Interviews
Exclusive Q&A with Michael Hudson, CEO and Co-Founder of GameBake
We have here with us an entrepreneur who started out quite early in gaming.
Michael Hudson, CEO and Co-Founder of GameBake, talks here about a host of topics:
- His beginnings as a game developer, his quest to develop a ‘fair, transparent, platform agnostic solution” that allows seamless publishing of games across platforms;
- His instinct of “running away from the light” and looking for “fringe areas”;
- What game developers can expect from GameBake;
- And about the gaming industry across the globe.
This is a bit longer than our usual interviews. But it contains nuanced perspectives expressed in straightforward language that the whole industry should look up and take note.
Over to the interview now!
Q. To start off, tell us about your career. Our readers love to hear top entrepreneurs talk about themselves, especially someone who became one at the age of 13!
A. 13 definitely feels like a lifetime ago now! But yes, I started my career in the games industry at 13 although my life as an entrepreneur goes back a little further than that. Since day one, I’ve always tried to make money – some way, somehow, from car washing to selling sweets at school (the demand was there, with only “healthy” options available at lunch times!)
Like they are for many of us, games have always been of keen interest to me, but unlike most, I always wanted to find out what makes a game and how I could make my own. I think it’s those kinds of questions that I’ve always asked that lead me towards teaching myself how to first build websites to host flash games, and then how to actually build the games themselves.
I first started exploring game development with a tool called GameMaker which is still around today, albeit much more developed than when I started with it all those years ago. Eventually I transitioned to working with Flash and building games for websites such as Newgrounds, which eventually led me to the sponsorship/licensing model and how I made my first $200 licensing my first flash game. My next flash game made over $15,000 in fees and that is when I started to take things a little more seriously because big numbers were involved. Considering I had turned down King (yes, the same King that went on to develop the hit we all know and love) I was clearly starting to move towards developing my hobby into a legit business, in a very natural way.
Since then it has been a rollercoaster with ups, downs and many loops, but it has led me to where I am today, with an amazing team (and now, friends), where we can be part of and help build the future of the gaming industry.
Q. How and why did you co-found GameBake? And what does the name signify?
A. GameBake was born out of a genuine business need. As developers, we’ve learned that it’s best to knuckle down and focus on a single product, a single goal that we can all work hard on to achieve great things.
As developers under our previous studio name, we worked on many projects, from hyper-casual games (before that became an industry term) right down to free-to-play titles. This experience was amazing but always positioned us in a similar place. Our publishers wanted the games to be playable everywhere but we only had so much manpower and hours in the day to actually achieve the lofty goals being asked of us. Integrated 3, 4 or 5 SDKs is annoying enough, but having to do that plus integrate the tech of every single platform plus find new services that work on and with these platforms plus making a new specific version for each platform (and all of that with no centralised system to easily and efficiently track everything), well, it wasn’t great, let’s leave it at that.
GameBake was a product of all of this. Our internal struggles and frustrations that led us to seeing a need in the market that, not only we wanted to solve, but many others wanted a solution for, and that is why we pivoted away from a development studio to go all-in with our KILN technology that allows us to open up the whole gaming market to developers globally, no matter how big or small you are.
What does the name signify? Well, we were named Yello at the very start so GameBake was part of our development as we pushed forwards into new markets and started using better technology. GameBake itself doesn’t have a specific meaning behind it, but for us, it describes what we do in one word, which is: baking games with the technology needed for everybody to access new amazing platforms and markets globally.
Q. How exactly does GameBake work? What kind of support can a gaming developer and publisher expect from your company?
A. How the tech works behind the scenes is probably a question more for our amazing CTO, so maybe you’ll find out in the next interview! But the concept is pretty simple really:-
• Upload your APK to GameBake, the very same APK used for uploading to Google Play;
• Check the boxes for the services your game uses; E.g. GameAnalytics, Tenjin, or Firebase, Adjust and so on;
• Check which stores you want to deploy to, e.g. Huawei AppGallery;
• Job done! Our tech (called KILN) takes care of the rest and spits out a compiled version of your game with all the required tech needed to run on the chosen platforms you are looking to distribute to.
Of course, store pages need to be built for each platform and IDs from other services need to be swapped for new IDs from those services, but for the new platforms you go live on. We are working closely with most of the big industry players to try and automate as much of this as possible and we are well on our way to achieving this.
