BetGames has revealed the results of a research project testing AI-generated presenters on its live game shows, finding that fewer than 30% of players realised the hosts were artificial — and that the change produced no significant impact on player behaviour.

For the experiment, the supplier introduced AI avatars designed as digital replicas of real presenters, quietly deploying them on one of its live games over several days to evaluate whether they could effectively replace human hosts.

The results showed that more than two-thirds of players did not notice the switch to AI. At the same time, key performance indicators — including session duration, stake size and total bets placed — remained statistically unchanged.

According to BetGames, the absence of both positive and negative shifts suggests that while AI avatars can technically replicate the role of live presenters, they currently provide no measurable advantage. As a result, the company believes there is not yet a strong business case for rolling out the technology on a large scale.

Cost efficiency, often cited as a major driver of AI adoption, also failed to deliver a clear benefit. BetGames reported that generating and operating an AI avatar around the clock remains resource-intensive, limiting potential financial gains compared with human hosts.

Technical hurdles further complicate the widespread adoption of AI presenters. One of the most significant challenges remains achieving realistic text-to-speech performance. As AI technology becomes more advanced and visual realism improves, even minor imperfections in speech become increasingly noticeable to audiences.

Other constraints include latency issues, lip-synchronisation delays and inaccuracies in real-time translation — all critical elements that must be refined before the technology can be implemented reliably across live products.

BetGames continues to explore the potential of AI under the leadership of CEO Andreas Koeberl, who is also co-founder of Autonomous Minds, the developer behind the AI analyst Milo. The initiative forms part of the company’s broader strategy to experiment with emerging technologies and help future-proof the iGaming industry.

Koeberl said:
“AI has been building momentum, but its role within the live casino sector remains largely untested. When it comes to AI presenters, we built it, it worked, and nobody cared. That raises the question of what we are actually working toward.

“The technology didn’t produce any meaningful positive or negative impact on the player experience or product margins, and the cost of running an AI avatar 24/7 offers no significant advantage compared with employing human presenters.

“So rather than attempting to replace humans and replicate what already exists, the focus should shift to exploring what AI can enable that wasn’t previously possible. That’s where the real value lies.”

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Pioneering online casino Videoslots is preparing to launch a new television campaign in Sweden to promote its newly released mobile app for iOS and Android.

The advert, titled “Stone Age,” recreates a cinematic prehistoric world and was produced using artificial intelligence as part of the creative and production workflow. The use of AI enabled the team to bring the ambitious setting to life in a way that would have been significantly more expensive through traditional production methods.

The campaign was created in partnership with Stockholm-based Armstrong Film and has also been adapted in English and Danish for distribution across digital and social media channels.

Marco Trucco, Chief Marketing Officer at Videoslots’ parent company Immense Group, said the decision to incorporate AI was driven by creative possibilities rather than technological novelty.

“The creative idea was entirely human-led,” Trucco explained. “AI simply helped us execute the concept in a way that would have been very costly using traditional production methods. For us, it was about unlocking creative freedom.”

Philip Karlberg, Executive Producer at Armstrong Film, noted that the prehistoric theme presented a number of practical challenges.

“Designing characters and adapting performances across three languages would typically require several separate cast productions,” he said. “Using AI allowed us to approach that ambition differently. However, AI doesn’t replace filmmaking. You still need a strong concept, clear storytelling and a defined visual direction. The work doesn’t disappear — it simply shifts from physical production to detailed planning, direction and refinement.”

Trucco added that the project highlights how AI could reshape the future of television advertising.

“High-quality TV production has traditionally required substantial budgets,” he said. “AI has the potential to allow more brands to compete creatively with larger advertisers. Better advertising ultimately leads to a better viewing experience, more choice for consumers and stronger competition in the market. At Videoslots, we’re pleased to launch an original and entertaining TV advert to introduce our new apps.”

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SEON, the command centre for immediate Fraud Prevention and AML Compliance, has unveiled AI Reality Check: 2026 Fraud & AML Leaders Report, the second iteration of its sector research, derived from a worldwide survey of 1,010 leaders in fraud, risk, and compliance spanning payments, fintech, financial services, retail, eCommerce, and gaming.

The figures reveal an unforeseen narrative: AI is ubiquitous, yet operations are not becoming easier to manage. Currently, 98% of organizations utilize AI in fraud and AML processes, with 95% expressing confidence in its effectiveness; meanwhile, headcount plans rose from 88% to 94% year-over-year, and 83% anticipate budget increases in 2026.

Complexity Is Surpassing Automation

AI has not lessened the workload — it has revealed the extent of work that has always existed. Fraud losses are increasingly approaching revenue growth, threats are advancing more rapidly, and disjointed systems restrict the true potential of AI at scale. Key year-over-year shift:​

Leadership’s confidence in their teams’ performance is lagging. The number of leaders who disagreed with the statement, “fraud losses are growing faster than revenue,”​ dropped by almost 40% from the previous year

Inside the Numbers:​

AI is baseline, not experimental​

• 98% already integrate AI into daily workflows (only 2% still planning)​
• 95% are confident AI can detect and prevent fraud (52% very confident)​
• Top use case: AI/ML for transaction monitoring (30%)​

Fraud and AML investment keeps climbing​

• 83% expect fraud/AML budgets to increase in 2026​
• 94% plan to add at least one full-time hire (up from 88% in 2025)​
• 85% plan to add a vendor, 49% plan to replace one​

Fragmentation is the bottleneck​

• 95% claim “some integration” between fraud and AML systems​
• Only 47% run fully integrated workflows; the rest rely on partial connections​
• 80% say getting a unified view of data is challenging​

For many, time-to-value remains slow​

Only 10% go live in under two weeks​
38% take 1–3 months, 24% take 4+ months​
When implementations run long, top impacts include increased costs (52%) and prolonged fraud exposure (47%)​

Teams are growing, not shrinking​

94% plan to increase headcount despite automation gains​
85% see AI agents as support/augmentation, not replacement (only 12% see eventual replacement)​

Top fraud threats reported:​

• Account takeovers: 26%
• Promo/discount abuse: 18%
• Return fraud: 18%​

“Fraud and financial crime were supposed to become more manageable as AI matured,” said Tamas Kadar, CEO and co-founder, SEON. “Instead, 2026 is the year leaders are confronting a more complicated reality. AI adoption is real, confidence is high, but the scale and pace of fraud — compounded by fragmented systems — continue to drive increased investment rather than reduced overhead. The bottleneck is no longer whether AI works. It’s everything around it: disconnected data, siloed teams, slow implementations. The organisations that pull ahead will be the ones that unify fraud and AML intelligence, shorten the distance between threats and controls, and treat integration as strategy, not plumbing.”​

Fast-Growing Companies Invest in Integration Early​

Organisations growing 51%+ are nearly twice as likely as slower peers to report that achieving unified visibility is “not very challenging.” They treat integration as infrastructure, not an IT project.​

What’s Next: From “Does AI Work?” to “Can We Trust It?”​

With adoption near-universal, the conversation is shifting to governance, explainability and accountability:​

• 78% say decentralised digital identity will become central to fraud/AML​
• 33% cite data privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA) as the biggest external force shaping AML​
• 25% point to criminals’ advancing use of AI and obfuscation techniques​

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