Latest News
Revealed: The emotional, social, and developmental benefits of gaming
- 28% of internet users play games to meet new people
- A third of gamers say they play because they like to challenge themselves.
- There are 20,000 gaming jobs in the UK, providing plenty of opportunity for a career in the industry
- We spoke to three experts in the field who gave their insights into the gaming industry
There are lots of negative misconceptions about gaming, many of which are far from the truth. A new study turns stereotypes on their heads and reveals the emotional, social, and developmental benefits of gaming. Dr Rachel Kowert, Research Director of Take This – a mental health non-profit; Dr Matthew Barr, a lecturer of Game Studies at the University of Glasgow; and Noel McDermott, a psychotherapist and presenter of The Well-Being Show podcast, provide their thoughts and insights. Here are some of the highlights:
Gaming can boost mental wellbeing and help with feelings of loneliness
- Thanks to well-crafted storylines and lifelike graphics, games are the perfect form of escapism
- 34% of gamers identify the feeling of being immersed in a game as a key motivation to play
- The global gaming population is likely to have increased by 4% since the outbreak of Covid-19
Especially in challenging times, activities that provide a positive distraction and allow an individual to put their worries to the back of their mind can have a beneficial impact on mental wellbeing. Gaming is an excellent example of this, offering an immersive experience that can mentally transport you to another world.
Barr says, “Video games are good at getting players into the state of optimal experience that psychologists call ‘flow’, by offering an appropriate balance of challenge versus achievement. It’s that feeling of being ‘in the zone’, where you’re totally absorbed in the task at hand, and you’re operating at the top of your game. In turn, this has a positive impact on how players feel.”
This is because the sense of reward releases feel-good hormones called dopamine that boost the player’s mood. What’s more, gaming can offer meditative benefits by fully occupying your mind with the objectives of the game.
Kowert adds that, “Gameplay can also teach skills that have long been associated with increased happiness and prolonged life satisfaction, including openness to experience, self-care, a growth mindset, solution-focused thinking, mindfulness, persistence, self-discovery, and resilience.”
Gaming can maintain and build new relationships
- Half of gamers play with their real-life friends
- 28% of internet users play games to meet new people
- 1 in 3 internet users in the UK say the main reason they game is to have fun with people they know
Contrary to popular belief, gaming can be a sociable activity. Many games offer multiplayer modes or are designed to be played in teams, providing the opportunity for individuals to join forces with their existing friends or virtually meet new people – located anywhere in the world.
McDermott says, “Gaming, especially online, can provide immeasurable benefits to those who are lonely and isolated. It provides safe social contact and a place where skills can be developed. These skills can provide a much-needed boost to self-esteem.”
Research found that 60% of gamers report playing more games with social elements since the beginning of the pandemic, suggesting gaming can play a positive and pivotal role in connecting people at a time when face-to-face contact isn’t always possible.
Kowert explains, “Shared experiences, like playing games together, have been linked to increased self-esteem and a sense of belonging, as well as decreased feelings of depression, anxiety, and isolation.”
Gaming can teach life skills and cognitive abilities
- There are 20,000 gaming jobs in the UK, providing plenty of opportunity for a career in gaming
- Minecraft: Education Edition, for example, has applications in geography, history, engineering, and physics
- A third of gamers say they play because they like to challenge themselves.
While gaming can provide a fun form of entertainment, it can also contribute to the player’s cognitive development. For example, many titles involve problem solving, strategy and multi-tasking, among other skills.
Kowert explains, “Games are fantastic learning tools, particularly for children, because they are so engaging. Video games are also great vehicles for sharpening cognitive skills because they provide a range of different challenges within a single space. Gameplay has been associated with the improvement of a range of cognitive skills, including:
- improved creative thinking
- problem solving
- time management
- leadership skills
- goal setting
- initiative taking
- decision making
- persistence in the face of difficult challenges.”
It’s estimated that children aged 12-15 years old spend an average of 11.6 hours a week gaming. So, with gaming being such a widely enjoyed hobby, it’s encouraging to note that it could be effectively harnessed as an educational tool to teach numerous skills and knowledge. What’s more, with the gaming industry growing year-on-year (and estimated to be worth £3.86 billion in 2020), it could also open doors for careers in the industry.