As for what to expect from GameBake, well I would say a fair, transparent, platform agnostic solution that works! If you want to use our tech to make getting to new platforms easier, but want to make partnerships with the platforms yourself (i.e. setup features yourself and so on), that is fine, we are able to facilitate this and will do all we can to provide what you need with who you need. If what you are looking for is a more hands-on approach from us, one where we setup all your games features, run the UA and more then we can also work with you like that as well.
For GameBake, flexibility is key as we see the technology and ecosystem we are building becoming a vital piece of the development puzzle that will enable easy and commercially viable ways to distribute and scale globally.
Q. Changing the status quo of game distribution is not just unglamorous but kind of swimming against the tide too. What motivated you to choose that path?
A. That is a great way of putting it, although I may go a step further and say it’s more like climbing up a waterfall. I have always been interested in the more fringe areas of any industry, especially within gaming. That may be because I can’t help but look at the potential of anything, but it could also be somewhat from necessity – as when launching our own games we never had huge marketing budgets to compete with so I and the team have had to look into areas that were cost effective.
Over the years, what I have found is that everybody always runs towards the light and it’s the ones running away from the light that are called crazy, but if everybody is standing around that light then it very quickly gets blocked. In short – the people running towards the light will find it very hard to find their way towards it. While those running away, and normally that’s in a different direction to everyone else, will normally find themselves in a niche but lucrative area that they can dominate. It’s only once that light starts burning brighter that others pay attention.
This is how I see distribution right now. The bright light is iOS and Google Play on mobile, with many other options, but all faded into the darkness. And now, the bright lights are glowing and the industry is starting to take notice of what is possible outside of the norm. Now it won’t be instantaneous, but we are seeing growth everyday and the more we all work together to open up these platforms and these markets, the greater the industry as a whole – and the more opportunity there will be for everybody globally to enter and become successful.
Q. What are the options available for games developers outside the duopoly of Google Play store and Apple Appstore as publishing platforms? Importantly, what are the attractions for the developers to opt for such off the beaten path destinations?
A. For those developing native games for mobile (Apps, basically) I would suggest looking into the alternative android market. I personally don’t like the word “alternative” as it gives off a vibe of these platforms being “lesser” than Google Play and this frankly isn’t the case, but we need to describe these stores somehow. These stores are low hanging fruit for most people, as if you can compile an APK, which you can, then you can deploy on these stores and the 100s of millions of users that they have.
Now, I’m not saying that this is an easy feat, or an approach that will guarantee success, far from it, but why you wouldn’t secure your brand and IP, and take advantage of these amazing platforms, makes no sense. To me, It’s a no brainer! Often, what we hear from the market is not that developers don’t want to distribute to these stores, but that they’re faced by complexities in being able to achieve this and in making it commercially viable. GameBake is fixing the headache faced by developers by providing an easy route to deploy to these stores, whilst providing the means to be able to leverage the services required in today’s industry to monetise and scale games effectively.
Outside of the App Stores, there are still a wealth of opportunities. In this space, you need to think carefully about the technology you are building your game in, because web distribution generally means HTML5 games, and for many this just isn’t an option. The opportunities on the web are amazing if approached in the right way, but it takes some time to port and for many it just isn’t worth the time and effort commercially.
The same goes for social/instant gaming platforms, such as Facebook, WeChat, Snap and many more. Your games need to be in HTML5 but more importantly, you need to think about how you approach each of these platforms. You can’t just launch a game and expect it to scale, you need to launch it under the platforms features and leverage them to really take advantage of what makes each of these platforms special.
For me, the opportunities are huge but the barrier to entry is also just as big with tons of awkward tech to integrate, porting games being required and the biggest barrier is the lack of services to allow you to properly scale your game but again, that is what we are here for and we are building. If you want to deploy to stores, port to HTML5, explore new markets and leverage your current service partners to do all of this, you can do – with GameBake.
Q. How can games profit from social media platforms like Facebook Gaming?
A. This is something I am asked a lot and the answer is simple because it is no different than a game on the App Store. If your game monetises via Facebook Ads, you can leverage Facebook Audience Network to monetise it, if done via purchases, then you can use the platforms payments system. Nothing drastic needs to change in how you monetise, I mean you don’t need to start asking for donations, because there is no other way.
