “black market,” I approach these discussions from a consumer protection position and these operators don’t represent a huge threat to consumers. They may not be paying tax to the national government, or meeting all of the standards of the local licence in terms of consumer protection, but they are still subject to oversight.

The true threat to consumers is encapsulated in cases ii) and iii).

Why are these operators such a threat to consumers? The lack of oversight that has been endemic within the Curaçao regulatory system over the last couple of decades, alongside other similarly weak regulatory regimes, has

facilitated bad actors that target and exploit vulnerable players.

Having acted as a dispute manager for over a decade, and officially as an ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolutions) Official for as long as ADR has been deployed within this sector, I’ve managed thousands of cases. I’ve had a clear viewpoint to observe the way that these operators treat consumers. I’ve seen a Curaçao licensee that refused to act to restrict a player, watching the player lose a further €50,000 ($52,000), while begging on live chat for help. I’ve seen the hundreds of cases of players that simply never get paid when they win. I’ve seen an operator that argues that they are a “safe and responsible gambling business that adheres to all regulatory requirements” after accepting hundreds of thousands in transactions without conducting even the most basic of KYC checks. Only to admit when challenged that there were no standards they had to meet.

I’ve seen the plethora of operators that have specifically targeted players who are excluded via national self-exclusion schemes. I’ve also seen the proliferation of fake games. It’s not enough for these operators to have every power over the customers. It’s not enough that they simply don’t pay out if they don’t want to. They have to cheat their players, too. My recent research into this particular area suggests that fake games are shockingly widespread among weakly licensed blackmarket operators.

This a poignant issue for me. While there are some market forces that will always support a black market – addiction will ensure people look to circumvent restrictions – heavy handed regulation detracting from healthy players having a positive experience within the licensed market creates an artificial market force that will drive consumers towards the black market. We must strive to avoid this as, when consumers chose the black market, one way or another they always lose.

Duncan Garvie

REALISTIC REGULATIONS

Gustaf Hoffstedt, Secretary General at the Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling (BOS) and regular Gambling Insider contributor, discusses how clashes between player appeal and regulation are causing licensed markets to fail

This year’s Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, authors of Why Nations Fail, a thought-provoking book that examines why some nations achieve prosperity while others spiral into poverty and dysfunction; illustrating how nations that start with similar foundations can develop along wildly different paths, with South and North Korea being one of the starkest examples.

In a similar way, gambling jurisdictions worldwide have taken divergent paths, with some thriving under effective regulation and others struggling in a sea of unlicensed operators. If someone were to write Why Gambling Markets Fail, it could offer crucial insights to governments and regulators globally. With so much accumulated experience from diverse jurisdictions, there’s opportunity to design regulatory frameworks that truly work. The ultimate measure of regulatory success is channelisation – the extent to which gambling occurs within the regulated market instead of drifting to unlicensed operators.

Successful and failing gambling jurisdictions demonstrate key differences that are impossible to ignore. We’re not just talking about monopolies where a single government-backed entity dominates – an outdated model that hardly counts as regulation anymore. In open licensing markets, where multiple operators can apply for and obtain permits, results vary widely based on the design and enforcement of regulations.

Among these licensed markets, many regulatory frameworks fail by ignoring a fundamental truth: Consumers will ultimately choose where they want to place their bets. No amount of IP blocking or transaction restrictions will prevent them from turning to unlicensed offerings if those are more appealing.

This is why a successful regulatory model cannot rely solely on punitive measures against unlicensed gambling. It must also focus on creating conditions that allow licensed operators

to compete effectively. This is where many policymakers and regulators struggle. Why? Because creating an appealing licensed market often means permitting features like bonuses and advertising – elements lawmakers typically try to curb.

Yet this conflict is unavoidable. While these attractive features help draw consumers to the regulated market, they can also act as triggers for compulsive gambling. Effective regulation acknowledges this tension, accepting that certain popular yet potentially problematic features, like bonuses and advertising, are necessary to draw consumers into the licensed ecosystem. Striking this balance is essential, but in practice, it’s a difficult concept for many policymakers to embrace. Rather than confront this trade-off, many choose to perpetually tighten restrictions on licensed operators, unintentionally making the unlicensed market more attractive.

Adding to the challenge is the structure of regulatory agencies, which are often divided between departments with competing priorities. One department may focus on enforcing rules against unlicensed operators, while another is tasked with implementing consumer protections within the licensed market. Though these protections are important, they can sometimes reduce consumer appeal, weakening channelisation and undermining the core purpose of regulation. Lower channelisation means fewer consumers benefit from the safeguards of a regulated market, which ultimately compromises overall consumer protection.

Departments focused on safer gambling often contend that channelisation isn’t their responsibility, leaving enforcement teams to battle unlicensed gambling – an almost impossible task when measures from within the agency continually erode licensed market appeal.

My position is clear: To make meaningful progress, regulators need to move beyond the pursuit of a “perfectly safe” market that restricts all potentially harmful features and instead

focus on building a sustainable, regulated market. This approach doesn’t mean ignoring safer gambling measures; rather, it means designing them to respect consumer choice while retaining market appeal. In other words, a successful regulatory framework creates a market that consumers want to choose – not one they feel forced into.

Ultimately, the gambling industry and its regulators may never completely agree on the ideal balance between engaging features and their associated risks. Nonetheless, this debate is necessary and can even be productive. We must all recognise that gambling regulation inherently involves trade-offs. Otherwise, regulators risk emulating King Xerxes of Persia, who, furious with the sea for defying him with a storm, ordered his men to whip the waters – a futile display of authority.

Hoffstedt

Gustaf

PERSONAL AI

Mark McGuinness, online gaming consultant and Gambling Insider contributor, unpicks the evolution of AI-powered personas and ChatBots in Web3 for online casino

The online gambling industry stands at a crossroads. While innovation serves as a stimulus, many products appear similar, lacking differentiation that allows players to choose distinct brands. However, the advent of Web3 and the ongoing development of ChatBots, equipped with advanced AI and Large Language Models (LLMs), could offer players emotional and conversational experiences with casino and betting brands.

HOW

AI PERSONAS AND VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS CAN REPLICATE THE LAND-BASED CASINO EXPERIENCE AND BOOST LIFETIME PLAYER VALUE

The digital transformation of the gambling industry has created numerous opportunities to innovate the online casino experience. Among the most exciting developments are AI personas and bespoke virtual assistants that simulate human-like interactions. These technologies enable online operators to recreate the immersive, personal touch typically found in land-based casinos while providing unmatched customisation and support. They can significantly enhance player satisfaction, retention and lifetime value (LTV).

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN ONLINE AND OFFLINE EXPERIENCE

For many players, the appeal of a land-based casino lies in its personalised service – the friendly dealer, the attentive concierge and tailored game recommendations. By contrast, online casinos struggle to provide this level of human connection. AI-powered personas and virtual assistants help bridge this gap by offering real-time, human-like interactions. These digital assistants can emulate a casino host, greeting players by name, remembering their preferences and guiding them through their gaming experience.

For example, an AI persona could suggest games based on a player’s past behaviour or assist them in navigating the platform seamlessly. The result is a more engaging experience that mirrors the attention and care players receive in physical casinos. This personal touch makes players feel valued, encourages longer play sessions and increases loyalty.

PERSONALISED GAME RECOMMENDATION

One of the most effective ways AI personas can improve LTV is through personalised game recommendations. By analysing player behaviour, preferences and gameplay patterns, AI systems can deliver tailored suggestions that resonate with individual players. Imagine a virtual assistant suggesting a slot game aligned with a player’s preferred themes or directing a poker enthusiast to a tournament suited to their skill level. This level of customisation ensures players are consistently presented with options that match their interests, reducing the likelihood of churn. Furthermore, AI can adjust these recommendations in real time. For instance, if a player transitions from casual slots to more strategic table games, the virtual assistant can modify its suggestions accordingly. This dynamic and responsive approach keeps players engaged and excited to explore new content, ultimately increasing their overall value to the casino.

ENHANCED CUSTOMER SUPPORT AND PROBLEM RESOLUTION

AI personas excel in providing instant, 24/7 customer support. Unlike traditional live

chat systems that rely on human agents, AIpowered assistants can address a wide range of queries in real-time, from explaining game rules to resolving account issues.

For example, if a player encounters a technical problem while playing, the virtual assistant can diagnose the issue and offer solutions without requiring them to leave the platform. This swift resolution reduces frustration and ensures a seamless gaming experience. Additionally, AI personas can proactively identify potential pain points. If a player struggles with a specific feature or frequently abandons a game, the assistant can provide tips or suggest alternatives, fostering a sense of care and attentiveness.

GAMIFICATION AND EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT

AI personas can also play a crucial role in gamifying the online casino experience. By utilising natural language processing (NLP) and sentiment analysis (SA), these assistants can engage players in friendly conversations, celebrate their wins and provide encouragement during losing streaks.

For instance, an AI persona might congratulate a player on a significant win with a personalised message or suggest a bonus feature to try next. This emotional engagement creates a deeper connection between the player and the platform, mirroring the camaraderie found in a physical casino. The potential for gamification extends to loyalty programs as well. AI assistants can track players’ progress, notify them of upcoming promotions, and suggest ways to earn more rewards, enhancing their sense of achievement and incentivising continued play.

BUILDING TRUST AND TRANSPARENCY

Trust is fundamental to player retention and AI personas can help establish it by providing clear, transparent communication. Whether explaining bonus terms, detailing game mechanics, or offering responsible gaming resources, these assistants can deliver information in a straightforward, user-friendly manner. This transparency reassures players that the casino values their experience and wellbeing, fostering long-term loyalty.

Mark McGuinness

LEAST RESISTANCE

Consultant Alex Henderson provides Gambling Insider with a step-by-step compliance guide

For anyone working in compliance, before you even start a role in this area, you are fighting an uphill battle. This is because, as I have said many times before, we have given ourselves the worst possible name – “compliance.” It sends the wrong message to our peers and, quite frankly, sounds outdated and incorrect. I much prefer aligning our function to risk management as that is our aim, after all. We want to help a business understand and manage their risks. We are here to advise on the laws and regulations – and how to adhere to those laws in a way that helps business grow.

Compliance rules are designed to keep businesses safe and operations running smoothly. But when these rules are disconnected from the realities of the people who follow them, they become as ineffective as a paved path ignored for a quicker, well-worn shortcut. When compliance feels cumbersome, employees find ways around it, introducing risks that could be avoided with better planning. I have broken this down into “lessons,” meaning they have come from things I have either got right or wrong, but either way, a lesson was learned.

REALISTIC AND ACCESSIBLE

Imagine a company that rolls out a new compliance policy, which requires an extensive checklist before even minor actions. Initially, everyone follows the rules to the letter. But, soon, employees start skipping steps to keep up with their workload. Compliance policies should enhance workflow, not create unnecessary roadblocks. When policies are complex or out of touch, employees are likely to create their own methods, which may not align with the intended compliance.

A real-world example: One client implemented

a multi-step approval process for every technical change, not just via the compliance team, but layers across other departments that simply delayed implementations. What they found was that teams were simply no longer forthcoming with improvement ideas. Team members who were previously forthcoming with suggestions to improve systems or user experience no longer came forward as the number of hurdles arising from the system began hindering progress. The fix? Streamline the development policy so that the most essential steps were emphasised, and minor tasks didn’t hold up the process.

TAKEAWAY

Design compliance that’s easy to follow. By involving employees in the development phase, you’ll gain insights into how the process impacts their day-to-day work and adjust accordingly to reduce unnecessary friction. Sign-off processes are vital but must be implemented in a way that is smooth and explainable to the wider teams.

