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Cheltenham and Grand National 2025 start now

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The madness of Cheltenham and Grand National has been and gone. Congratulations on surviving; you’ve made it through and live to fight another day. So, what’s top of the agenda for today? Preparation for the 2025 edition’s of the Cheltenham Festival and the Grand National, of course!

Here are the six key planning and strategy points to consider in order to give yourself the best possible chance of success next spring.

The work begins now

Yes, Cheltenham 2025 is a long time away. But everything is fresh in your mind as of this moment. Many of the changes you may end up acting on could take a long time to execute, and there’s undoubtedly going to be countless foreseen and unforeseen priorities between now and the end of the year. Start now whilst 2024 performance is fresh in your mind and fresh within the wider business psyche. Keep the festival mindset running for as long as possible to maintain momentum and get flying out the stalls.

Involve all parts of the business

This is not just an exercise for the IT department. Every relevant stakeholder from around the business should be represented. What were customers saying to Customer Services? How did Trading cope when their bet tickers slowed down? What offers and promotions did Marketing take note of that they would like to offer next time? Bring in stakeholders from all business arms to create a holistic view of where the opportunities lie and what challenges need to be overcome.

Look at the data

Get hold of all of your performance metrics from every component of your systems and take the time to do a deep-dive analysis on those numbers. If you haven’t got all the metrics that you’d like to have to hand? Well, there’s your starting point for the list of ‘things to fix immediately’.

Be honest with yourselves

Getting business involvement, analysing all the data, and prompt planning is all well and good. But if you’re not going to be brutally honest with yourselves as an organisation, it may be all for nothing. Yes, it’s important to acknowledge everyone’s hard work and remember all the things that you did right. But you also have to be your own harshest critics about what didn’t go so well and what could be improved on. There’s really no point in doing all this if you’re not going to seriously challenge yourselves to do better.

Next year won’t be the same as this year

You’re going to be delivering a various new features and functionalities, as well as making many changes to your internal systems over the next twelve months. So the technical landscape that 2025’s Cheltenham Festival and Grand National inhabited will be very different to the one just gone. How will that fancy new bet builder widget in development hold up under the unique stresses of Grand National day? What will your new AI recommendations engine do when everyone’s betting on just one event? You don’t need to answer these questions right now, and it’s highly likely that you won’t be able to answer all of these questions now. But you need to bake in consideration of Cheltenham and Grand National to your non-functional requirements for every change you make in the coming months.

Get a high-level plan diarised

You need to start now but you can’t finish now. This is something you’re going to need to come back to periodically until those Cheltenham gates open. It’s a simple but powerful scheduling task: put the key staging posts in relevant team’s diaries now. You don’t want wake up in a cold sweat one morning in January realising that you’re two months out from the Greatest Show on Turf and haven’t made notable progress on the fixes required from this year’s festivals.

 

By: Graham Cassell, Partner at Circle Squared

The post Cheltenham and Grand National 2025 start now appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

Expanse Studios

Expanse Studios Launches Proprietary Jackpot and Tournament System

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Expanse Studios, a subsidiary of Meridian Holdings Inc., announced the deployment of proprietary jackpot and tournament mechanics across its portfolio, providing B2B operator partners with engagement tools designed to enhance player entertainment value.

The system introduces two jackpot formats—Happy Hour Jackpot and Mystery Jackpot—alongside four tournament competition variants. Operators can control prize structures, scheduling parameters and promotional configurations through platform interfaces.

Happy Hour Jackpot provides scheduled jackpot events aligned with operator promotional strategies, enabling coordinated marketing campaigns and player communication around jackpot opportunities.

Mystery Jackpot delivers multi-tier progressive prize mechanics integrated into gameplay, with operator-configurable prize values and event parameters that support diverse promotional objectives.

Tournament mechanics include four competition formats:

• Bonus Buy tournaments create competitive environments for players who choose to engage with bonus purchase features, with scoring designed to reward strategic gameplay decisions.

• Spin Count tournaments track player activity across gameplay sessions, offering multiple entry opportunities and achievement-based progression that accommodates different play styles.

• Combo tournaments combine multiple competition elements, enabling operators to design promotional events that appeal to diverse player preferences and gaming behaviours.

• Time-based tournaments operate within defined promotional windows, allowing players to participate according to their own schedules while competing for tournament prizes.

“Content providers increasingly compete on operational capabilities, not just game quality. This positions our portfolio as solutions-oriented infrastructure that helps operators execute diverse promotional strategies while maintaining control over player engagement parameters,” said Damjan Stamenkovic, CEO of Expanse Studios.

Tournament formats integrate with game interfaces through standardised promotional systems designed to enhance entertainment value while providing operators with promotional flexibility.

For Expanse Studios, the deployment strengthens competitive positioning in B2B partnerships where operators increasingly evaluate content providers based on promotional feature capabilities in addition to game performance metrics.

The post Expanse Studios Launches Proprietary Jackpot and Tournament System appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.

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Former German Air Force officer launches Sparky Space AI platform for iGaming teams

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Nils Ristau and Daniel Schmitz debut a work enablement platform aimed at day-to-day execution across product, retention and AI adoption.

Sparky Space, a new AI-powered work enablement platform founded by former German Air Force officer Nils Ristau and tech leader Daniel Schmitz, has launched and is now available globally for iGaming operators and suppliers.

The founders are positioning the product around execution support inside daily workflows as teams face tighter regulatory demands, faster product cycles and higher player expectations. The company cited industry research suggesting only 10-20% of learning is consistently applied in day-to-day work, creating a gap between training and on-the-job outcomes.

“In military operations, performance depends on clarity, structure, and disciplined execution in changing environments,” said Ristau. “The iGaming industry operates under similar pressure.

“Competitive advantage does not come from knowledge alone – it comes from how effectively teams apply it every day.”

Sparky Space said its platform supports areas including product development, player retention and AI adoption, with use cases spanning customer-centric experimentation, agile product and game development, decision-making and prioritisation, practical generative AI prompting, and cross-functional collaboration. The company said the tools are intended to help teams launch features, respond to regulatory change, and optimise marketing and support processes.

While initially focused on iGaming, Sparky Space said it has been built for broader use in other fast-moving, technology-driven industries.

Relevant data as follows:

The post Former German Air Force officer launches Sparky Space AI platform for iGaming teams appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.

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Belatra

Belatra marks 33 years with April anniversary campaign

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The slots supplier says its portfolio now exceeds 150 games and highlights recent LatAm expansion from its Buenos Aires base.

Belatra is marking its 33rd birthday with an anniversary campaign running throughout April, the iGaming slots developer said.

The company said it was founded in 1993 and has since transitioned from building gaming machines for land-based casinos to producing digital content. Belatra added that its portfolio has grown to more than 150 games.

Belatra also pointed to its strategic Latin American headquarters in Buenos Aires as a key base for regional partnerships and growth.

Misha Voinich, Head of Business Development at Belatra, said: “We’re only just getting started, but birthdays provide the perfect chance to reflect on our successes and the path that’s brought us here. From launching our innovative ‘multi-universe’ content strategy to our rapid expansion in Latin America, the successful launch of our first Crash game, and multiple high-profile industry award wins — we are always developing, creating, and evolving. 33 years of innovation, dedication, and gaming excellence — and the best is yet to come.”

Belatra did not provide additional detail on upcoming releases or the timing of any new product announcements beyond saying updates will land during April.

The post Belatra marks 33 years with April anniversary campaign appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.

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