I guess the real question here is ‘what are the best ways to monetise on social platforms such as Facebook?’. This is a difficult one to provide a rounded answer to that will please everybody but hopefully the below will help:-
• If you are leveraging IAPs then keep in mind that Apple “currently” stops payments being processed on these platforms if playing from an iOS device. We have all seen the recent news stories though so I expect this to change over the next 12 months opening iAPs up across platforms. Until then though, just keep this in mind.
• Hyper-Casual games have an advantage on social platforms as they have such a broad target audience which makes it “simpler” to make these games go viral. That being said, not all gameplay mechanics work and this must be considered when launching on a platform such as Facebook or Snap. Just because a game was a hit in the App Store, it doesn’t mean you can just throw the game as is on social platforms and expect it to work.
• When launching any game on social platforms, just think about how to leverage that platform’s features. For example, Facebook has a tournament mode that allows players to start tournaments that are playable directly from their timeline. With the right setup and design this can be used to get players sharing with friends which can create a viral UA channel to your game. Most social platforms have specific features like this and you need to leverage them to bring users to your game, keep them engaged and coming back and of course, then monetise them.
Q. What can be done to minimize the hurdles of finance and resource that game developers face while optimizing the games for different platforms? How near are we to a software alchemy that makes games publishing-ready for different platforms?
A. Of course I’m going to say that the time is right now – with GameBake! There are no integrations required, meaning access to all supported Android channels via a single upload. We are still working hard to make this even more simple so developers globally can focus on what’s important and that is creating amazing games. Also, HTML5 platforms still have a big barrier to entry for most but again, GameBake is working hard to solve this to provide a way for developers to easily access these platforms and deploy easily to them all.
There is never going to be a way for developers to not put in any work at all. Success comes from hard work and this still rings true when targeting new platforms, be that new app stores opr social platforms, you need to research and find out who the end users are downloading and playing your games on any given platform and then adapt what you do to engage (and of course monetise said users). There isn’t a solution to stop resources being required for game design, monetisation or user acquisition but, how we see it, these are the pieces of the puzzle that studios want to keep control of. It is the deployment that is a pain in the arse mixed with a lack of a real ecosystem, it makes it near impossible to even consider distribution outside of the core stores. This is what we want to and are solving, simplifying and improving the pieces of the puzzle that are needed for studios globally to take advantage of and focus their resources and efforts on creating, managing and scaling amazing games.
Q. How are the games you work with received and played outside the marquee markets of Europe and North America? Any significant development in Asia, Africa, Australia or South America?
A. It’s a hard question to answer as it is so different for every game and you need to tackle each game on a somewhat market by market basis. In general, a game that is enjoyed in the US is likely to be enjoyed in India as well, I mean we are all humans at the end of the day, the difference comes in when trying to find success at scale in specific markets and on specific platforms.
China is probably the best example to use here because the market is huge, but it is notoriously difficult to enter without properly understanding the intricacies of the market itself. By this I mean it isn’t just localising your games text that you need to think about, but how your game looks and plays, how it is distributed to players in the market and how you can monetise it. Markets, like China’s, have restrictions on games and you need to plan how you will tackle all of this to be able to enter.
China is an extreme case, but other markets do need similar considerations when it comes to localisation. But you also need to bear in mind that your distribution strategy for Apple and Google aren’t the number one everywhere. In India, for example, Google Play is big but there are many other platforms that open up 100s of millions of users. Iran is another market with restrictions in place, therefore Google Play does not work there, so working with local stores is your entry into a market of over 70 million. Russia is another market where you need to understand the local platforms and how players play games to really localise a game properly and effectively.
So going back to what I’d said at the start, a great game is a great game no matter where you launch in the world, but making a commercial success of that game in various markets requires some thought, planning and good execution.
Q. Asia perhaps deserves more focus as a gaming market. Which Asian countries do you reckon have the most potential market as games industry markets?
A. I completely agree, Asia is mostly forgotten by western developers and it’s a shame as the potential across the region is massive. China is the world’s biggest gaming market but that is the market everyone talks about so let’s put that to one side as it isn’t an easy nut to crack.