CREATIVE DETOURS

Some policies act as barriers rather than guides. Picture an office or system where accessing a crucial tool requires multiple sign-offs and password resets. Employees soon start sharing passwords or finding unofficial ways to bypass the process. This defeats the purpose of compliance, which is meant to protect, not inconvenience. We live in an age where people prioritise ease and simplicity. So we should be making compliance easy for our peers. I have lost count of how many times I see people take shortcuts because the compliant choice is harder, i.e. how many people skip through compliance e-learning training and go straight to the exam because they don’t have the 30 minutes available it takes to sit through a bunch of slides…

Effective compliance should guide, not obstruct. One of our clients faced a similar issue where password changes were mandated so frequently that employees began writing passwords on sticky notes. There was an increase in security breaches and a huge GDPR risk. After revisiting the policy and extending the password change period while adding two-factor authentication, adherence improved without sacrificing security.

“DESIRED

PATHS”

I love the term “desired paths;” it is so simple but rarely considered by compliance departments who are typically more focused on installing rules into a business. Urban planners use the

term “desired paths” to describe natural trails people create when the paved path isn’t practical. In compliance, these show up as informal workarounds. When policies don’t match the workflow, employees create their own ways to get things done.

For instance, I witnessed a process whereby AML Officers had to re-review accounts on a monthly basis, even if there had been no increase to risk levels or activity. This resulted in them creating a shortcut of “copy and paste” the old reviews with a slight tweak in the notes. It meant they could hit their KPIs, but at the risk of missing something important in their review. If the steps don’t add value, employees will skip them. Instead of blaming staff, take the time to understand why they’re taking shortcuts. It could be that some steps are redundant.

LISTEN TO THE TEAM

When I first stepped into the glamourous role of compliance, I thought drafting policies was going to be the focus of my job. I was dishing out policies like there was no tomorrow. After a few setbacks, I sat down with one of my previous teams to find out why they were not following the policy. Someone kindly pointed out that the policies were useless to them because they assumed what their job entails. Too often, compliance policies are created in silos by people removed from daily operations. While well-intentioned, these policies can be impractical. Including the team in shaping compliance processes ensures they’re both realistic and effective.

THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE

Compliance should be a seamless part of operations – integrated, not imposed. Policies that follow the natural flow of work will always be more effective than those that disrupt it. The psychology behind compliance isn’t complex: people prefer processes that help them, not hinder. Designing compliance with employees in mind – by involving them from the start and making adjustments based on their feedback –creates a culture where compliance is respected and followed. A compliance policy that’s easy to follow is one that will be followed. And that’s the real win for everyone.

Henderson is the Group Head of Compliance for AMLGS, currently applying his services to GIMO and NetBet Enterprises; he has more than 15 years of experience advising companies in the UK and internationally within sectors including financial services, hospitality and gambling.

Alex Henderson

STRENGTH IN DEPTH

Gambling Insider sits down with Bally’s VP of Responsible Gaming, Tammi BarlowMarang, to explore what the US can learn from the EU regarding player protection

Do you think there are any key similarities in the player protection approach between the EU and US?

What’s interesting is that, even though we are very different jurisdictions in many ways, the US, the UK and Europe all share the same passions around player protection. Whether it is being able to ensure all customers have a way to set limits, whether there is a way for them to self-exclude or making sure there are services available for them to find help for themselves. I think there is a worldwide focus on identifying risks for customers so that we can know when to intervene. Another thing I think we have in common is initiatives around employee training, making sure teams around the world, wherever you are, understand the commitments we have to our customers. Honestly, overall, I think there are more similarities than differences and the differences that are there enable us to learn from each other. In the States, we have a lot of different smaller jurisdictions within the wider jurisdiction, different cultures, different regulations – and that means there are differences within the country; but I think that all of us should be proud of the work we’re doing to protect consumers worldwide.

Do you think US regulators and operators are looking to learn from

the mistakes and successes of player protection regulation in the EU?

Absolutely. I think that’s one of the great things about working at Bally’s, that we do have a really strong, excellent team in the UK who have already been through the hardships that are part of the journey. Now, in the US, we are absolutely paying attention to the lessons our European counterparts have learned. A big thing, I believe, is to ensure you regulate yourself before you get regulated. If you look at advertising, for example, we in the US just don’t want things to go as far as they have now in Europe with some of the bans that are being put into place. We’re trying to ensure our regulators are putting in key initiatives and updating regulations around advertising all the time. However, we are very much learning from our European counterparts – how to do it better. That’s the beauty of RG. It’s not a competition. It’s not just the EU market, either. We’re learning from Ontario and all the great work they’re doing there right now. This is truly a global playing ground, and we are focused on taking the best of what every jurisdiction has to offer. There is one thing we’re here to do and that is to protect our players.

What are your thoughts on sports betting advertising restrictions and how these may develop in the US?

In every jurisdiction, there are different requirements. One of the key things I really like that is happening in the US is that the regulators are paying a lot more attention to the advertising. There are some jurisdictions that now require the operator to submit their advertising before it even goes out. There are some that want you to measure how effective your advertising is. They’re making us go beyond just general disclaimers. In the long run, the hope is that by consistently measuring your impact, we won’t get to a point where things have to be completely banned. We are working together to understand how we can get away from that frenzy of promotion, promotion, promotion.

It’s about balancing promotion with responsible gaming messages. There are states like Colorado, New York and Ohio – who are really invested in making sure they represent the people in their states, which is a step in the right direction.

Something that has happened in Ontario recently is the development

of a centralised self-exclusion list. Do you think this is the direction the North American market may choose to go, as opposed to advertising regulation?

I have talked at length on various platforms about, ‘why is it difficult to get a universal self-exclusion list?’ I think the key to it is the data. Namely, the protection of player data. I do think we will get there. We need to ensure our regulators are educated on how that information is going to be protected.

One of the things the industry is trying to figure out is how can we ensure we anonymise all this data so that we can share it? Are there ways we can use that for good? So, for instance, it would be great if we could create a data clearing house where we can share information so that customers can just hop from one platform to the other with self-exclusion. Maybe one day we get to the point where we can share those limits and create something of a global passport for selfexclusion. I really believe this is something that we will be able to crack the code on.

Finally where do you feel Bally’s responsibility lies in pushing for enhanced RG regulation in the market? Absolutely. One of the things about Bally’s that’s really impressive is the level of commitment there is to RG. We have about 500 to 600 employees around the world that are looking into this area. We’re looking at how can we be innovative; how can we be careful and trying to find the right methodology to tackle the issue. This is a very important space for Bally’s. We have teams around the world that are laser focused on RG, and we want to be the best. Not because it’s something we want to brag about; we just want our players to know that, when they come to our platform, it is the safest platform for them and that their play can be sustainable. We want tools that really work for them.

We want to be able to message them in a way that that they’ve never been messaged before. We want to be able to use our algorithm in a way that is focused on preventing harm before it becomes harmful. We are leaning into this space, we’re listening, we’re learning, not just from other operators, or regulators but from our players. At the end of the day, they are our key stakeholders: Bally’s wants to develop player protection programmes that resonate with all.

Tammi Barlow-Marang

CONNECTING TO STAND OUT

Gambling Insider Sta Writer Ciarán McLoughlin attended Sportradar Connect at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, and below provides some key takeaways from the event

Back in October, Sportradar hosted the third edition of its marketing summit, Sportradar Connect, at the home of Arsenal Football Club, Emirates Stadium, bringing together industry leaders in the world of marketing in sports, betting and beyond. Given Arsenal is generally known to stand out when it comes to its marketing strategy, particularly when it comes to connecting with its fanbase in a unique way, the setting itself seemed perfect for a day of listening to marketing experts give their methods for standing out from the crowd.

In all, there were three key panels throughout the day, with acquisition, retention and the future of marketing the focus of the talks, as challenges and issues facing marketers both now and in the future were addressed.

WINNING

THE ACQUISITION RACE: THE TECH AND TACTICS FUELLING SUCCESS

Opening the day’s proceedings was a deep dive into acquisition, with a mix of operator and supplier backgrounds giving their views. Included on the biggest panel of the day was Kindred Group Head of Biddable Media and Acquisition Angelo Di Lascio, Betway Head of Acquisition Rahul Menon, LiveScore Head of Performance Marketing Kevin Andrews and Sportradar SVP Marketing Services Niki Beier, while it was moderated by SportsPro Head of Marketing Francesca Greane.

The talk itself may have been surrounding acquisition within marketing, but straight away the main point coming across from the

panellists was that ultimately acquisition itself can’t be something viewed in isolation. Di Lascio admitted that initially this was an approach that had been taken at Kindred, looking at acquisition in isolation, and he underlined that any brand operating in this way was limiting the growth of its business. He also emphasised how key good branding is for marketing and that the skill set should be beyond simply driving the user.

This was a point agreed upon across the board, with Menon stating that branding and acquisition must be seen together. When branding stops, that’s when the acquisition side of marketing starts. An interesting point made during the talk was that in some ways there isn’t really a need to distinguish between different departments of a marketing team; there should simply be one marketing team.

Andrews, of course, comes from LiveScore, which has the USP of its convergence model, combing sports content such as scores, stats and news, with a sportsbook. However, despite this, the Head of Performance Marketing still echoed his fellow panellists: that only investing in the lower funnel in marketing will not create growth. Betway has a number of sponsorships within the world of football. In the Premier League, for example, it has previously agreed deals with Arsenal, AFC Bournemouth, Brighton & Hove Albion, Chelsea, Nottingham Forest, Manchester City and West Ham United. Menon asked the question of how much acquisition can be put into these types of sponsorships, explaining that these connections

with clubs can then be transmitted through to fans and potentially bring in new customers.

This linked well with the discussion around the shift towards first-party data, especially in this post-third-party-cookie era. Beier suggested that, in the future, we may see a time when rightsholders share their first-party data with advertisers, which would be good for brands and their growth. Though it wasn’t mentioned by the panel, this point did make me think of the significance of a big deal which took place recently that may serve as a good example. The deal in question being that of bet365 becoming the official global partner of the UEFA Champions League, the first sports betting brand to partner with the club football competition. This partnership could play a huge role for the operator in acquiring customers, especially given the global appeal of the Champions League.

On data, AI was of course a hot topic, as it is in many spaces at the moment. Rather than just thinking of AI as a means of creating a product, the panel explained how the technology that is currently on offer and to come in the future will be key in enhancing decision making, and what will add value to these decisions will be data. Di Lascio spoke of the “uncharted waters” on the measurement side of AI, rather than simply trying to engage customers. It needs to be further examined how this data can be interpreted to make decisions.

The idea behind this was expressed by Andrews, who underlined how within the betting industry it is often seen that a new

product is not new for long, with competitors often copying these ideas within six months; it is the job of marketers to stand out. Beier went further on the point of products likely being similar, highlighting that the job in marketing is to be “better than others at transporting the message.” What was agreed by all with regards to this topic area was that the data gathered from AI will add value in decision-making when it comes to standing out. Fundamentally, data can help drive differentiation.

Finally, in this very thought-provoking session, another takeaway was around customer churn in marketing. In looking ahead for predictions within the acquisition arena, Menon suggested the idea of churn prediction, whereby AI could help in understanding those customers who may not come back to a sports betting app. Similarly, predictive analysis was another area Betway’s Head of Acquisition touched upon and how AI can help in predicting future behaviour to shape marketing decisions for different customers. But, as Andrews explained, a lot of these AI models will contradict and ultimately it is up to the marketing team to test ideas.

RETENTION’S SUPERPOWER: REAL PERSONALISATION

In the second talk of the day, Xtremepush Director of Partnerships & iGaming Robbie Sexton, Scooore.be General Manager Olivier Haine and Sportradar Director Personalisation Andreas Hartmann discussed the topic of player retention and personalisation, moderated by Fanclub PR Consultant Director of Communications Tessa Curtis.

