Notes from the floor
Honest, unfiltered thinking on iGaming - platform selection, CRM, compliance, African markets, offline-to-online, governance. From someone who's been in your chair.
Curaçao Always Sold Cheap Licences. It's Selling Something Else Now.
Curaçao always sold cheap licences. The Q1 2026 bulletin from the CGA says it is selling something else now. The legacy book is thirty-seven times larger than the new regime. The direction is set anyway.
Tribal Casinos, Lotteries, Horse Racing. All Opposing Prediction Markets. Notice What They Share.
Ten Tribal associations, state lottery operators, and horse racing tracks are all opposing prediction markets in US courts. The common factor: physical infrastructure that cannot be moved to a browser.
Brazil Licensed Sports Betting in 2024. Eighteen Months Later the President Is Considering Shutdown.
Brazil handed operators a licence in late 2024, collected the compliance investment, then floated a full shutdown. The compliance cost was not a market entry cost. It was a stranded asset.
Norway: A Different Theory of Problem Gambling
Norway published a four-year problem gambling action plan. No changes to legal access. No new betting limits. No advertising bans. That is a specific policy philosophy.
Prediction Market or Sportsbook?
Eilers & Krejcik say 69% of US prediction market volume originates in the states where sports betting is illegal. Two questions before anyone uses that number to argue anything.
UK RGD Doubles. The Tax Picks Winners.
April 1. The UK doubled its Remote Gaming Duty from 21% to 40%. Flutter's UK CEO said it on the record: 'We'll take share from those who can't absorb it.' Read that sentence again.
The Africa Tax Ceiling
South Africa proposed a 20% national online gambling tax. 62% of the country's digital gambling market is already offshore. Before the proposal.
Seven Markets, Seven Directions. The Balkan Gaming Federation.
Seven Balkan countries signed a Memorandum of Cooperation. The agenda: fight illegal gambling, align best practices. Each is also running its own regulatory experiment in a different direction.
If You Need Protecting to Compete, the Product Is the Problem.
Entain asked regulators for clearer direction in the black market fight. The framing is recognisable. It is also backwards. The black market didn't call a press conference. It just offered better odds.
The Channelization Paradox
Germany has 11 illegal operators for every licensed one. Channelization is a product design problem at the regulatory level - not a policing problem.
Nigeria Finally Has an Answer
The Central Gaming Bill is dead. Nigeria has clarity. The framework it left behind has 37 parts.
The Concession Trilogy
OPAP builds. Danske Spil optimizes. The third model extracts. Same structural advantage, three outcomes.
Turkey's War on Gambling Will Not Protect a Single Vulnerable Player
Count the tools of coercion. Count the tools of treatment. The ratio tells you everything about whose problem this is actually designed to solve.
Germany: 77% or 50%? The Number Nobody Disputes Is 17%.
Two numbers are circulating about Germany's online gambling market. The regulator says 77% channelization. The operators' association and the University of Leipzig say 50%. The black market grew 17% anyway.
Design Moves Channelization. Enforcement Moves Headlines.
There is one question underneath the Japan gambling headline. Are they designing a licensed market more convenient than the illegal alternative, or a licensing system that satisfies regulators while the market stays broken?
The Enforcement Export
Curacao tightened. Tobique opened. The enforcement apparatus is working. The deterrence architecture is not built.