If I were to suggest markets that have the potential for most developers of casual games to grow in the coming months and years, I would look to a market such as Indonesia where the scale you can achieve in that market alone is huge. However, a lot of the time, it just isn’t commercially viable and therefore not thought about, but with the right knowledge and partners you can access more platforms that really open up a market like this and can turn what is a good market for Google Play games into a very strong one for those thinking outside of the box.
South Korea and Japan are both strong markets for specific genres but again, you need to really think about how you approach these markets. In general, Asia as a whole has amazing potential, as well as many other regions globally.
Q. Are tight regulations or lack of clear-cut regulations a bottleneck for growth of gaming outside Europe and North America? We’d love your insight into the role regulations play in the gaming industry’s growth.
A. Regulations always hinder growth, it is the nature of regulations but of course, sometimes they are necessary. China takes it to another level! I can’t even imagine how big that market would be right now if they didn’t have these tight regulations holding it back. I understand the reasons behind why the government has set them in place (although for “Children’s health” isn’t the real reason, in my opinion) but it is holding back the market’s growth which is a big shame.
I do see the need for regulation sometimes though, for example, to stop Apple and Google tightening their grip on the market and forcing us all into paying a huge tax on the games that have been worked on so hard to get them where they are. Therefore regulations can probably help the market grow in certain cases but overall, the less governments get involved in the industry the better for the industry’s growth in the coming years.
Q. And finally, how do you get your hair so beautiful?
A. It’s all natural
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Following his appointment as Chief Product Officer at iGaming software pioneer Tequity, industry veteran Alex Scott outlines his vision for the company’s expanding product suite. With over 20 years of leadership experience, including driving WPT Global to become the world’s second-largest online poker room, he shares his insights on how Tequity’s approach is redefining both the games players enjoy and the way they are distributed.
You have held senior leadership roles at major operators and suppliers. What convinced you to join Tequity, and what are your main priorities as CPO?
Tequity is a business that I’ve admired since I first became aware of it. In that time I’ve heard so many positive things about how the company is able to move very quickly and decisively, while still delivering ultra high quality products for its partners. When I started interviewing for the position and meeting the people involved, that only reinforced the positive impression I had. It was clear to me that this was a company that is at the forefront of innovation in the iGaming space, creating and delivering content that is fresh and exciting.
My priority as CPO is to further accelerate the development of top-quality products that are highly relevant to today’s players. I’m excited to roll up my sleeves and get stuck in – there are so many possibilities!
Tequity recently secured BMM Testlabs certification for its RNG and the first batch of Originals titles. How does that accelerate your product roadmap?
This certification will open up many more potential customers for Tequity, and therefore many more opportunities for businesses to take advantage of Tequity’s services, like our bespoke Exclusives and our top-performing Originals. Operators fighting for market share are always looking for those added-value elements that can set them apart from the competition and our fully brandable, customisable and feature-packed content offers that key point of difference.
It will also enable the studios using our RGS and Publishing solutions to widen their own distribution and reach many more potential customers as well – just another reason to choose our RGS. We have seen the strong demand for our games and solutions from partners all over the world, and we believe that this appetite will be more than matched by operators in the regulated market space.
Finally, it represents s a step towards a wider regulated market expansion which I am excited to be involved in.
Player preferences are moving decisively toward fast-paced, community-driven experiences. How do Tequity’s game divisions cater to this next generation of player engagement?
One of the things that sets Tequity apart is that the company truly understands what the modern generation of players are looking for. They are discovering online casino in a very different way to past generations, and require simpler, easier to understand, more socially-driven content if you want their full attention. Today’s players expect instant gratification and seamless, mobile-first experiences that fit into their fast-paced lifestyles. They also want gameplay to feel like less of a solitary activity and more of a shared event.
Having spent recent months immersed in casino game development for the crypto generation, I’m really looking forward to contributing to these efforts and having an impact of my own.
You will be joining the Tequity team at iGB Live in London next month. What is the key takeaway you want operators and studios to leave with?
As the newest Tequity signing, I’m looking forward to meeting the rest of the team and many of our partners and customers at iGB Live.
Tequity is an extremely fast and capable company that builds high-quality, interesting products at the cutting-edge of the industry. My hope is that operators and studios leave the event understanding our expertise and capabilities. But I also want them to leave with a sense of the enthusiasm and passion that we have for building great games that stand out from the crowd.
The post Q&A with Tequity’s new Chief Product Officer Alex Scott appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
Check out our latest Q&A w/ Robert Miller, President, Kiron North America.
