Industry News
Agile Marketing in times of COVID-19
Martina Filipovic, Senior Marketing Specialist, sharing her thoughts on importance of marketing agility in times of COVID-19
Importance of marketing agility in the gaming industry
Unlike the financial crisis of 2008 when most B2Bs have played intact and remained silent marketing-wise, nowadays marketers have chosen merely to adapt the marketing strategy to the unexpected new rules in the industry.
NSoft is predominantly digital marketing oriented and bases its marketing decisions on metrics, analytics and projections. Confronting this situation was a great challenge for the team as it was necessary to make an ad hoc budget rebalance and refocus the existing marketing strategy. NSoft’s in-house marketing team has made it all possible – the people’s expertise and long term global marketing experience have helped NSoft mitigate this turbulent period.
The main focus was to promptly react to the new industry situation and keep the brand presence serving clients in line with the Board decisions. Combining adjusted marketing activities on all of NSoft’s digital platforms resulted in an overall growth compared to the same period last year. This confirms the accuracy of the NSoft’s marketing decisions and points out that the other gaming industry’s stakeholders were eager to find a solution for this situation as well. This mutual need will be present in the future as well since the industry recovery is expected to start very soon.
Storytelling and networking during the COVID – 19 era
Increased online media consumption was inevitable – in just a few days the industry has switched completely online, proving, once again, the importance of prompt reactions in unprecedented times. The first goal for NSoft was to proactively address changes and suggest solutions as this situation was new for all gaming industry stakeholders. It was mandatory for NSoft to reach out to its clients and audience with relevant content thus showing them that we have a strong solution to their quests – more than ever it was important to keep in touch with the clients and overall industry. NSoft’s Sales and Business Development team have shared their thoughts on everything that’s been going on in the industry and have provided their insight on what the future holds for the stakeholders.
With F2F events being canceled or postponed online networking has become a necessity. The industry has recognized the importance of keeping everyone up to date with all the information and suggesting alternative options. It was only obvious that NSoft joines the rest of the industry with sharing the remedy options for this turbulent period in a webinar organized with European Gaming Media and Events. Webinar shall be covering a hot topic “How can number virtuals complement your new virtual sports offering”. On April 21 Mr Ivan Rozic, Senior Vice President for Global Sales and Business Development at NSoft and Mr Zoltán Tűndik, Head of Business at European Gaming Media and Events (part of Hipther Agency) will tackle this important issue.
The power of diversified product portfolio
As the situation in the industry changed drastically – NSoft had to adapt its communication and product offerings accordingly.
Our clients are most affected by this situation and we wanted to find a way to ease this demanding period for them as well.
We offered our entire palette of virtual games on the web: Virtual Sports Betting products and Draw-based games completely free of charge for the period from April 1 to June 1, 2020. This means no setup fees, no minimum monthly fees and no monthly revenue share invoices for 2 months.
NSoft is grateful to all of its media partners for helping us help the industry in this demanding period – our long term partnerships have once again proved their value.
Post-crisis future – the new normal
Although at the moment, the entire focus is on activities that require immediate actions, NSoft is keeping an eye on the future as the new normal is expecting us after this lock-down. At any moment it is necessary to have a strategic plan for the post-crisis actions and tools to execute those decisions in order to fully support our business and consequently the business of our partners. It’s obvious that the industry is struggling at the moment but this too shall pass. Now is the right time to revise all the actions and plans, adjust steps towards new activities and step up the game as the post-crisis will require even more strategic marketing implementation.
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Industry News
Ex-Binance exec Ryan Horn joins Press Box PR as Growth and Business Development Advisor
Press Box PR, an award-winning digital PR agency specialising in betting, gaming, sport, consumer, retail, and hospitality, has announced the appointment of former Binance sports partnerships leader Ryan Horn as its new Growth and Business Development Advisor.
Horn will work closely with Press Box PR’s leadership team to drive strategic growth initiatives, advise on international opportunities, and support clients navigating the fast-evolving intersection of sport, payments, gaming, and emerging technologies.