Barr explains, “We all learn new skills through practice, whether that’s learning how to play an instrument or training to play sports more proficiently. Learning from a video game is no different – you’re exercising skills all the time, whether it’s figuring out puzzles or using your communication and language skills to talk to and strategize with your fellow players.”
Gaming myths debunked
- 52% of Brits play video games, demonstrating its popularity and prevalence in daily life
- Gaming is the nation’s second favourite pastime, after watching TV
- Brits spend an average of 7 hours a week gaming, which is just a third of the time spent watching TV (22.5 hrs)
Over the years, gaming has been associated with negative stereotypes and behaviours, such as laziness, violence, and isolation. There is little evidence to prove any of these correct. Instead, in many cases, gaming can be more beneficial for the player’s health, development, and social abilities than it is detrimental. In fact, with over half of Brits playing games, it’s apparent that gaming is just a part of modern life for many.
Kowert explains, “There is no evidence to suggest that playing games online has a negative impact on our ability to socialise. However, research has found that playing games with our friends online can strengthen our offline friendships and relationships.”
Another concern that often arises is the amount of time people spend gaming and whether gaming has addictive qualities. Talking on the topic, Barr explains that, “People talk about players becoming ‘addicted’ to games, without really considering what that word means, in a clinical sense. We don’t bat an eyelid when someone becomes so engrossed in a book that they sit there reading for hours on end, but somehow this sort of behaviour is perceived as problematic when it comes to games.”
Powered by WPeMatico
Jack Watson Brand Manager at Zingo Bingo
Zingo Bingo pushes “community, accessibility” message for National Bingo Week
Brand manager Jack Watson argues bingo’s growth should focus on social play and cultural moments, as the operator plans a free-to-play day on 27 June.
Zingo Bingo is using National Bingo Week to argue that bingo’s next phase should prioritise “community, accessibility and shared cultural experiences” over “innovation for innovation’s sake,” according to Jack Watson, Brand Manager at Zingo Bingo.
In the statement, Watson says technology is reshaping gaming, but that bingo’s core appeal remains social interaction and shared entertainment. He points to sector shifts including mobile-first experiences, personalised content and themed gameplay, while claiming players still want “the shared excitement that comes from participating alongside others.”
Watson also flags nostalgia as a product and marketing lever, describing it as an “instant emotional connection” that can help online bingo feel “both fresh and recognisable.” He adds that operators should focus on presentation—such as “mobile optimisation, themed rooms, contemporary branding and strong community experiences”—rather than changing the fundamentals of the game.
Zingo Bingo said it will mark National Bingo Day with “a full day of free bingo, running from 12pm to 8pm on Saturday 27 June,” allowing players to participate without purchasing tickets. Watson positions free-to-play events as a way to reduce friction for first-time players who may hold outdated views of online bingo.
The company also highlights responsible gambling measures, stating it offers tools including deposit limits, session reminders and self-exclusion.
The post Zingo Bingo pushes “community, accessibility” message for National Bingo Week appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
Boomerang Partners
Boomerang Partners’ case study: how affiliates prepare traffic campaigns around major sports events
On June 11, the FIFA World Cup 2026 starts in North America. It will be the biggest sports event of the year, but the real challenge for affiliates is the rest of the schedule. Throughout 2026, dozens of major tournaments – from football and tennis to Formula 1 – are running almost back-to-back across the sports calendar. This creates one of the most overloaded sports calendars affiliates have worked with in recent years.
Periods like these usually bring some of the highest traffic volumes and strongest audience engagement of the year for affiliate teams.
But data from Boomerang Partners shows that old tactics no longer work. You cannot just launch a campaign on match day and expect good results. Today, teams have to plan their traffic and content weeks before the first game begins.
Regular leagues create more stable traffic
The pressure of this busy schedule became clear during the recent TIME TO WIN affiliate tournament, organized by Boomerang Partners. The project became a live test for different traffic strategies during major events.
The tournament highlighted one clear pattern. Teams like Fumma LTD pointed to the UEFA Champions League and the English Premier League as some of the most reliable traffic drivers. This approach gives affiliates several advantages:
- Fixed schedules make it easier to prepare content and distribute traffic across several tournament stages.
- Recurring match cycles help teams plan campaign timing and prioritize key fixtures well before kick-off.
The real problem in sports is overlapping events. Several big tournaments now run simultaneously across different regions and time zones.
