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.
Entain paid £750m for STS Poland in June 2023.
Entain paid £750m for STS Poland in 2023. Three years later it is exploring selling Entain CEE back to EMMA Capital. The markets didn't change. The math did.
Your platform is licensed in Malta.
Your players sue you where they live.
The AI AML vendor gets the sale.
The PML holder gets the enforcement action.
Britain built a law to protect consumers from illegal content.
It protected illegal gambling operators from detection instead.
Austria's cooling-off debate is framed as player protection.
The people lobbying for it are Casinos Austria and Novomatic.
Advertising drives players to licensed platforms.
Banning it helps the platforms that already have them.
A 1 euro stake limit does not remove demand.
It removes the player willing to pay more.
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.
The CRM Gap Is a Sequencing Problem
Industry average Day-30 player retention in iGaming is 15-25%. Best-in-class sits at 30-40%. That gap is not a budget problem. Not a bonus problem. It is a sequencing problem.
AI Didn't Close the Compliance Gap. It Widened It From the Other Side.
Fraud teams iterate in days. The compliance function reviewing them operates on a quarterly or annual cycle. Running annual AML reviews against opponents who ship updates every week is not a compliance strategy. It is a lag report.
The Licensed Product Doesn't Win by Default
1xBet grew 87% year-on-year in Nigeria. Licensed operators are available. The players aren't confused. They're choosing.
You Don't Lose the Platform Decision When You Sign. You Lose It Six Weeks Before.
The vendor shows up with a polished deck. Impressive demo. A couple of operator names you recognize. The sales process is smooth because they have done it a thousand times and you have not.
The Infrastructure Gap
Every iGaming layoff story follows the same pattern. A decision made 12-18 months earlier when the numbers looked good.
Optimove Had a Page Explaining Why They're Better Than Smartico. Now They Own Smartico.
The best due diligence is competing against someone for three years. Smartico is a Kyborg partner. Optimove just bought them - and structured the deal so they keep running independently.
The First Operator Has Entered Finland. Who's Next?
Finland will have 40 to 50 licensed operators. The number who were actually ready will be smaller. We'll find out in 2028.
Kenya's 99
99 operators got licensed in Kenya. A license is the starting gun. Most are still tying their shoes.