Personalisation was the main theme here, but as Hartmann pointed out early on, the most important element is whether the customer actually likes the product in the first place as that will be the thing that retains a customer. The key is to build a product then get the personalisation right. AI was once again a topic of discussion here, and Sexton pointed to how this can help in understanding the preferences of customers with real-time insights, something Xtremepush offers, and avoids the need for samey CRM messages. He also pointed that with the technology that there is the opportunity for companies to go a level deeper into knowing their player interests with 100’s of micro segments to look in to, in order to increase engagement. Overall, he summed up that AI can help in delivering the right message to the right person.

Haine from Scooore.be talked about the need for personalisation to be viewed within a much broader light with, for example, information expanded beyond just sports betting, but also including sport content as a whole. Hartmann agreed with this sentiment, speaking on the potential use of sports content in gamification, referencing the success of Dazn; a sports streaming and entertainment platform that also offers other features such as live betting and

gaming. Hartmann went further, looking into retention, speaking about how data may be used to predict the reactivation of a player using a betting site, and that an option in the future could be player-specific markets based around the customers’ preferences and interactions. The three on the panel agreed overall that any broad reactivation message doesn’t really work and that the messages sent out need to be more specific to the customer.

A key takeaway from the panel was that personalisation isn’t just about preferences, and is a balance between what is known about someone and pointing them towards other areas they may be interested in. Hartmann also discussed the benefits of cross-selling between sports betting and casino, even talking about how in the future personalised banners may be created by AI models to help retaincustomers. Likewise, it was stated by the panel that anticipating churn will define retention.

FIRESIDE CHAT: MAXIMISING THE FUTURE OF MARKETING

Ending the day, Sportradar EVP Global Marketing Adam Azor was in conversation with Mount Anvil CMO Lisa Ravenscroft. Before we really got into the bulk of the conversation, it was stated early on that rumours of marketing’s demise were overstated. This was of course a unique chat since Ravenscroft comes from outside of the betting and sporting industries, but the consensus between herself and Azor was very much on the same page concerning the issues touched upon.

The disruptive nature in marketing over the years was discussed, such as the advent of digital, social media and programmatic, reflecting on the “marketing bravery” that is needed to be more experimental, by taking risks especially in the face of the potential of new technology. Mount Anvil’s CMO spoke on the excitement of AI, but more so beyond this initial phase we are in at the moment. According to her, it is when we get away from the sameness that AI’s potential will really be seen.

While hyper-personalisation and automation are hot topics at the moment, Ravenscroft did interestingly highlight that even now with the technology available, most humans don’t want maximum convenience in everyday life, citing an example of some people preferring to go to a book shop than buying from Amazon. She also explained that ultimately what is needed in marketing is to find out what is not being met, because a lot of companies will have the same tools, and it is up to human skill to learn faster than the competition; underlining that human traits may go full circle to old-school ways, such as the demand for vinyl rather than listening to Spotify at the moment, which human analysis can understand.

Summing up, Azor expressed that “marketing at its heart is a growth driver,” and that it is up to marketers to be experimental and innovative,

with Ravenscroft concurring that in general there needs to be more cross-functional teams being more open to insights and new ideas.

ADAM AZOR EXCLUSIVE

During the event, Gambling Insider was able to sit down for a chat with Azor, delving into a number of topics, such as the future of marketing, third-party cookies, hyper-personalisation, among other things. As touched upon in the early session surrounding acquisition, Azor underlined the importance of first-party data in the years to come, calling it “the real currency of the future,” and explaining how key it is for both acquiring customers, but likewise in retaining them and in creating hyper-personalisation for players.

Sportradar’s EVP Global Marketing also delved into generative AI and how it is likely going to play a role in the changing nature of marketing, especially with regards to the creative aspect and the relationship between clients and agencies. But for now, those within marketing should be understanding “what is the best way to navigate those waters and: how do I make sure I’m beating the competition? Am I maintaining market position and driving the most effective marketing I can in a sea of change?”

Personalisation was delved into a lot throughout proceedings and, when asked about how far it can go with regards to a single person’s preferences, Azor pointed to how far the data can allow for it and what other data points can be combined to paint a personal picture of someone, which again comes down to the importance of first-party data.

Finally, Azor explained “the two trends that are not going to just be the big ones for next year, but realistically, for the next three years are going to be hyper-personalisation and AI.”

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

This summit really opened my eyes to the magnitude of potential there is for data and AI, especially when looking at marketing within the sports and betting industries. This potential can become even greater with the introduction of new technologies and developments surrounding AI and machine learning. “Fundamentally, data drives differentiation.” This was probably the statement that stayed with me the most from Sportradar Connect and ultimately it is this statement that should be at the forefront of all marketers’ minds, whether they are acquiring or retaining customers, as the shift to first-party data and move away from third-party cookies takes place.

The sheer volume of opportunities on offer within the marketing landscape makes for an exciting time in the space, and if people are allowed to be experimental with their methods, it can only be beneficial in the long run, creating experiences and products with every player in mind.

HISTORY MADE

Gambling Insider gets expert insights on the recently passed Gambling Regulation Bill in Ireland; featuring Irish Bookmakers Association (IBA) Chairperson Sharon Byrne and Associate in Bird & Bird’s Ireland o ce Georgina Parkinson

What are your overall thoughts on the Gambling Regulation Bill now that it has been passed?

Sharon Byrne: The IBA welcomes the passing of the Gambling Regulation Bill as a critical advancement in establishing a comprehensive regulatory framework for Ireland’s gambling industry. Having advocated for legislative reform for many years, we are pleased to see a robust foundation laid for consistent, safe and transparent gambling practices. While we commend the Bill’s achievements, we believe certain sections could benefit from fine-tuning, to ensure the legislation remains both effective and practical without inadvertently pushing customers towards the black market. We look forward to working with the Authority to find a solution that suits all stakeholders and further enhances the effectiveness of the Bill.

Georgina Parkinson: Although the Gambling Regulation Act has been passed and signed into law by the President, it has not yet been formally commenced by Ministerial order, which is required for it to take legal effect. Primarily, the legislation proposed is considerably more equipped for the digital world and the significance of online gaming and gambling. It introduces a comprehensive licensing framework, which will be easier for businesses to navigate. The Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI) will be responsible for enforcing and supervising the sector, as well as providing guidance, resources and regulations. The significant budget allocated to the GRAI suggests they will hit the ground running. However, understanding what is and isn’t allowed in terms of advertising may pose a challenge to businesses due to the significant overhaul of advertising regulation.

How important is the establishment of Údarás Rialála Cearrbhachais na hÉireann, the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland?

SB: The establishment of the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland is vital. A well-resourced, fit-for-purpose Authority is essential to ensure that the legislation is implemented consistently across the sector. The Authority will uphold high standards of safety and integrity, promoting public trust while supporting the industry’s sustainability. We look forward to supporting the Authority’s work and providing any assistance needed to help refine sections of the Bill, to keep the regulatory landscape effective and adaptable.

GP: The GRAI, which is dedicated specifically to gambling, is a very significant new development for Ireland. The GRAI will fulfil a one-stop shop for the roles in Ireland, whereas previously these were not consolidated. It will also manage complaints, boost public awareness, issue guidance, standards and codes of practice, as well as aid in efforts against problem gambling.

In regard to reducing problem gambling, how pleased are you to see the creation of a Social Impact Fund and the establishment of the National Gambling Exclusion Register?

SB: The IBA is highly supportive of the Social Impact Fund and the National Gambling Exclusion Register. The Social Impact Fund will continue the important work done by The Gambling Awareness Trust, which had been funded by contributions from the industry and will enable valuable programs for awareness, education and support services to continue and grow. These measures underscore a

strong commitment to safer gambling in Ireland, and we look forward to seeing them implemented in ways that remain both practical and impactful.

GP: The creation of the Social Impact Fund and the National Gambling Exclusion Register is a significant development in Ireland and mirrors an approach taken in a number of other jurisdictions. To be successful, it will be critical that both the Social Impact Fund and National Gambling Exclusion Register are properly established; and that communications with impacted individuals will be properly managed, and the fund is allocated to appropriate projects and activities.

Can you see more remote operators being attracted to the Irish market with the introduction of remote gaming and remote lottery licensing?

SB: Yes, the introduction of remote gaming and lottery licensing is likely to attract more operators to Ireland. A clear, structured licensing framework brings predictability and transparency, appealing to responsible operators. However, it’s essential that the standards outlined in the Bill remain practical and balanced to maintain a competitive market that encourages regulated operators to enter, and discourages any shift toward unregulated alternatives. We believe the Authority will play a significant role in monitoring these outcomes.

GP: There has been a remote gambling regime in Ireland under the Betting (Amendment) Act 2015, but it only covered part of the sector, whereas now there is a clearer framework about how to engage in other activities on a remote basis. However,

while this change in structure has been introduced, the risk associated with doing business in Ireland has also increased regulation and the impact on the market remains to be seen. We are seeing a lot of interest from clients willing to explore options available to them.

Do you think the banning of inducements and the maximum stake/ maximum winnings limits will drive people to the black market?

SB: The IBA supports measures aimed at consumer protection, particularly where they help prevent harmful gambling behaviours. That said, it is crucial that these restrictions are carefully implemented to avoid inadvertently steering customers towards unregulated, blackmarket operators, where protections do not exist. For maximum stake and winnings limits, as well as inducement bans, a balanced approach is essential to keep the regulated market safe and accessible to consumers. The Authority will have the benefit of access to real-time data and statistics, which will help to inform their decisions. We look forward to working with the Authority to find a solution that suits all parties, ensuring protections remain strong without unintended consequences.

GP: It is possible. However, when the GRAI start issuing guidance and codes of practice, it is my opinion that the situation will be clearer. In relation to inducements, the Gambling Regulation Act 2024 states that a licensee may not offer a person or specific group of persons an inducement. There has been a lot of industry speculation on the legislation, and we presume the GRAI will monitor this carefully. While the maximum stake and maximum winnings limits do appear to be quite restrictive,

the GRAI has the power to amend and adjust the amounts while having regard to the number of gaming and lottery licenses in force, the impact of gambling activities on society in general and the potential impact of any variation on gambling activities generally.

A lot has been said about the impact measures, such as the advertising watershed, will have on horseracing in Ireland. What are your thoughts on this?

SB: The IBA acknowledges the importance of the advertising watershed in protecting vulnerable groups, especially young people, from excessive exposure to gambling advertising. However, it is also critical to consider the unique relationship between advertising and the horseracing industry. It is a core part of Ireland’s economy and cultural heritage, with a predominantly adult-based audience. While the watershed policy is well-intended, a careful balance is needed to ensure that it does not unintentionally disrupt an entire industry or encourage consumers toward less-regulated alternatives.

GP: It is challenging to provide an opinion without seeing the watershed in action; however, how this will work in practice remains to be seen from the guidance that will be issued by GRAI.

The GRAI under the Gambling Regulation Act 2024 has many rights and powers and that can include providing guidance over TV appearances and sponsorships at an event such as a racecourse.

Overall, what do you believe the Bill has got right, as well as what it could have done better?

the Gambling Regulation Act 2024 has been effective in its establishment of a regulator. It also provides a comprehensive licensing framework which should make it easier to transact business in Ireland.

In terms of areas that could have been better addressed, concerns have been expressed around the maximum stake and maximum winnings limits, and how they work in practice. Further clarification is certainly needed to alleviate some concerns, which may impact the level of business activity in Ireland.

measures that the IBA strongly supports, such

guidelines for the sector. The creation

the National Gambling Exclusion

However, certain aspects of the Bill remain effective and practical, without legislation remains adaptable, effective and keeping pace with industry developments.

SB: The Bill has introduced essential measures that the IBA strongly supports, such as establishing a strong regulatory authority, advancing consumer protection and providing guidelines for the sector. The creation of the Social Impact Fund and the National Gambling Exclusion Register are significant achievements. However, certain aspects of the Bill could benefit from optimisation to remain effective and practical, without driving consumers to unregulated markets. We look forward to working with the Authority to find a solution that suits all, and ensures the legislation remains adaptable, effective and keeping pace with industry developments.