Everyone is talking about the opportunity presented to the North American market by the World Cup. Just how big an opportunity do you believe it is? And what is the size of this opportunity for virtual sports?
For live sports betting, the World Cup is one of the biggest opportunities available. It drives significant betting volume, attracts new customers and creates moments of engagement that few sporting events can match. For virtual sports, the opportunity is different. The World Cup can help introduce new players to a broader betting ecosystem, but virtual sports are not dependent on major tournaments to succeed. Their real strength is providing consistent engagement throughout the year. While the tournament creates a short term surge in activity, the long term opportunity lies in offering customers engaging experiences every day, not just during major events.
Events like the World Cup present a huge demand for content from operators. How can virtual sports help operators in North America during these times?
Live matches will always be the centrepiece of the World Cup experience and rightly so. However, operators also need ways to keep customers engaged between matches and throughout the wider tournament journey. Virtual sports complement live betting by providing continuous entertainment and additional touchpoints when there is no live action available. The greatest value comes when virtuals are integrated into a broader engagement strategy that keeps players connected to the platform before, during and after major sporting events.
The North American market has been maturing significantly in the last few years, does a tournament as big as the World Cup showcase the strength of the market? Or highlight the flaws in its set-up?
It does both. The strength of the market is clear in the scale of customer participation and the growing appetite for sports betting experiences. Major tournaments demonstrate just how much demand exists. At the same time, they highlight one of the industry’s biggest challenges: retention. Many operators are highly successful at attracting customers during major events, but maintaining engagement afterwards remains a key focus. Long term success will come from building experiences that keep players engaged throughout the year, not just during peak sporting moments.
North American sports fans have a very different relationship with football compared to European or Latin American audiences. How does that affect the way virtual football products need to be positioned or presented in this market?
Product positioning needs to reflect the realities of the local audience. Football continues to grow in North America, but it does not yet have the same cultural position it enjoys in many other regions. For that reason, virtual football products should focus on accessibility, entertainment and ease of engagement. Players respond to experiences that are intuitive, fast paced and easy to understand. The emphasis should be on delivering continuous action and a compelling user experience rather than relying solely on familiarity with the sport itself.
The World Cup has a jam-packed schedule and the North American sports calendar is one of the most packed in the world. With so much live content available, how do you make the case for virtual sports to operators who believe they already have enough sports action to offer?
The conversation is not about choosing between live sports and virtual sports. The most effective operators recognise that the two can work together. Live sports naturally create periods of inactivity between events, while different player segments engage with content in different ways. Virtual sports fill those gaps and create additional opportunities for interaction. When positioned correctly, they enhance the overall entertainment offering rather than compete with live sports.
When the World Cup has finished, what is the lasting impact on virtual sports in North America and how do providers ensure they do not lose any momentum they have gained?
The lasting impact comes from what operators do with the attention generated during the tournament. Major sporting events create opportunities to introduce new customers to products and experiences they may not have explored previously. Maintaining momentum requires strong operational integration, seamless customer journeys and products that continue to deliver value long after the tournament ends. Providers that focus on year round engagement rather than short term spikes will be best positioned to benefit.
The post How Virtual Sports Can Help Shape The North American Market During and After the World Cup appeared first on Americas iGaming & Sports Betting News.
2026 FIFA World Cup
Roundtable – More than just a Match: How Can Online Casinos Benefit from Increased FIFA World Cup Traffic
Participants
David Nilsen, Editor-in-Chief, Kongebonus
Yoni Sidi, CEO at Winpot.mx
Edvardas Sadovskis, CPO at ICONIC21
Summary
The 2026 FIFA World Cup begins this June, and it is set to create one of the biggest acquisition opportunities the iGaming industry has witnessed. Naturally, all of the attention this summer will turn to sportsbooks, but with many operators also offering online casinos, how can they ensure that their casinos benefit from this football-driven traffic increase?
The opportunity is real, but so is the risk of missing it. Many casual bettors will be signing up for a summer of betting action, and this represents a new, untapped audience for online casinos. However, converting sports bettors into online casino players, and vice versa, is a notoriously difficult challenge, and it is one many operators will be hoping to overcome this summer.
For this roundtable, we’ve brought together a panel of experts from different sectors of the industry to explore how online casinos can take advantage of this opportunity, what kind of casino content interests sports bettors, and more.