With offices in London and Manchester, Press Box PR is renowned for securing earned media coverage across gambling, sports, consumer, finance, hospitality, and catering publications. The agency also helps brands increase visibility in AI-generated answers, citations, and large language model (LLM) recommendations. Press Box PR was named PR Agency of the Year at the 2026 European iGaming Awards.
Horn brings over 20 years of experience at the crossroads of global sport, commercial partnerships, and digital innovation. He has collaborated with major organisations including FIFA, UEFA, the International Olympic Committee, Formula 1, and the Rugby Football Union, helping connect global brands with some of the world’s largest sporting audiences.
He co-founded Brandtix, a sports data intelligence company that introduced a data-driven approach to sponsorship measurement, and later held senior roles in the global advertising sector, including Chief Business Development Officer at Euro RSCG, managing sponsorship strategy and campaigns for top-tier brands.
More recently, Horn led sports and digital asset partnerships at Binance, working with figures and organisations such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Mike Tyson, and Italian Serie A club Lazio, with a focus on the convergence of sport, digital payments, fan engagement platforms, and online gaming ecosystems.
In his role at Press Box PR, Horn will provide strategic insight on emerging areas shaping modern sports business, including AI-driven fan engagement, tokenised commerce platforms, global payments infrastructure, and the digital transformation of sport.
Alex Donohue, Founder and Managing Director of Press Box PR, said:
“Ryan has spent his career at the intersection of sport, technology, and commercial innovation. His experience and network will be hugely valuable as we expand internationally and support clients across sport, betting, and fintech.”
Horn added:
“The digital transformation of sport is creating entirely new commercial ecosystems. I’m excited to join Press Box PR and help clients navigate and communicate their role in this evolving landscape.”
The post Ex-Binance exec Ryan Horn joins Press Box PR as Growth and Business Development Advisor appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
Choice Gaming
Choice Gaming: Expanding Across Slots, Crash, Instant and AI Live Casino
Choice Gaming produces and distributes content across four key verticals: slots, crash games, instant formats, and live casino offerings via its dedicated Kiss division. The company maintains full control over concept development, visual direction, and release scheduling, ensuring a cohesive and strategically aligned portfolio.
Collaboration-Driven Product Development
A cornerstone of Choice Gaming’s approach is integrating public figures and cultural collaborators directly into the design of its games. In the crash segment, Evra Crash was developed in partnership with football legend Patrice Evra, incorporating his likeness, persona, and competitive identity into the game’s mechanics and presentation.
In the instant category, Mono Choice was created alongside contemporary artist Alec Monopoly. The title embeds elements of his signature artistic style throughout the creative execution, extending well beyond surface-level branding.
The collaboration approach also extends to live casino offerings. As part of its cross-vertical strategy, the company launched Evra Sic Bo, a live table game featuring Patrice Evra’s identity integrated into the format.
Live Casino: Kiss Division
Through the Kiss division, Choice Gaming operates an AI-driven live casino infrastructure. Kiss AI Live Casino replaces traditional fixed studios with digitally generated environments and AI-controlled dealers. Operators can customize dealer appearance, ethnicity, attire, language, atmosphere, and studio design without altering the table structure.
The live portfolio includes multiple Sic Bo tables, each offering distinct dealer presentations and visual styles, creating differentiated table experiences within a scalable framework.
Slot Portfolio
Choice Gaming’s slot catalogue features fully in-house developed titles designed for multi-market deployment. Each release adheres to a defined concept and visual framework, avoiding reused layouts or re-skinned games. The company’s roadmap includes continued expansion of slot themes and innovative design directions throughout the year.
Crash and Instant Segments
Beyond collaboration-led releases, the crash and instant categories continue to grow with titles built around streamlined mechanics, clear visual identity, and structured gameplay positioning.
Scaling with Control
Choice Gaming continues to expand across all verticals while retaining complete oversight of production, creative direction, and collaborative integration, ensuring consistent quality and innovation across its portfolio.