GP: The Bill is now an Act albeit not yet in force. It is my opinion that

The Bill is now an Act albeit not yet in force. It is my opinion that

Sharon Byrne

Georgina Parkinson

A UNANIMOUS VERDICT

After plans were announced to regulate online gaming, Jarrod True of True Legal sits down with Gambling Insider to sift through the upcoming changes to New Zealand’s gambling market

Online gambling regulation in NZ was announced in July – can you give us an insight into how far along the Government is in the process of drawing up a presentable framework?

The Government has made the decision that they are going to open the way for online licences. There is a consensus as to what the framework will look like regarding how many licences there will be, what regulations will apply, what limits on advertising will apply, and what taxes will be applicable. If all goes according to plan, the parliamentary council will draught the first scope of the legislation which will be introduced by April 2025. We then go through a public consultation process. Our Government is very receptive in that process to changes and tweaks. Currently, the talk is there will be 15 licences, but we could see that increase or potentially be unlimited.

There’s scope during the process for that to be amended, which I feel it should be. Once we’ve got the final version of the legislation and it’s passed in Parliament, it will be put into place by the end of 2025 and then there’ll

be a two-stage process for licences. If you want to be considered for a licence, there will be a vetting process on 26 February, which, if operators pass, they will be eligible to participate in the subsequent auction, which will occur six weeks after that. Then, people will be permitted to be up and running and trading under the new regime in April 2026.

At present, NZ’s estimated online gambling grey market spend is anywhere between $500m-$900m. Why do you think the country has chosen now to try and capture its grey market?

The catalyst has been the fact that we, in New Zealand, have a new centre right Government that’s a little bit more business friendly. Nevertheless, everyone in our industry agrees that we’re well overdue to be regulated. Online gambling is happening on a large scale here and currently we’re in the Wild West. People are allowed to participate in online gambling via the offshore providers and there are no harm minimisation controls. There are plenty of advertising restrictions, but also plenty of workarounds. There are also issues with player fairness.

What do you think the biggest hurdles the Government will have to cross are, as it attempts to build NZ’s online gambling legislation?

I don’t think the Government will face many hurdles at all. There is broad consensus that this is entirely appropriate and, in fact, overdue. The public want it because currently there are situations where players aren’t getting paid, alongside a lack of treatment providers. I think the debates will just be about the number of licences there should be. Currently, the way New Zealand’s gambling system operates is that every form of gambling in New Zealand, apart from our six land-based commercial casinos, can only be done to raise money for community or charitable purposes. All the profits from our gambling, aside from

those six commercial casinos, go 100% back to the community. The proposal is that we would allow commercial online operators to operate purely as a commercial business with no community return, which is a fairly drastic change. Those that are already in the community fund raising space will no doubt be saying, ‘if you’re going to grant licences, why don’t you grant them to the people that are currently returning all their profits to the community?’ We may have a situation where the commercial people might be eligible for a licence without being subject to the 15 number limit and without being required to pay for it as part of the auction process. We’ll see.

From what you have observed so far, what do you feel are the NZ Government’s key priorities for its online gambling market? Firstly, tax. Gambling is happening already, and we’re not getting our fair share of tax. They’ve introduced a new 12% online casino duty, and there’s an existing 15% Goods & Services Tax people should be paying. The licence enables you to freely advertise and promote within New Zealand. Put simply, there are big benefits in being licenced and paying tax. The second priority is to, of course, wrap some harm minimisation around things. For me, I think they have been a little bit shortsighted by simply saying there will be only 15 licences.

We currently have 36 providers paying tax in New Zealand, 15 is obviously less than half of that. There are about 3,000 current providers accepting deposits from people based in New Zealand. With only 15 licenses, is there still a risk that there would be a large black market? Yes. If there was a larger number of licences, would that risk reduce the risk? I think it would. I think there should be a space for the providers that want to operate on a non-commercial basis to be able to do so. Greater innovation, greater products, more consumer choice. Why wouldn’t that be a good thing?

Jarrod True

THE BLUEPRINT

Manav Bhargava, Head of India Desk at Segev LLP, discusses unlocking India’s iGaming potential using lessons from Ontario in Canada

THE REGULATORY LANDSCAPE REMAINS FRAUGHT WITH CHALLENGES

With one of the world’s fastest-growing economies and a user base of sports fans numbering in the hundreds of millions, it should come as no surprise to industry insiders that the gaming industry in India is growing at an unprecedented pace. With the confluence of advanced technologies, expanding internet and digital payment penetration, and an increasing appetite for digital entertainment, the country’s gaming market has transformed into a significant economic driver. However, the regulatory landscape for online gaming remains fraught with challenges.

GAMES OF SKILL AND CHANCE: A CLOUDED JURISDICTIONAL LANDSCAPE

The Constitution of India grants state governments the exclusive jurisdiction to legislate on gambling and betting (games of chance). Games are classified as games of skill or games of chance in India. This classification is crucial as games of skill are generally exempt from gambling prohibition laws of different states, while games of chance are considered gambling and are banned by said state legislations. Yet the distinction between the two is not always clear-cut, leading to significant ambiguities.

Moreover, online gambling (online games of chance) continues to be a battle for jurisdiction between central and state governments. While states have the jurisdiction to legislate on gambling and betting, the Centre is empowered to legislate on the internet. In April 2023, the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (“MeitY”), announced a new central legal framework for online skill real-money gaming through amendments to the Information Technology.

These amendments (“Online Gaming Rules”) proposed a light-touch, co-regulatory regime whereby MeitY was supposed to recognise independent self-regulatory bodies, which were empowered/responsible to verify whether an “online real-money game” is to be made available to the general public – in accordance with the criteria prescribed by the Online Gaming Rules. However, Government representatives later announced that the organisations who applied to become SRBs lacked objectivity, and the Government began planning to regulate online skill gaming itself. The Online Gaming Rules broadly proposed that if a game was a game of chance, it cannot be offered under said law. One could argue the Centre did not try to regulate games of chance for two reasons:

• The Government continues to view gambling and betting as a vice and does not want to promote it

• The prevalent ambiguity around whether the Central Government has power to legislate on online gambling and betting restricted it from legislating on online gambling.

SKILL VS. CHANCE: THE LEGAL CONTEXT

Courts in India have long grappled with defining “skill” and “chance.” As mentioned above, most state gambling statutes contain specific exemptions for games of “mere skill.” “Mere skill” has been judicially interpreted to mean games predominantly of skill. However, instead of laying down an objective criterion to distinguish games of skill from games of chance, courts in India have arrived at their determination based on the facts and circumstances of each case, or particular characteristics of each game offering. It is pertinent to mention that games of rummy, poker and fantasy sports have been generally considered as games of skill but continue to be legal due to exemptions contained in state gambling laws. However, as newer digital games emerge, particularly versions of poker, rummy and fantasy sports, the line

between skilland chance becomes increasingly blurred.

INSTANCES OF MISCLASSIFICATION

Despite judicial precedents, there are instances where games are misclassified, either due to a lack of understanding or intentional lobbying. A few key examples are as follows:

• Rummy and poker variants: While traditional rummy and Poker are recognised games of skill, some online platforms introduce variations with additional random elements, potentially misclassifying them to benefit from the “skill game” exemption. One could argue that this forced the Government of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to implement the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Act, 2022, to ban all games of chance and extend the ban to even rummy and poker, both of which have been recognised as games of skill through judicial pronouncements. However, the relevant provisions prohibiting games of skill were read down by a judgement of the Honourable High Court of Tamil Nadu.

• Teen Patti: Teen Patti, a traditional card game akin to poker but with a higher reliance on luck, is often marketed as a skill game. Similarly, debates persist about whether certain poker variants meet the threshold for skill dominance.

• Emerging genres: Games like esports and multiplayer battle royales are sometimes incorrectly grouped with gambling, despite their emphasis on skill.

THE CASE TO ADOPT BEST PRACTICES FROM ONTARIO’S IGAMING MODEL

While the size of India’s illegal gambling market is estimated to be more than $100bn, states continue to prohibit online gambling and betting. With the introduction of a 28% goods and service tax (GST) on games of skill and chance, the Government saw an unprecedented 400% increase in tax revenue from gaming. However, as predicted, the introduction of such a high rate of GST, in addition to the preexisting 30% income tax on winnings, forced even more users to migrate to offshore, illegal gambling sites that advertise themselves as “GST free.” Reports suggest that shift to unregulated platforms could result in significant GST revenue loss of around $2.5bn annually. Moreover, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) in its annual report highlighted significant risks associated with this migration, including money laundering and other illicit activities. While cracking down on illegal iGaming operators seems to be a new and challenging problem for enforcement agencies in India, it’s a problem other jurisdictions have tackled effectively by legalising online gambling.

In April 2022, Ontario legalised online gambling and sports betting and launched

a new framework to regulate gambling and betting under the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) and iGaming Ontario (iGO). The first of its kind in Canada, Ontario’s internet gaming market allows residents of Ontario to gamble online, with the assurance that those sites are closely monitored for game integrity, player protections and responsible operations. This model provides valuable lessons for Indian states looking to protect their residents from harms of unregulated gambling and fostering economic growth. Prior to April 2022, Ontario also grappled with the harms of unregulated gambling websites where its residents gambled away their life savings.

ONTARIO’S MODEL: A BLUEPRINT

Ontario’s framework emphasizes the following:

1) Registration and compliance: Operators must obtain registration and comply with stringent requirements covering responsible gaming, technical standards that ensure game integrity, and anti-money laundering measures.

2) Open-market structure: Unlike monopolistic models, Ontario allows private operators to participate, fostering competition and innovation.

3) Consumer protection: The framework prioritises player safety, with measures such as age verification, self-exclusion tools and fairness audits.

4) Migration of users to legal market: After the introduction of Ontario’s new regulatory regime, according to an Ipsos study conducted in February 2024, 86.4% of Ontarian residents who gambled online over the preceding three months gambled on regulated sites.

WHY THIS MODEL COULD WORK FOR STATES IN INDIA

1) Streamlining regulation: Ontario’s centralised system eliminates confusion for operators. Indian states could benefit from establishing a designated regulatory body that oversees licensing and compliance and also collaborates with Central Governments on implementation of AML requirements and taxation.

2) Encouraging investment: A clear, predictable regulatory environment like Ontario’s would attract global operators to invest in India, bringing capital, technology and expertise.

3) Protecting consumers: Ontario’s focus on responsible gaming could help Indian states address concerns about addiction, ensuring industry growth does not come at a social cost. While different state governments have tried to do this by banning all online real money gaming, the way forward is legalising and regulating real-money gaming.

4) Maximising tax revenue: India’s unregulated gaming market leads to revenue leakages. A structured model with fair taxation and transparent reporting could significantly boost government earnings by ensuring users

Manav Bhargava

move to regulated websites.

5) Taxation: iGaming operators in Ontario are required to pay tax at the rate of 20% (in lieu of HST and other costs) in addition to the annual registration fee. India has already imposed GST at 28% on games of skill and chance. Thus, adopting the Ontario model would not require making significant changes to the tax regime.

Implementing an Ontario-style model by a state in India will not be without its challenges. However, the constitution ensures that states retain control over gambling laws, allowing states to tailor their regulatory framework to local nuances.

CONCLUSION

India stands at the cusp of a gaming revolution, with immense opportunities waiting to be unlocked. Yet the path to realising this potential depends on clear regulation, innovative business practices and a commitment to consumer welfare. Addressing misclassification issues, fostering growth through strategic interventions and learning from other jurisdictions can transform India’s gaming landscape into a global powerhouse.By embracing these measures, India can ensure its gaming industry not only achieves explosive growth but also sets global benchmarks for fairness, safety and innovation. The time to act is now.