With millions of new sports bettors expected to sign up, what can operators do to make the most of this window?
David Nilsen, Editor-in-Chief, Kongebonus
The goal is simple. Get people active and keep them active for the whole tournament, not just one match. The audience is genuinely there. Deutsche Bank reckons US handle alone lands somewhere between 2.5 and 4.1 billion dollars, more than double Qatar 2022. But a clean, fast sign-up is everything. These are casual punters.
They will abandon a long registration mid-game, so any friction at deposit, KYC or withdrawal costs you the customer on the spot. Once they are in, that is where you open up the cross-sell into a casino and live casino.
At Kongebonus we see this with our Norwegian audience every tournament. The mistake most operators make is treating the sign-up as the win. It is not. It is just the door. The actual work is giving someone a reason to come back for the next match day, and the one after that.
Yoni Sidi, CEO at Winpot.mx
The sign-up moment is everything. Onboarding flows need to surface casino products immediately, and welcome offers should reward exploration across both verticals from day one.
New registrants during a tournament are impulse-driven, and the window between matches is prime casino time. Operators need automated triggers that capitalise on those gaps. This means post-match lobby pushes, half-time promos, and next-day re-engagement.
KYC and payment friction will kill conversion faster than any competitor, so operators who have invested in fast verification and instant withdrawals will win the acquisition battle.
And don’t treat it as a pure volume play. Segmenting new users early allows for smarter casino cross-sell from the very start.
Edvardas Sadovskis, CPO at ICONIC21
The market will be saturated with promotions, that’s a given. Providers should go beyond the standard offer and think carefully about how they build their promotions to fit their operator partners needs: the mechanics, the timing, the creative execution, and crucially, how well it reflects the season.
At ICONIC21, personalization is at the core of what we offer, and the FIFA World Cup is exactly where that capability becomes a real competitive differentiator. We can move quickly to adapt games and content to a specific theme and audience profile. Football Cup Roulette, Football Cup Blackjack 360, Football Cup Gravity Blackjack are all examples of that in practice. Operators don’t need to rely on generic, off-the-shelf content during one of the biggest acquisition windows of the year. The technology and the partnerships exist to do something genuinely distinctive. The question is how operators choose to use them.
What have previous tournaments taught us about how sports bettors interact with casino products, and how can the industry prepare?
David Nilsen, Editor-in-Chief, Kongebonus
We have learned that cross-selling into casino is genuinely hard, and most operators reach for the easy route. Halftime free spins. You will see them everywhere this summer. There is nothing wrong with that. A free-spin offer while someone is already logged in is a sensible nudge. But be realistic about who these people are.
Most FIFA World Cup traffic is occasional punters who log in, stick a tenner on Norway or a correct score, and move on hoping for the best. Research shows this type often does not know the sector’s vocabulary and will not sit through a long process mid-match. So the lesson is straightforward. Do your retention work while they are actually active and engaged. That window is short. Once the match ends, the attention is gone, and no amount of clever follow-up brings it back.
Yoni Sidi, CEO at Winpot.mx
Euro 2020 and Qatar 2022 both showed the same pattern – casino engagement spikes on match days. The gap days are where operators lose people.
Live casino consistently outperforms slots during tournaments because it mirrors the event feeling of watching a match.
The clearest lesson is that operators who built cross-sell journeys before the tournament started outperformed those who reacted in real time.
Loyalty and gamification mechanics that ran across both verticals – a FIFA World Cup leaderboard rewarding sports and casino play alike – showed meaningful uplift.
It’s important to understand that the preparation window matters more than in-tournament creativity.
Edvardas Sadovskis, CPO at ICONIC21
What past tournaments consistently show is that the boundaries between verticals are more permeable than we sometimes assume. A player who arrives through sportsbook during a major tournament is not necessarily a sportsbook-only player forever. Context and theme play an enormous role in where attention goes.
Cross-sell remains one of the most valuable and underutilized levers in the industry. During this season, actually all verticals matter, and operators who maintain a healthy, well-curated mix of live casino, slots, and RNG content alongside their sportsbook offering, if available, are the ones best positioned to capture that wider engagement.