For sports-focused affiliates, this means competing for the same audience attention at the same time. In many cases, the audiences overlap as well. If two major match cycles collide, teams have to choose quickly where to push traffic. Otherwise, they will lose their visibility entirely.
Campaigns must start before kick-off
The timeline for traffic preparation has completely changed. Affiliate teams increasingly start campaign preparation long before the opening match. By the time the live event starts, much of the preparation work is already done.
Preparation now involves several steps. Content teams need to prepare match materials in advance, and media buyers must schedule traffic around the most important fixtures and play-offs.
During the live match, there is no time to fix mistakes. Audiences move too fast between different games. This is especially true when several big matches happen on the same day. If a campaign fails at kick-off, fixing it on the fly is almost impossible.
This is why arbitrage remains one of the strongest sources for sports campaigns. As Sanan Kamilli, CBO at Fumma LTD, noted during TIME TO WIN: “Google PPC works best for sports-focused campaigns because it captures high-intent users actively searching for event-related queries, allowing precise targeting, scalable volume, and strong conversion rates compared to other channels.”
Users searching for specific matches, teams, or betting odds usually show much stronger intent than broader tournament audiences. This makes search traffic particularly valuable during major sports events.
Sports traffic extends beyond the final match
Many affiliates think that sports traffic disappears once the final whistle blows. This is a mistake.
As Fumma LTD noted during TIME TO WIN, sports-driven audiences typically remain valuable for several weeks after the event. The company continues working with these users through retargeting, promoting upcoming matches, and using CRM campaigns to drive repeat engagement and increase lifetime value.
Fumma LTD also highlighted conversion rate (CR), earnings per click (EPC), and player lifetime value (LTV) as some of the key metrics for evaluating traffic quality and long-term profitability in sports-focused campaigns.
For affiliate teams, this creates opportunities beyond a single tournament window. Large finals still generate the biggest traffic peaks, but audience activity often continues into the following match cycles as well.
Using the 2026 Calendar to manage niche traffic
With so many tournaments running back-to-back in 2026, the main difficulty is managing multiple campaigns at once. Content creation, publishing, and ad buying must happen simultaneously.
To help with this, Boomerang Partners launched the Sports Marketing & Betting Calendar 2026. This tool gathers major leagues, global tournaments, and niche events in one place.
For teams like Paradise Media, this centralized schedule solved a major workflow problem. As the company noted during TIME TO WIN, football still accounts for more than 80% of online sports betting activity, so having all World Cup match days, groups, and teams in one place helps speed up research and campaign preparation. To make their workflow faster, the team also combines the calendar with different AI and LLM tools to gather information and cross-check with the calendar to enrich their content, said Mehdi, Director of Affiliates at Paradise Media.
Niche sports also play an important role during quieter periods between major football tournaments. They may not generate the same traffic volume as top leagues, but they help affiliates maintain publishing activity and keep audiences engaged throughout the year.
For many teams, this is no longer just about traffic volume. Covering niche events also helps build authority and positions affiliate platforms as more consistent sports sources outside the biggest football peaks.
A structured calendar always beats reaction
The main takeaway from the market is simple: sports marketing is no longer about quick reactions. 2026 requires good coordination, pre-made content, and smart scheduling across overlapping tournament cycles.
The strongest affiliate teams are already moving toward structured, calendar-based strategies where preparation starts weeks before kick-off and continues well beyond the final match.
About Boomerang
Boomerang Partners is a rapidly growing global marketing agency offering a wide range of services. Boomerang Partners is an Official Regional Partner of AC Milan. In 2024, it launched the inaugural Golden Boomerang Awards – a global tournament for affiliate teams. More than 400 affiliate teams participated in the second season of the tournament in 2025. Partners of the Agency launched six new products in 2024-2025, contributing to a nearly 1.5-fold increase in product users.
The Agency’s clients’ portfolio contains 10+ brands offering affiliate and entertainment services across multiple markets in compliance with local regulations. These products provide incentive programs and 24/7 multilingual support.
FIFA World Cup and other third companies are made for descriptive purposes only. Boomerang Partners is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially connected to these entities in any way.