BUILDING A COMMUNITY

Digitain Founder Vardges Vardanyan speaks with Gambling Insider about continuous innovation, responsible expansion and why people are at the heart of the company

2024 was big year for Digitain. What do you think the company’s biggest achievement was this year?

This year, we made good progress by expanding into new markets and securing licenses to provide products in the UK, Greece, Malta, Romania, Sweden, Brazil and Peru. In addition, we established new tier-one and strategic partnerships, reinforcing our dedication to maintaining the highest industry standards across all aspects of our operations. I am immensely proud of every team member for their dedication. Their contributions have been instrumental in the last year.

After receiving approval from the UK’s Gambling Commission in September, how do you reflect on your initial few months in the market?

The UK represents one of the gold standards in our industry, gaining approval from the Gambling Commission was a significant milestone for me as the Founder and for our entire team. An

integral part of our entry into the UK market has been our commitment to responsible gaming. With our London office now established, we are now looking ahead to 2025, where we anticipate sustainable growth as we focus on onboarding high-value partners.

How do you think Digitain will develop within the LatAm landscape moving forward?

LatAm is a significant market with immense potential, driven by its diverse economies, growing digital infrastructure and increasing regulatory advancements. As the region continues to transition toward more structured and regulated frameworks, it presents very exciting opportunities for sustainable growth and innovation.

We have designed localised products and solutions specifically tailored to the LatAm market, backed by a well-established and dedicated local team in the region. We are also actively working on establishing a LatAm hub office in 2025. We have also successfully secured licences for Brazil and Peru.

How do you feel Digitain has progressed with regard to player protection in 2024 – and how do you hope to push forward in 2025? Player protection is a cornerstone of the industry. Our solutions are designed to ensure compliance with diverse regulatory standards. Leveraging advanced technology, we have enhanced our ability to analyse player data, enabling trained specialists to identify patterns and behaviors that may indicate gambling-related issues.

The integration of AI, machine learning and behavioral profiling has gone a long way in helping to strengthen our ability to meet evolving player protection standards. Looking ahead to 2025, Digitain will continue to prioritise investments in cutting-edge technology and rigorous training programs.

How have things changed for you in the past 10 years following some rapid expansion? The past decade has been transformative, both for me personally and for the Digitain Group.

What began as a small team has grown into a thriving community of nearly 4,000 individuals. Over the last 4-5 years, we have seen the formation of the Digitain Group of companies. Imagine Live, for instance, has emerged as a unique brand specialising in live casino solutions. Galaxsys is making waves with its portfolio of fast games and the addition of slots. Relum, our aggregator and SportGenerate also reflects this commitment to innovation and market adaptability.

Digitain has been more than a business for me; it represents a significant part of my life.

What new technologies and innovations do you personally find the most exciting right now?

Advancements in AI and Machine Learning are revolutionising the way we analyse vast amounts of customer interaction data points. This efficient and effective analysis is paving the way for a more insightful understanding of our customers. We can already see the positive impact of AI in our everyday lives.

The future holds even more promise. We can expect further advancements in technology, whether it’s to automate existing workflows or to streamline repetitive and manual processes. This will free up more time to address other areas of friction.

What are your expectations for the company for 2025?

I am genuinely excited about what lies ahead in 2025, as Digitain and its group of companies continue to push boundaries in both emerging and established markets. Our focus on innovation and future-thinking positions us as pioneers in bringing transformative solutions to the iGaming industry.

In 2025, we aim to forge even stronger partnerships, enhance our technological capabilities, broaden our geography and maintain our commitment to responsible gaming. The year ahead is set to be monumental, with major announcements that will highlight our next phase of growth.

Vardges Vardanyan

THE INDUSTRY LOOKS AHEAD TO 2025...

Industry experts provide Gambling Insider with their predictions for 2025, including Betcore, Lynon, Spribe and RevenueLab

PETER KORPUSENKO Founder & CEO

Betcore

SUREN VARDANYAN Chief Business Officer Lynon

Peter Korpusenko is the Founder of TVBet and currently serves as Founder and CEO of Betcore, a leading iGaming supplier managing four innovative sub-brands: TVBet, Bet on Games, Fastsport, and El Casino. Known for driving technological advancement in gaming, he has established himself as a pioneer in creating engaging, high-quality entertainment solutions.

JULIA KULIKOVA

CPA Team Lead RevenueLab

DAVID NATROSHVILI CEO Spribe

Suren Vardanyan is an experienced manager with a demonstrated history of working in the gambling & casino industry worldwide. He has a background in online poker, B2C casino and sportsbook operations, and B2B SaaS. His expertise spans across key sectors, including technology and international business, where he has applied his skills to optimise processes, lead cross-functional teams, and implement solutions that enhance organisational efficiency and performance.

David Natroshvili is Co-Founder and CEO of Spribe. Under his leadership, Spribe has focused on innovation and the next generation of iGaming. Natroshvili remains committed to expanding Spribe's global footprint and continuously innovating within the iGaming sector. His long-term vision includes further developing new game formats that align with emerging gaming trends while maintaining a commitment to responsible gaming practices and sustainability.

Julia Kulikova entered the industry in 2023 and within a year grew from a middle affiliate manager to a team lead at a large CIS network. She leads the affiliate team and develops the CPA direction.

HOW WILL THE REGULATORY LANDSCAPE IN 2025 SHAPE THE GAMING INDUSTRY

WHICH MARKETS DO YOU BELIEVE WILL RISE TO PROMINENCE IN THE INDUSTRY

HOW MUCH FURTHER CAN AI’S INFLUENCE BE TAKEN IN GAMING

WHAT INDUSTRY TRENDS WILL DEFINE 2025

THE INSIDERS

In every issue, GamblingInsider commissions guest columns and interviews with people at the heart of the gaming industry – to discover more about the challenges its leaders, pioneers and innovators face. These contributors form The Insiders

Innovating no matter the barriers

Aardvark Technologies Commercial Director Arijus Denisovas breaks down the recipie for effective partnerships, adapting to different market needs and the trend of crash games in retail casinos

Aardvark has a wide range of partners. What makes a good partner?

At Aardvark Technologies, our passion for technology and innovation drives us to provide seamless, high-quality services to our clients. A good partner shares this commitment to progress and creativity while maintaining a strong focus on delivering exceptional client and player experiences.

We value partners who are forward-thinking, adaptable and collaborative - always ready to grow and evolve alongside us. A great partner brings expertise, understands diverse markets and aligns with our shared vision of creating outstanding solutions.

Effective collaboration is rooted in trust, transparency and open communication. These elements ensure alignment, foster innovation and help us tackle challenges together while unlocking new opportunities for success.

Ultimately, the best partners are those who embrace change, share our enthusiasm for breaking boundaries and are dedicated to delivering exceptional results. Together, we redefine possibilities, driving growth and shaping extraordinary experiences for our clients and their audiences.

Are there any other markets that have gained traction this year, and do you think that growth is set to continue into the New Year?

South Africa is rapidly becoming one of the most dynamic markets in the gaming industry, blending immense opportunities with a rich cultural backdrop. South Africa’s infrastructure, particularly in mobile networks, is still developing. However, recent advancements are beginning to unlock access for tech-savvy consumers, signaling a growing potential for digital engagement.

Aardvark Technologies has spent years honing its expertise in this market. By understanding the unique preferences of South African players - from their appreciation for vibrant visuals to the demand for localised and accessible gameplay - we’ve partnered with clients to deliver tailored gaming solutions.

Looking ahead to 2025, we anticipate sustained growth in South Africa, with more players entering the gaming space and contributing to a thriving market. While Africa as a whole remains a key focus, South Africa’s combination of innovation and opportunity makes it a standout destination.

Speaking of the New Year, are there any technologies or trends you think are going to define the gaming market in 2025?

One of the most exciting trends we’re seeing for 2025 is the rise of crash games in retail environments. These games, which have become hugely popular online, are now finding their way into physical gaming spaces. Aardvark is leading this shift with Sky Pilot, a crash game designed specifically for retail.

Sky Pilot offers progressive jackpots, a 100,000x max bet multiplier and a 2x multiplier feature. Bringing crash games into retail means players can enjoy the excitement of these fastpaced games in a social, land-based setting.

Beyond crash games, blockchain technology will continue to transform the gaming market. It

offers players greater transparency and fairness while enabling the creation of digital assets they can truly own. Artificial intelligence is also set to grow, helping create personalised gaming experiences and smarter systems for operators.

What would you say was Aardvark’s biggest learning experience in 2024, and how do you intend to act on that in 2025?

2024 reinforced how vital technology is in markets where infrastructure challenges still exist. As Aardvark is rapidly expanding its footprint across Africa, we recognised that offering a high-quality gaming experience goes beyond just having a great product - it means creating tailored solutions that overcome infrastructure hurdles while maintaining the same level of service as in more developed jurisdictions.

For example, in markets where mobile connectivity and internet speeds are still developing, we’ve adapted our games and products to be lightweight or innovative, ensuring they deliver smooth, engaging experiences even with lower bandwidth.

We’ve learnt that technology must be adaptable. In markets with growing mobile networks, like South Africa, we need to provide innovative solutions that not only meet the current infrastructure but also anticipate future needs. A key lesson from 2024 is that it’s not enough to simply offer a product that works - it has to work exceptionally well, even in the most challenging environments.

Looking ahead to 2025, we’ll continue to focus on creating products that are optimised for both current and future tech landscapes. This means investing even more in understanding the nuances of regional infrastructure challenges and working closely with local partners to develop solutions that help us lead in innovation, no matter where we are. At Aardvark, we’re committed to ensuring our players enjoy the best possible experience, regardless of the technological barriers they may face.

A post-election landscape

Rickard Vikström , CEO & Founder of Internet Vikings, breaks down his experiences and insights into the US region and beyond

You spoke in Gaming America earlier this year about how the majority of your revenue comes from the US. How has the US changed for you this year, and how have you kept up with those changes?

The US is maturing, but it’s doing so in a fragmented way. In each state, the pace of change varies widely. What has really stood out this year is the increased emphasis on disaster recovery, because the technical maturity of the market has improved significantly. Over the years, I’ve had conversations with companies operating multi-million-dollar businesses out of a single rack in a single location. While that might have been seen as sufficient in the past, it’s becoming clear that such setups are not sustainable. Especially considering recent natural disasters like those in North Carolina and Florida. From a business perspective, the push toward better infrastructure has been interesting. Companies are prioritising reliability more than ever, particularly with the growth of in-play betting and live events. To keep up, Internet Vikings had to stay nimble, ensuring we adapt to state-specific demands while also addressing larger trends like scalability and data security.

What do you expect in the US in 2025?

There is a growing acceptance of iGaming and online sports betting in the US market. Take a look at Missouri, for example. As the latest state to accept online sports betting, I believe others will follow suit. As of now, there are only seven states that have legalised iGaming in the US, while mobile sports betting is legal in 30 states. We are anticipating that other states will open up to regulate licensed iGaming and follow the success of other states.

Since entering the US market, what would you say has been the biggest lesson you have learned?

A one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t work here. You need to take the time to listen and adapt to what each state requires from a product market fit and regulatory perspective.The most important thing is to start. It’s tempting to aim big and try to launch across multiple states at once, but the reality is you can’t expedite your entry into this market. It’s better to begin somewhere – ideally in a smaller state where you can refine your approach –and grow from there.Finally, relationships matter. The market relies heavily on trust, whether with regulators, partners or clients. Building those relationships takes time, but it’s essential for longterm success.

From your experience since 2020 to now, how do in-state cloud-based solutions benefit operators and suppliers in the US market?

One key benefit is the introduction of pay-as-you-go bursting, which allows businesses to scale resources during peak periods without over-investing in infrastructure. The in-state cloud provides scalability, reliability and security while reducing time to market – an important consideration for the post-election 2025 environment.