The theme itself does a lot of the work. Football enthusiasm creates a mood and that mood travels across verticals. Players who might not ordinarily gravitate toward a slot or a live table will engage with one that feels connected to the moment they’re already excited about. The industry’s job is to make that journey feel natural.
How do casino-first operators stay visible and relevant when sportsbook brands dominate the tournament?
David Nilsen, Editor-in-Chief, Kongebonus
Honestly, this worry is a little overblown. Casino-first players stay casino-first players. If they fancy a FIFA World Cup bet, they already know exactly where to find it, so you do not need to fight hard to cross-sell them. And here is what people forget. If a big operator runs a huge sportsbook campaign and that same player already uses their casino, the player is being reminded of the brand, not lost to it. Nobody suddenly forgets what an operator does just because the marketing went football-flavoured for a month. So, casino-first brands should not panic and try to out-shout the sportsbooks. Stay true to the product. Lean into what makes you different.
Trust that your audience knows you. The summer noise fades by July. Your core proposition should not move an inch while everyone else is shouting about Mbappé.
Yoni Sidi, CEO at Winpot.mx
Casino-first operators shouldn’t try to out-shout sportsbooks on football, because they’ll lose that battle on media spend.
The smarter play is owning the moments between matches and positioning casino as the entertainment layer around the tournament, not a competitor to it. Influencer and affiliate channels that are casino-native can carry the brand without getting drowned out in sports media noise.
But the real weapon is CRM. Direct-to-player communication doesn’t compete with broadcast budgets, and a well-timed push notification at 10pm after the final whistle will outperform a TV spot every time.
Edvardas Sadovskis, CPO at ICONIC21
Relevance comes from keeping content fresh, timely, and specific and that’s where well-structured promotions earn their place. They represent content engines and player acquisition tools. The entire technical setup of the promotion shapes how a provider’s portfolio feels to a player during a tournament window.
We’re running the ICONIC Showdown football cup tournament across 11 of our games, with a particular focus on our limited-time personalized titles: Football Cup Roulette, Football Cup Blackjack 360, Football Cup Gravity Blackjack and The Kickoff. Alongside the promotion, we’ve launched Soccer World Championship, a football-themed slot designed to encourage natural cross-play between verticals.
Casino-first operators don’t need to compete with sportsbook on sportsbook’s terms. They need to offer an experience that’s thematically connected to the season while playing to the strengths of their own offerings.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup spans three countries and multiple time zones. How does the fragmented schedule affect preparation, and can content counter it?
David Nilsen, Editor-in-Chief, Kongebonus
The schedule is the single biggest challenge for us in the Nordics, and also the biggest opportunity. With matches landing late at night or at odd hours, the Norwegian fan is often watching alone. Partner asleep, no one to react with. That gap is exactly what we built the Kongebonus World Cup hub around, what we are calling the home of the second screen. It centres on a live, moderated chat where fans follow the action together, share predictions and react in real time, alongside a free Pick’em game and a leaderboard. From a content angle, the answer to a fragmented schedule is not more odds. It is connection. Give people somewhere to actually be during those midnight kick-offs and the awkward time zones stop being a reason to switch off. They become a reason to show up.
Yoni Sidi, CEO at Winpot.mx
With matches running across the USA, Canada, and Mexico, there’s no clean primetime window. Kick-offs will be spread from early afternoon through late evening, depending on the market.
Honestly, this is an opportunity for casino. There will always be a gap in any time zone where no match is live, and smart promotion scheduling around local match times can fill those windows.
For operators serving Latin American markets – particularly relevant given Mexico’s co-hosting – the operational challenge is CRM.
Campaigns need to be time-zone aware. A blanket broadcast approach will underperform, which means timing localisation is as important as language localisation.
Edvardas Sadovskis, CPO at ICONIC21
The fragmented schedule is actually less of a constraint than it might appear because not everything needs to be tied directly to a specific match time or result. The atmosphere and the theme carry their own power, and content that captures that energy will perform regardless of which time zone a player is in.
Our approach with the ICONIC Showdown reflects that thinking. We’re running the promotion from the 9th to the 19th of July, aligning with the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and the final. Those are the moments that carry the most weight emotionally and commercially. That gives players a meaningful window to engage at their own pace, rather than chasing a narrow match-by-match timeline.
There’s also a practical advantage to this approach: a lot of providers are running activations across the entire tournament period, including the build-up. By focusing on the decisive phase, we’re competing on quality of moment rather than volume of coverage and giving the promotion room to breathe.