The post Choice Gaming: Expanding Across Slots, Crash, Instant and AI Live Casino appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
Groove
Groove Rolls Out Next-Gen Instant Tournaments Solution
In an industry where player attention spans diminish rapidly, leading platform and aggregator Groove has launched what could be the most valuable weapon in the fight for engagement: their groundbreaking Instant Tournaments Tool.
This groundbreaking advancement enables operators to envision, set up, and initiate high-stakes tournaments straight from Groove Command’s back-office faster than it takes to make a pot of coffee, no developers needed, no delays, only sheer competitive excitement at the speed of now.
The development team, under the guidance of Product Development Head Shay Kababie, observed with pleasure as the initial live test occurred. An experienced casino operator, who was initially doubtful, launched a $10,000 Blackjack Blitz with only a few clicks. The outcome? A sudden increase in players, soaring engagement statistics, and revenue boosts, all happening before lunchtime arrived.
“This alters everything,” the operator said, observing leaderboards illuminate in real-time.
For years, creating tournaments involved managing intricate technical specifications, relying on overloaded development teams, and hoping that everything would run smoothly at launch. Groove’s approach completely eliminates these obstacles.
The new advancement in the Groove Command platform is already causing a stir in the iGaming industry, as beta testers indicate significant increases in player involvement and earnings.
“This isn’t just an upgrade, it’s a fundamental shift in how operators compete,” says Rachel Tourgeman, Head of Partnerships at Groove. “Our partners have been begging for a solution that keeps pace with player demand. Now they can create high-stakes tournaments faster than most teams can schedule a meeting. We’re seeing operators launch tournaments around live sports events, viral trends, even competitor outages, all in real time.”
Operators can now react to market trends with the quickness of day traders, identifying an opportunity in the morning and profiting from it by afternoon. Looking to take advantage of a competitor’s downtime? A competition exists for that. Looking to reconnect with inactive VIPs? The ideal challenge is merely a few clicks away.
This advancement integrates effortlessly into the Groove Command ecosystem, the most robust back-office platform in the industry. In this scenario, establishing a tournament is merely one tool in a well-equipped arsenal. Operators have total control over their operations, encompassing detailed game management, real-time financial analysis, compliance protections, and now, immediate competitive experiences that engage players continuously.
The consequences are significant. While rivals may take days or weeks to set up tournaments, operators using Groove can experiment, refine, and enhance various tournament formats in just one afternoon.
The platform’s user-friendly interface masks its advanced features, customizable prize formats, interactive leaderboards, and specific player segmentation can all be effortlessly set up via a sleek dashboard.
“Speed has become the ultimate competitive advantage in iGaming,” explains Kababie. “We’re not just giving operators tools, we’re giving them the ability to outmanoeuvre competitors at a strategic level. The team that can launch a perfect tournament when a trending slot drops, or capitalise on a major sporting event in real-time, that’s the team that wins.”
Looking ahead, Groove’s roadmap promises even more disruptive innovations, including AI-driven tournament suggestions and automated optimisation algorithms. But for now, the message to the industry is clear: the tournament landscape has changed forever, and operators who hesitate will find themselves hopelessly outpaced.
Yahale Meltzer, Co-Founder and CEO of Groove, explains the strategic advantage: “For years, operators have been trapped in a cycle of slow, expensive tournament development. We’ve broken that cycle. Now when an operator sees Messi score a hat-trick or Drake tweet about a new slot, they can capitalise immediately. That agility is worth millions in today’s market.”
Perfectly incorporated into the Groove Command platform, the Instant Tournaments Tool complements a range of operator-centric innovations such as real-time analytics, automated compliance verification, and data-informed game suggestions. The user-friendly interface of the system enables operators to configure personalized rules, prize frameworks, and qualification criteria effortlessly through easy dropdown menus, eliminating the need for coding skills.
In the future, Groove has hinted at new features such as AI-driven tournament enhancement and large-scale cross-operator events. However, as Meltzer observes, “The true revolution is occurring at this moment, in the possession of operators who realize that speed is the new greatest competitive edge.”
Meltzer states, “The tournament arms race has changed permanently and Groove has just given operators the nuclear codes.”
The post Groove Rolls Out Next-Gen Instant Tournaments Solution appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
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