Beyond the US, what markets are you keeping an eye on, and why? Latin America is definitely one to watch. Brazil, for example, is on the cusp of implementing more structured regulation and its potential player base is enormous. Europe remains an interesting region. Countries like Germany and the Netherlands are refining their licensing processes, and their focus on player protection is setting some important standards. Even in mature markets, there’s always room to learn.

"A one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t work here. You need to take the time to listen and adapt"

Around the world in 80 pays

Volt’s VP International Expansion Matt Jones, SVP LatAm André Faria and VP Strategy Sabrina Qian speak on open banking development in the UK and around the world, and what is next on the agenda for Volt

How has the open banking market grown and developed in 2024? What encouraged these changes?

2024 has been a standout year for open banking, but let’s broaden this to accountto-account payments more generally. In the UK, we crossed a huge milestone with 20 million open banking payments processed in a single month, driven by an increasing number of high-profile merchants adding Pay by Bank.

In the EU, the Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) entered into force, mandating SEPA Instant for all PSPs with a clear deadline. This removes some of the current challenges with open-banking payments in the EU, with speed of payment varying bank by bank. Looking around the world, increased competition between FedNow and RTP is driving record numbers of instant payments in the US. In South-East Asia initiatives linking UPI and PromptPay in Thailand are driving crossborder payment adoption. In addition, UPI is rolling out its infrastructure to Peru and

Namibia, with several other countries likely to follow.

Brazil is shaping up to be one of the biggest markets for the gaming market in 2025. It is also a market that relies heavily on a national online payment method, PIX. What do operators and suppliers entering this market need to know to navigate their use of PIX successfully?

PIX is one of the standout A2A methods globally. In the four years since launch, its usage has grown exponentially; it’s now a dominant payment method in the market. Adoption of PIX isn’t slowing down, either; 5.8 billion PIX payments were made in October 2024 (+ 43% vs. October 2023).

Seamless, instant and cost-effective payins and payouts have made PIX the perfect option for industries such as gaming. However, expansion to Brazil does have its challenges for international businesses. Operational setup, international money transfer requirements and a constantly evolving regulatory environment can make it a complex project for operators looking to launch in market.Volt does much of the heavy lifting for operators because we act as a merchant of record, meaning they don’t need a local entity accept PIX payments. We handle the endto-end payment flow, including international transfer.

countries. We are also looking to serve a wider range of sectors including crypto and gaming, making instant payments as accessible as possible for businesses with global needs.

What was the biggest lesson you learnt in 2024 and how do you intend to apply that at Volt in 2025? As Volt has grown over the past few years, who we serve and our product offering has changed rapidly. We have expanded from solely payment initiation into cash management (driven by our EMI and PI licences) and widened our coverage across three regions: The UK/EU, Brazil and Australia. This has enabled us to attract enterprise businesses such as Farfetch, while also adding complexity to our solution – better enabling us to serve Tier 1 businesses and their own requirements. Throughout 2024 we have had a shift in the business to support these changes, and so in 2025 we can really leverage this effort to deliver for our partners across the globe.

What does Volt intend to bring to the open-banking market in 2025? We will continue our efforts to bring real-time payments everywhere through deepening the breadth of our product offering, and widening our geographical reach and coverage. We are introducing Volt Accounts across the UK and Europe, powered by our EMI licence, rolling out more ways to pay (whether it’s recurring payments, other local methods of instant payments and instant payouts) and more currencies in more

Charting new growth opportunities

Gambling Insider speaks with Amelco Head of Business Development Brandon Walker, with a particular focus on sports betting within the US, the potential of new states legalising online casino, as well as what's on the horizon for Brazil in 2025

You work with several US brands, including Fanatics and Hard Rock. Considering how saturated that market is, what have you found is the key to standing out?

The first factor that helps us stand out is the focus on UI and UX. User journey and ease of use is extremely important, not just in the betting world but in other digitalfacing industries too. Bettors don’t want a streamlined experience; they expect it; it is a necessity.

As a B2B gambling supplier, we prioritise delivering a platform via both web and apps that allow players to easily register, deposit, wager and withdraw winnings with ease. As we’ve recently seen in the Eilers & Krejcik Gaming app rankings, both Fanatics and Hard Rock have been ranked both second and third in multiple categories – up against the likes of DraftKings, FanDuel and bet365 –so we’re definitely onto a winner!

As more operators flood the US market, it’s also important that operators find new and innovative ways to drive player engagement and retention. One strategy that has grown in popularity has been offering unique promotions and bonuses, where regulations allow.

The US market has seen many smaller operators leave while tier-one operators hold the majority market share. How do you think the market will change next year? It depends on the state and the local regulations. If you look at states where the regulator has issued multiple licences – for example, Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee – I think you’re going to see the big-name operators continue to dominate the market.

But in states such as Arkansas, which is unique in the fact that there are only three licence holders, the landscape is very different. Each of the licensed operators are homegrown, local brands. Things are

different in that you don’t have any of the ‘big five’ operators there. Our partner, BetSaracen, which is owned by the Quapaw Nation, is doing great things in Arkansas. There are also plenty more developments taking place in the tribal space. States such as Oklahoma and California – who are yet to regulate commercial gambling – both have a heavy tribal presence. If they decide to introduce gambling regulations, it’s hard not to envision the likes of FanDuel and DraftKings dominating the space.

Going back to iGaming in the US, do you think more states will be pushed to regulate the vertical?

Aside from Rhode Island, it’s been nearly three years since a state legalised iGaming, so I think we’re well overdue a new addition to the roster. There’s certainly been a lot of talk around introducing iGaming to states which have already legalised online sports betting – it’s now just a case of who will be the first to make the jump.

Over the next 12 months or so, I think we’ll start to see at least one state legalise online casino. But, who do I think that is?

Unfortunately, I don’t have a crystal ball to share that information!

Onto 2025 – Brazil will become a major player in the regulated market. What opportunities do you think this market will afford you? Are you eyeing anywhere else in LatAm?

Brazil has been a hugely popular topic of conversation – and with the regulated market launching in January, it’s easy to see why. Amelco will certainly be looking at opportunities to expand into Brazil, although we are going to wait for the market to settle first, just as we did in the US in 2018 when PASPA was overturned.

At this point, regulations are still being finalised and I think competition is going

to be intense within the first few months. We want to see how the market operates first and understand how we can deliver the best possible products for operators here. This involves getting to grips with local regulations, player preferences, technological demands etc. We don’t want to rush into this market – we would rather take our time but do it right.

As for the wider LatAm market, we’re also keeping a close eye on Chile, Peru and other territories that have introduced regulated frameworks. At the moment, we’re just observing and will take stock again in a few months’ time. Looking at the wider world, we are live in the UK, US, Canada, South Africa – and we certainly plan to expand our footprint further across Europe and Africa. But for now, we will continue to build upon and nurture our existing partnerships and continue to deliver the best possible experiences that we can for our operators.

Empowering growth

Paysecure CCO and Co-Founder Viktoriia Degtiarova speaks to Gambling Insider about how the supplier is helping to streamline payment processes, its plans for 2025 and more

traffic without compromising on performance. We’ve rigorously tested our system with 5,000 transactions per second in a lab environment, delivering flawless performance.

Tell us about some recent developments at Paysecure?

Our Advanced Orchestration Engine empowers businesses to manage complex payment flows across multiple geographies. The platform has the flexibility to seamlessly optimise transaction routing, efficiency and fraud prevention. An example of this innovation is our recently introduced Alternative Payment Method (APM) routing, which streamlines payment processing and ensures smoother operations across diverse regions. The platform supports Global Payment Flows in Exotic Jurisdictions, as well as multicurrency transactions.

We’ve significantly upgraded our Cashier Platform to support a wide range of global and local payment methods, offering client-specific solutions, while we’ve overhauled our reporting system to deliver detailed, real-time payment insights. Businesses can track transactions, monitor performance and optimise their strategies with precision. Driven by client feedback, we’ve also introduced features that have been widely praised for improving efficiency and usability. Designed for low response times and high throughput, the platform utilises a flat database structure capable of processing up to 340,000 requests per second, with auto-scaling to seamlessly handle any additional demand.

We have a vision to process one billion transactions per day. This is why our key focus is ensuring Paysecure can handle large volumes of

Paysecure has been registered in the UK for about a year and a half now. How big of a step was this for the company?

Establishing a formal presence in one of the world’s leading financial hubs positioned us to better serve a broader range of financial institutions, partners and clients across multiple jurisdictions. As we constantly refine our product offerings, the UK provided us with a solid foundation to scale our infrastructure and expand further into the European market but also into new regions. From a regulatory perspective, the UK’s stringent compliance requirements ensured our platform meets the highest standards of security and operational integrity. This has allowed us to strengthen our reputation and credibility with clients, reinforcing our commitment to providing a trustworthy platform.

How does Paysecure help companies achieve high acceptance rates, while also helping prevent exposure to fraud?

Our platform is designed to maximise transaction approval rates by dynamically identifying the optimal gateways or acquirers for each transaction and intelligently routing payments to the most efficient processors. This precision-driven approach reduces the risk of declines by leveraging over 100 parameters, including payment method, region, BIN number and more. Through our APMs routing, we offer local and regional payment options, so businesses can meet the preferences of their customers, further improving approval rates and reducing transaction friction.

What do you believe will be the big trends in payments over the coming months?

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will play an even more significant role in the payments ecosystem, particularly in fraud prevention, payment routing and customer service. AI-driven

systems will become smarter at detecting and preventing real-time fraud by analysing vast datasets to uncover patterns invisible to human analysts. AI and ML will optimise payment routing, ensuring that transactions are processed through the most efficient and reliable channels, improving approval rates and reducing declines.

What are Paysecure’s aims for 2025?

Our ambitious vision for 2025 centres around expanding our global footprint, enhancing our technology and providing even more value to our clients through innovative payment solutions. We aim to be a leading orchestration payment platform and cashier in iGaming, being one API to the world, covering regions with emerging economies where digital payment adoption is accelerating – like Latin America and Africa and deepen our presence in Europe and North America, building on our UK registration and regulatory compliance to offer more localised and tailored solutions.

We will continue to invest in nextgeneration technologies and integrate more advanced AI-driven analytics and machine learning capabilities into our platform. The goal is to further improve payment routing, optimise transactions, prevent fraud and offer more personalised, data-driven services. Our enhanced reporting and business intelligence tools will empower merchants with real-time transaction insights and help them make more informed decisions. As global payment preferences continue to evolve, we plan to integrate a wider variety of local Alternative Payment Methods, from cryptocurrencies to QR code payments and mobile wallets or virtual IBANs.

This flexibility across all regions will allow our clients to better serve their customers, no matter where they are or how they prefer to pay.As part of our growth strategy, Paysecure will continue to form strategic partnerships with financial institutions, fintech companies and other payments players. We are open to strategic acquisitions and partnerships that could accelerate our ability to innovate, and expand our product offerings, further enhancing our competitive edge in the market.

Reshaping the industry

Novomatic AG VP Global Sales & Product Management Thomas Schmalzer speaks on the growing need for omnichannel solutions among iGaming and land-based operators

Omnichannel has been a big talking point across the industry this year. Why do you think this trend is rising?  The growing demand for omnichannel solutions is reshaping the industry across all segments. Official statistics for the global gaming industry project consistent double-digit growth every two years, largely driven by the iGaming sector. These challenging times, coupled with intense competition, require gaming companies to rethink their strategies to enhance the endcustomer journey by adding multichannel access to products and services. First, the rapid expansion of the interactive segment is driving changes in customer behaviour and shifting player preferences. Second, demographic changes are influencing market dynamics. Third, there is a significant difference in how the two sectors acquire and retain customers. Competition is stronger than ever, as digital platforms empower consumers with real-time information about gaming products and services. Customers face low barriers to entering, browsing and switching between service providers, gravitating toward those that offer more perceived value.