What casino content will perform best, and are operators treating casino and sportsbook players as one connected audience?
David Nilsen, Editor-in-Chief, Kongebonus
If your cross-sell strategy is a tired football-themed slot, it will not work. It is lazy and players see straight through it. And please, do not just default to Starburst either. The way to actually turn a football crowd into casino play is to put your best content in front of them. The most genuinely fun, highest-quality slots you have, football-themed or not. People do not engage with a mediocre game because it has a ball on the reels. They engage with a great game. So yes, treat them as one connected audience, but respect them as one.
The connected-audience thinking only pays off if the product on the other side is something a person would actually choose to play. Quality is the cross-sell. The theme is just decoration, and decoration has never retained anybody.
Yoni Sidi, CEO at Winpot.mx
Football-themed slots are the obvious answer, but the honest truth is most underdeliver.
The studios doing it well are building mechanic-first games that happen to carry a football skin, not the other way around.
Live casino, particularly game shows, is the format most likely to resonate with sports bettors, because they provide real-time, social, high-energy action that feels closest to watching a match.
The harder truth is that the industry remains largely siloed, with separate CRM journeys, separate bonus budgets, and separate teams. The player doesn’t see two products.
The ones who will win this summer are those with a unified player view who serve casino as a natural extension of the sports experience.
Edvardas Sadovskis, CPO at ICONIC21
Themed content will lead. Players respond to content that reflects the moment they’re living in, and football is one of the few cultural events that cuts across demographics broadly enough to work across all verticals simultaneously.
Our power lies in the breadth of what we offer: live casino, slots, and RNG games, representing three verticals that each bring something distinct to a player’s experience, and that together create a genuinely comprehensive product environment for operators. During the World Cup, we are using exactly that mix.
On the question of treating casino and sportsbook players as a connected audience, the reality is that the audiences will remain largely distinct in their primary behaviours. But they can absolutely be united by theme, by atmosphere, and by an experience that makes movement between verticals feel intuitive.
How can operators balance short-term acquisition with long-term retention after the tournament ends?
David Nilsen, Editor-in-Chief, Kongebonus
Be sober about this. Long-term retention is always the hard part at a mega-event. Huge numbers of occasional players come in, have two or three bets on their country, and they are gone. That is just the nature of it.
Spamming them afterwards genuinely does not work. The real strategy is to use the active window to show a product worth returning to, then plant a hook into the future. Get them to place a season-long outright on the next Premier League or Champions League, or a bet on the opening weekend with a small reward attached. Optimove found 65 percent of US bettors plan to keep wagering even after their team is knocked out, so the appetite to stay is there. You will not turn most occasional punters into casino regulars. That is a fantasy. But you can become the operator they instinctively return to next time.
Yoni Sidi, CEO at Winpot.mx
The biggest mistake is building welcome offers that are purely sports-focused – you acquire a sports bettor, and that’s all you ever have.
Structured onboarding that introduces casino in week one, not week five, is critical. First-session casino exposure, even light-touch, significantly improves 90-day retention across both verticals.
Retention mechanics also need to outlast the tournament itself. A World Cup loyalty campaign that ends after the final leaves players with nothing to stay for.
The programme needs a natural handover, such as seasonal sports, ongoing casino promotions and VIP pathways.
LTV modelling should reflect the reality that a player who touches both verticals in their first 30 days is worth multiples of a single-vertical player. That should be driving investment decisions, not treated as a nice-to-have.
Edvardas Sadovskis, CPO at ICONIC21
It’s worth broadening the frame. It’s equally about an operator’s existing, loyal casino audience, who arrive at a World Cup window expecting something seasonal and new players, maybe coming from competitors or sportsbook-only platforms to join a promotion.
Short-term promotional content that performs well during the tournament doesn’t have to disappear. A limited-edition live table can remain in the lobby after the promotion ends reverting to its standard theme and continuing to serve as a player favorite.
That thinking is what separates acquisition-focused operators from retention-focused ones. The FIFA World Cup creates the spike. Smart content strategy and a well-structured lobby are what convert that spike into sustained engagement across all the verticals.
The post Roundtable – More than just a Match: How Can Online Casinos Benefit from Increased FIFA World Cup Traffic appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
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