In response, land-based operations strive to invest in new gaming equipment, systems, indoor and outdoor attractions, gamification and other added value services including loyalty programs. These efforts incentivise customers to stay engaged and repeatedly visit their venues. Moreover, the popularity and success of walk-in venues largely depend on the trust in the brand, which is built and maintained through memorable social experiences created by personnel.

By contrast, iGaming service providers and licensed operators establish brand loyalty through the reliability of their platforms, the diversity of their game offerings and enticing bonuses, welcome offers, tailored perks and interactive experiences. However, despite the marketing magic, virtual gaming involvement still cannot replace the immersion of a real casino environment and the social aspect of sharing emotions with others. As a consequence, businesses must adopt omnichannel solutions.

When it comes to opening up to omnichannel gaming, what are some of the biggest factors?

First and foremost, the regulatory framework, which defines the legitimacy of transactions,

customer data protection and the technical standards behind the solution’s architecture. In today’s fast-paced world, technology often advances faster than legislation, creating gaps that operators, manufacturers and regulatory bodies must work together to bridge.

Future-proof omnichannel platforms should feature secure and transparent transactions, as well as data monitoring and analytics enabling operators to create personalised marketing campaigns tailored to customer profiles, behavioural patterns and preferences. The foundation of these real-time, customer-centric features lies in sophisticated casino management systems. The modern CMS employs smart intelligence algorithms and proven CRM functionalities, tailored to navigate direct marketing activities related to the classic table games, slot machines, electronic betting terminals and electronic table games. Hence, know-how in the land-based segment is a key factor for conceptualising an omnichannel solution and will serve as the business’s backbone, while the interactive interface and layers facilitating multiple gaming transactions will deliver added value to enhance the customer journey across all channels.

What other big market trends did you notice this year?

When visiting casino properties around the globe, it is evident that gaming operators are redefining their casino floors, moving away from traditional layouts. Instead of the familiar rows of similar game types – such as slot machines, electronic table games and classic live tables – there is a growing trend toward creating mixed-game zones. This shift is accompanied by an emphasis on larger, more interactive slot machine displays as well as enhanced comfort.

A prime example of this evolution is the modernisation of classic Privé or VIP areas in land-based venues. These spaces now integrate cutting-edge display technology, ergonomic seating for maximum comfort and exclusive privacy, all while offering a regal experience that aligns with players’ adrenaline-fueled expectations. Our V.I.P. X series, inclusive of V.I.P. X Galaxy 2.65, V.I.P. X Royal 1.85, V.I.P. X Dream 3.43 and V.I.P. X Lounge 2.32 gaming machines, resembles the aspiration for exceptional experience that elevate the gaming adrenaline and performance power.

Another notable trend shaping both gaming performance and player preferences and driving changes in casino layouts – is the rise of linked progressive slot machine islands. These setups feature a diverse selection of thrilling game titles connected to a shared, themed progressive jackpot all wrapped into a state-of-the-art sign package.

What do you think will be the biggest game-changer for the market in 2025?  I believe we will see a number of things in the upcoming year. With regards to ongoing digitalisation, a further integration of online and land-based offerings via single-wallet and transaction clearing solutions, or additional payment solutions also for the terrestrial players. More immersive gaming content and new business models of land-based and online offerings may grow. Where live game streaming is already a large segment for online operators, other terrestrial products may be added. Integrated marketing initiatives and games being available via all channels will become key. Feature-enriched gaming content and provision of additional player comfort in land-based venues will round up such omnichannel strategies. What remains to be seen will be the impact of AI on regulatory frameworks, business models, development speed and product novelties in our industry. But what is certain is that those trends will be with us not only in 2025 but for years to come.

Always asking: “What’s next?”

MiFinity CEO Paul Kavanagh speaks with Gambling Insider on the payments supplier's latest developments, innovations in the payment processing market and lessons learnt as a CEO in 2024

Tell me about MiFinity iFrame 2.0; what is different about this 2.0 version?

The MiFinity iFrame 2.0 represents a significant leap forward for us and our iGaming partners. This version has been reimagined to improve both the player journey and transaction success rates, driving better results for operators. What’s new? First, we’ve embedded KYC verification directly into the iFrame. Players can now verify their identity without ever leaving the site, streamlining the registration and deposit process while reducing friction. On top of that, we’ve upgraded the UI/UX to make the iFrame more intuitive, accessible and deviceagnostic. Whether players are on mobile or desktop, they can expect a seamless, frictionless experience.For operators, this means higher payment success rates, fewer drop-offs and a better overall player experience. It’s the kind of innovation that directly impacts engagement and retention – two pillars of success in the iGaming space.

You recently brought on Linus McDonnell as your Chief Innovation

Officer. When it comes to bringing new members into your C-suite or indeed, any exec role, what are the most crucial factors to consider?

When we bring someone into our C-suite or any leadership role, it’s about more than just their skills and experience. We’re looking for individuals who share our vision and values – people who can bring their expertise and ideas to the table while contributing to the culture we’ve built.

With Linus, the alignment was clear from the start. His extensive experience in cloud technologies, system architecture and digital transformation complements our strategic goals perfectly. But what truly stood out was his passion for AI and emerging technologies, which aligns with where we’re heading as a company.

We see Linus as not just a leader but an enabler – someone who will inspire and drive innovation across our teams, ensuring that MiFinity continues to set the standard in fintech and payment solutions. It’s about finding leaders who not only enhance the business strategically but also energise and uplift people around them.

Speaking of innovation, what would you say were some of the biggest to impact the payment processing arena in 2024?

One of the standout areas has been the integration of AI and machine learning (ML). These technologies are transforming fraud prevention, streamlining KYC processes and optimising payment routing to improve approval rates – all in real time. We’ve also seen open banking continue to gain momentum, creating more seamless and secure ways for consumers to fund accounts directly from their bank. This ties into the rise of real-time payments, which are becoming the new standard across the globe.

Additionally, biometric authentication has become more mainstream, improving security while making payments more frictionless for users. Finally, crypto adoption is growing, not

just as an asset but as a viable payment method, with players increasingly looking for crypto options when gaming online.

Are there any technologies or trends you feel the industry should be keeping an eye on in 2025 and why?

Looking ahead, one trend I believe we should all be watching closely is the development of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Several countries are already piloting or exploring the concept of digital currencies issued directly by central banks.

If adopted widely, CBDCs could revolutionise how we think about payments by providing a government-backed, digital-first alternative to traditional fiat currencies. This could lower costs, increase security and offer a more inclusive financial system. For the iGaming industry, CBDCs could simplify cross-border transactions, reduce reliance on intermediaries and ensure compliance with regional regulations. Whether we will see CBDCs in 2025, I can’t say.

As CEO, what was the biggest lesson you learned in 2024?

2024 has been a year of growth for us at MiFinity. If there’s one lesson that stands out for me, it’s the importance of staying adaptable in a rapidly changing environment. Whether it’s evolving regulations, new technologies or changing player expectations, being able to pivot quickly and strategically is critical to success.

For example, we saw how embedding KYC within the MiFinity iFrame not only improved the customer experience but also helped operators reduce drop-off rates. That was a direct result of listening to our partners, analysing the data and taking decisive action. Ultimately, the lesson for me is that you can never stop listening and learning – whether from your team, your partners or the industry as a whole. Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s about collaboration, staying curious and always asking: “What’s next?”

Changing the game

DS Virtual Gaming Head of Business Development, Araksi Sargsyan , discusses how shifts in technological advancements and consumer trust have set up virtual gaming for its biggest year yet in 2025

The last time you spoke with Gambling Insider, you talked about the statistics behind your games. But how are those statistics calculated and how do you ensure all the maths runs smoothly?

In virtual gaming, statistics ensure fairness, randomness and accuracy in outcomes. These are calculated using advanced mathematical models and algorithms that replicate real-world scenarios, providing a consistent gaming experience. We use statistical models that simulate real-world data, including historical performance metrics, player statistics and actual sports data. For example, in virtual horseracing, data on speed, stamina and endurance influences the outcomes, making them both valid and realistic.

A key technology is the Random Number Generator (RNG), which ensures outcomes –such as race results or spins – are completely random and unpredictable, mimicking real-life randomness. The RNG generates numbers that determine outcomes, from race winners to virtual goals.

To ensure integrity, DS Virtual Gaming implements strict quality control and regular audits of the RNG and models. We collaborate with independent third-party auditors to maintain fairness, compliance with industry standards, and transparency, ensuring trust in the system and the gaming experience.

Have there been any technological innovations that have widely benefitted the virtual sports betting market this year?

Several technological innovations have significantly benefitted in 2024. One key advancement is the use of sophisticated data analytics, providing real-time insights and statistical models that drive virtual sports outcomes. This allows for more accurate simulations and dynamic odds adjustments, ensuring fair betting environments.

Enhanced data processing speeds also enable faster updates and smoother gameplay, making the experience more engaging.

Improvements in RNG technology have

also increased fairness and randomness in virtual sports events. Many platforms have upgraded their RNG systems, producing more complex and unpredictable outcomes, boosting the authenticity of virtual events and player confidence in results.

The growth of mobile betting platforms has been further supported by advancements in app development and optimisation. Players can now place bets on virtual sports via mobile devices, making the experience more accessible. DS Virtual Gaming has enabled players to bet directly from mobile devices in betting shops, offering greater control and data analysis before placing bets.

How do you think perceptions of virtual sports betting have changed this year and why?

In 2024, perceptions of virtual sports betting have shifted considerably, with increased interest and trust from both players and regulators. This change is driven by technological advancements and the growing recognition of virtual sports as a legitimate segment within the gambling industry. A key milestone is Colombia’s formal acknowledgment of virtual sports as a separate category for online operations and betting shops, reflecting broader regulatory acceptance.

Are there any markets you expect to be particularly lucrative for virtual sports betting in 2025?

I believe virtual sports will see a 20-40% growth in markets where players are already familiar with the segment. However, to achieve these results, operators must ensure they deliver the highest quality experience to their players. Personally, I think Brazil will be one of the most exciting markets for 2025. It’s a huge, untapped market with a growing interest in sports betting, but the infrastructure for virtual games is still underdeveloped. While building this from the ground up presents a new challenge, I’m confident that the efforts will be rewarded as the demand for virtual sports grows in the region.

What are your goals for DS Virtual Gaming going into the New Year?

2025 is a significant year for DS Virtual Gaming as we celebrate our 20th anniversary. Reaching this milestone is a huge accomplishment, especially in such a competitive and rapidly evolving industry. Looking ahead, we have several ambitious goals for the upcoming year. First, we plan to launch new games that will offer even higher definition than ever before. Our focus will continue to be on pushing the boundaries of technology, delivering a more immersive and engaging experience for players. We also aim to achieve new records with our current business partners, solidifying our position in the markets and enhancing the value we bring to our collaborations. In addition to these goals, we are focused on expanding our reach into more markets. While this year has been a successful one for us, we are excited about what 2025 holds.

WHAT’S NEW ON THE MARKET?

ZITRO’S LEGENDARY SWORD

Zitro introduces Legendary Sword: A quest for glory and honour Valour and victory await in Zitro’s latest slot game, Legendary Sword. This captivating 3x5 multigame features a 4-level jackpot link, inviting players to step into the roles of valiant knights on a quest for glory. Within this fantastical realm, players can harness the power of “Honour,” which multiplies rewards, while “Glory” grants extra lives. The mystical “Magic Sword” doubles any Link symbol that lands on the boosted column. Players can activate – by mystery – one or a combination of these features, discovering up to seven different Bonus Links.

Legendary Sword enhances the gameplay

NOVOMATIC’S V.I.P X CABINET

The V.I.P X cabinet series heads to ICE Barcelona 2025 The International Casino Exhibition (ICE) is an emblematic event that has been measuring the pulse of the gaming industry for many years and consistently sets the standard for business development across all segments.

Novomatic will be taking the spotlight at ICE 2025 in Barcelona with a brand new, sparkling stand design, an impressive product range and some exclusive surprises. Visitors can look forward to innovative solutions for slot games, progressives, ETGs, VGTs, iGaming and groundbreaking casino management systems.

Excitement is building for Barcelona’s premier gaming event, which is scheduled to take place from January 20–22 at the Fira Barcelona Gran Via. And Novomatic is gearing up to make a showstopping appearance with a dedicated product range tailored to precisely meet customer needs – and, of course, an exceptional experience for visitors.

A major attraction at the Novomatic booth #3K20-80 will be the recently introduced V.I.P.

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experience with its innovative 3-level Link Evolution, introducing unique twists to the action. As players embark on their adventure, they will encounter a bonus round featuring 6x5 reels, where the top three rows gradually unlock with 8, 14, or 30 link symbols, significantly enhancing the potential for big wins. With just 15 link symbols, players can trigger a jackpot wheel and spin it to win the Mega or, even better, the Grand Mega jackpots. A single symbol can also secure the Minor or Mini jackpots during the bonus link.

With its blend of engaging game mechanics and visually stunning graphics, Legendary Sword promises that every spin will be legendary experience. Prepare to wield Excalibur and achieve Glory with Honour!

X™ cabinet series, which is aimed at discerning players as well as operators seeking to offer top-tier gaming entertainment. The striking V.I.P. X Royal™ 1.85, the V.I.P. X Dream™ 3.43 and the V.I.P. X Lounge™ 2.32 combine luxury with exquisite V.I.P. comfort, extra high and wide gaming screens, and a sound system built into a comfortable armchair for an immersive experience. Visitors can also look forward to the launch of a brilliant new cabinet –stay tuned for sparkling times ahead!

The software spotlight of this year’s ICE appearance will shine on a range of brand-new Linked Progressives that offer innovative elements to the Novomatic game portfolio. Recent player highlights such as Piggy Prizes – Wand of Riches will attract the attention of visitors with their extraordinary gameplay and exciting mathematics.

INTERBLOCK: BINGO

Introducing Bingo – A standout in Interblock’s new AMUSE category Interblock is transforming the casino

landscape with the introduction of AMUSE, a groundbreaking new category on the casino floor. Traditionally, casino floors have been divided into three main sections: slots, table games, and electronic table games (ETGs), the latter of which Interblock helped establish as a standalone segment.

Now, with AMUSE, Interblock is pioneering a fourth category dedicated to amusement-style games that integrate RNG-based wagering. Designed to attract a broader range of players, this category brings a new dimension to casino entertainment, generating incremental revenue and offering a fresh, interactive experience for guests. Within this category, Interblock’s AMUSE product line delivers innovative games that blend fun with the thrill of wagering. One of the most exciting offerings

AARDVARK TECHNOLOGIES: SKY PILOT

Aardvark breaks the mould with its latest crash game offering Aardvark Technologies is set to disrupt the global gaming market with the launch of its latest innovation, the crash game Sky Pilot. This product introduces a fresh and engaging gaming experience to retail markets worldwide and will soon be available online via Aardvark’s single integration. What sets Sky Pilot apart is its dynamic jackpot system, which accumulates continuously until a player claims it. The game features both local and global jackpots, catering to a wide audience by offering frequent smaller payouts alongside the potential for rare, massive wins. This unique structure ensures sustained player engagement and anticipation of a big win – positioning Sky Pilot as a standout in the crash game market. With a maximum bet multiplier of up to 100,000x, Sky Pilot offers extraordinary winning potential. A standout innovation is the exclusive 2x Multiplier feature, which randomly doubles winnings, adding another layer of excitement. Players could potentially multiply even small bets into significant rewards, creating thrilling opportunities with every wager.

The game’s vibrant cartoon-style graphics are designed for global appeal, and Aardvark has ensured that visual elements can be tailored to suit different markets, including customisable backgrounds and aircraft designs

to align with client branding. Additionally, Sky Pilot supports up to 100 pre-set bets, providing a seamless and engaging experience for players.

As it launches in retail gaming outlets worldwide and expands into the online space

in this lineup is Bingo, a reimagined take on the classic game that appeals to players of all ages. Interblock’s Bingo features an automatic generator, allowing for seamless, manual-free gameplay suitable for both solo and group play. Players choose from six bingo cards, placing bets on any or all of them, with the option to swap out individual cards for a more customised experience. As bets are placed, the bingo balls are drawn into a visually captivating sphere, where they roll down in full view of players. This entire action sequence is streamed in real-time on each player’s screen, ensuring that each player feels connected to the action.

The stunning visuals and interactive design of Interblock’s Bingo elevate the traditional game into a dynamic, immersive experience that’s as engaging to watch as it is to play. The unique sphere formfactor captivates players, while customisable gameplay options offer players an immersive experience. Debuting at G2E 2024, Bingo’s fresh, modern take resonated strongly with attendees across age groups and experience levels, who praised its engaging gameplay for its broad appeal and dynamic format.

via single integration, Sky Pilot is poised to make a lasting impact with its jackpot innovation, high payout potential, and customisable design features. Aardvark Technologies continues to set new benchmarks in the gaming industry with this exciting addition to its portfolio.

EGT’S BELL LINK 2

The next-level jackpot experience

The Bulgarian manufacturer and supplier of gaming equipment with leading positions on a global level, Euro Games Technology (EGT), is constantly expanding its portfolio with innovative products with high potential. Among the company’s latest solutions, which have reaped great success, is the multigame Bell Link 2 – the new addition to the absolute jackpot bestseller Bell Link.

The mix made its debut at the beginning of the year and immediately caught the attention of industry professionals. They were impressed by its 10 titles, featuring a proven formula of original design, high winning chances and lots of attractive bonuses. Players have the opportunity to try their luck with games like 40 Burning Hot and 40 Super Hot, offering fruit themes, still widely preferred by many fans of slot entertainment, or embark on adventure in ancient or mythical worlds, such as in Book of Realm or Egypt Sky, where they can compete against divine creatures and win big while having fun.

The Bell Link jackpot itself is extremely popular in many countries around the world. It features 4 levels: 2 progressive – Grand and Major and 2 fixed – Minor and Mini, all triggered by different color bells. The jackpot system includes the Bell Link bonus game and the Reels Boost mode, which enriches players’ experience and grants many extras to the lucky ones. Additionally, the Grand and Major levels can be linked with the

FBM: XING FÚ FORTUNE MONEY TREES

FBM seeds wealth...

Prosperity, strength and fortune are the pillars of the Xing Fú Fortune Money Trees’ entertainment experience. The three money trees of this FBM slot activate a bonus mode where players can try up to seven gaming dynamics and conquer four jackpots.

Xing Fú Fortune Money Trees is a 243-ways slot game that takes players on an authentic Asian adventure. Its link bonus aggregates several layers of excitement and can be triggered whenever players get a prosperity, strength or fortune coin, automatically awarding three free spins.

Each one of the three coins has a unique power! Prosperity coins are blue and attribute a random prize for players to collect when they appear on the reels. Strength coins are red and multiply the values of all coins available on the reels before getting a numeric prize value. Fortune coins are green and have a collector effect, accumulating the value of all other coins when they appear on the reels.

But that is not all when it comes to this bonus’ winning potential! Players can also land a Jackpot Coin during the bonus rounds, granting a Mini, Minor, Major or

highest levels of Gods & Kings Link Jackpot, thus creating even greater opportunities for wealth. Bell Link 2 is already installed in casinos in Northern Cyprus and Germany,

where it has quickly won the hearts of local gaming audiences. More product deliveries are expected to be made in a number of markets very soon.

Grand jackpot. The Grand Jackpot is also achievable by filling all 15-reel positions during the bonus rounds.

The prosperity, strength and fortune trees can trigger the bonus individually or in combination, adding a surprise element that heightens player engagement and retention.

When combined, these trees can lead players to impressive wins.

Available for FBM’s Galaxy II and Auria casino cabinets, this slot ensures friendly integration on different casino floor layouts. Do not miss the opportunity! Hit the bonsais and grow your wealth with Xing Fú Fortune Money Trees!

FINAL WORD

The potential of the Brazilian market is clear to see, but how much do you think it will be able to compete with other global regions, even the US? The regulation of the Brazilian market will set a new benchmark for the global iGaming industry. The US was incredibly competitive when it first launched back in 2018 but now, six years on, we’re seeing industry-wide consolidation as the ‘big four’ amass greater levels of market share in North America.

I believe Brazil will offer a much more level playing field for brands, big or small, to make their mark and attract new players. We’ll see operators and suppliers push themselves in terms of creative branding, innovative marketing campaigns and engaging products, which will make it an incredibly exciting market to watch!

How can operators stand out in what will be a very congested market? With 110+ brands already applying for licences, competition will be tough. Delivering personalised and localised products will become a new battleground in Brazil. Players don’t just want an experience tailored to them; they now expect it. Partnering with a provider that knows the local market will beabsolutely critical if you want to stand out from the crowd.

Sports betting is of course a big talking point in Brazil, but how popular do you think other forms of online gambling will be in the region, such as casino-type games? Absolutely! Over the last few years, we’ve seen particular growth across live dealer games. Players appear to enjoy the face-toface, social nature of these types of games. I think operators that can offer innovative games across this vertical with local Brazilian dealers will stand to do very well.

Phyllyp Sedicias , WA.Technology Country Director for Brazil, discusses the country's reulated market, which is due to launch on 1 January

High-volatility games, such as slots and crash games, are also growing in popularity. There are a few reasons for this: players enjoy the fast-paced nature of these types of products, with the added benefit of both slots and crash games being very easy to understand. If operators can incorporate player-favourite themes into their casino products, then this is likely to have a positive impact on longterm engagement.

How important will it be for operators to embrace cross-selling in the Brazilian market?

It will be incredibly important! Cross-selling will be key to amassing a greater market share and ensuring you attract, engage and retain players. However, we need to consider the nature of this. Cross-selling is much more than just sending out a few additional communications about new products. You first need to understand players’ behaviours and preferences before trying to encourage them to try other verticals – without that understanding, you risk disenfranchising that bettor.

Operators will need to use in-depth data analytics to better understand the products that the individual player enjoys while also considering responsible gambling responsibilities. There is very little point in promoting slot products to a player who has only ever bet on a specific Brazilian football team, for example. Once you have that in-depth understanding, you must create a unified UX that gives players access to products personalised to their individual tastes. Some brands have done this really well, with ‘recommended’ products that connect with their base preferences. I think we’ll see more gambling brands embrace this level of personalisation in the next few years.

How can companies comply with the regulations introduced in recent months related to areas such as the banning of betting bonuses and the restriction of betting ads?

Betting bonuses have traditionally been a key part of any marketing strategy. But with these now off the table, brands will need to branch out into new methods of building brand exposure, such as organic content, SEO, engaging marketing campaigns and exciting rewards programmes. Brands that can deliver new and innovative rewards will be able to attract plenty of new clients. Affiliate marketing, too, will be absolutely crucial. But it’s not just engagement that’s important; brands need to keep players coming back. Gamification can be an excellent tool for achieving this, whether it’s leaderboards, tournaments, or exciting new features.

What is next for online gambling in Brazil after its launch on 1 January?

Much of the conversation over the last few years has been centred around Brazil becoming the next powerhouse for gaming. And that still rings true. It has been a long journey towards regulation, but now that the launch date is approaching, I think it’s safe to say that we’re all excited to see how this market develops! As soon as the market launches on 1 January, Brazil will be the biggest regulated market in the world. Unlike the US, Brazil offers a federal framework; this will be a very exciting opportunity. Those fireworks on New Year’s Eve will mark an exciting new chapter for Brazilian gaming. We are reborn as a giant.

I firmly believe Brazil will be a hugely popular market for gambling operators looking to expand their international footprint. However, predicting who the big players will be or whether the regulatory framework will be adapted even further post-launch is much more challenging. We’ve certainly got an exciting 2025 ahead of us.