The post Boomerang Partners’ case study: how affiliates prepare traffic campaigns around major sports events appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
Boomerang Partners
Boomerang Partners’ case study: how affiliates prepare traffic campaigns around major sports events
On June 11, the FIFA World Cup 2026 starts in North America. It will be the biggest sports event of the year, but the real challenge for affiliates is the rest of the schedule. Throughout 2026, dozens of major tournaments – from football and tennis to Formula 1 – are running almost back-to-back across the sports calendar. This creates one of the most overloaded sports calendars affiliates have worked with in recent years.
Periods like these usually bring some of the highest traffic volumes and strongest audience engagement of the year for affiliate teams.
But data from Boomerang Partners shows that old tactics no longer work. You cannot just launch a campaign on match day and expect good results. Today, teams have to plan their traffic and content weeks before the first game begins.
Regular leagues create more stable traffic
The pressure of this busy schedule became clear during the recent TIME TO WIN affiliate tournament, organized by Boomerang Partners. The project became a live test for different traffic strategies during major events.
The tournament highlighted one clear pattern. Teams like Fumma LTD pointed to the UEFA Champions League and the English Premier League as some of the most reliable traffic drivers. This approach gives affiliates several advantages:
- Fixed schedules make it easier to prepare content and distribute traffic across several tournament stages.
- Recurring match cycles help teams plan campaign timing and prioritize key fixtures well before kick-off.
The real problem in sports is overlapping events. Several big tournaments now run simultaneously across different regions and time zones.
For sports-focused affiliates, this means competing for the same audience attention at the same time. In many cases, the audiences overlap as well. If two major match cycles collide, teams have to choose quickly where to push traffic. Otherwise, they will lose their visibility entirely.
Campaigns must start before kick-off
The timeline for traffic preparation has completely changed. Affiliate teams increasingly start campaign preparation long before the opening match. By the time the live event starts, much of the preparation work is already done.
Preparation now involves several steps. Content teams need to prepare match materials in advance, and media buyers must schedule traffic around the most important fixtures and play-offs.
During the live match, there is no time to fix mistakes. Audiences move too fast between different games. This is especially true when several big matches happen on the same day. If a campaign fails at kick-off, fixing it on the fly is almost impossible.
This is why arbitrage remains one of the strongest sources for sports campaigns. As Sanan Kamilli, CBO at Fumma LTD, noted during TIME TO WIN: “Google PPC works best for sports-focused campaigns because it captures high-intent users actively searching for event-related queries, allowing precise targeting, scalable volume, and strong conversion rates compared to other channels.”
Users searching for specific matches, teams, or betting odds usually show much stronger intent than broader tournament audiences. This makes search traffic particularly valuable during major sports events.
Sports traffic extends beyond the final match
Many affiliates think that sports traffic disappears once the final whistle blows. This is a mistake.
As Fumma LTD noted during TIME TO WIN, sports-driven audiences typically remain valuable for several weeks after the event. The company continues working with these users through retargeting, promoting upcoming matches, and using CRM campaigns to drive repeat engagement and increase lifetime value.
Fumma LTD also highlighted conversion rate (CR), earnings per click (EPC), and player lifetime value (LTV) as some of the key metrics for evaluating traffic quality and long-term profitability in sports-focused campaigns.
For affiliate teams, this creates opportunities beyond a single tournament window. Large finals still generate the biggest traffic peaks, but audience activity often continues into the following match cycles as well.
Using the 2026 Calendar to manage niche traffic
With so many tournaments running back-to-back in 2026, the main difficulty is managing multiple campaigns at once. Content creation, publishing, and ad buying must happen simultaneously.
To help with this, Boomerang Partners launched the Sports Marketing & Betting Calendar 2026. This tool gathers major leagues, global tournaments, and niche events in one place.
For teams like Paradise Media, this centralized schedule solved a major workflow problem. As the company noted during TIME TO WIN, football still accounts for more than 80% of online sports betting activity, so having all World Cup match days, groups, and teams in one place helps speed up research and campaign preparation. To make their workflow faster, the team also combines the calendar with different AI and LLM tools to gather information and cross-check with the calendar to enrich their content, said Mehdi, Director of Affiliates at Paradise Media.
Niche sports also play an important role during quieter periods between major football tournaments. They may not generate the same traffic volume as top leagues, but they help affiliates maintain publishing activity and keep audiences engaged throughout the year.
For many teams, this is no longer just about traffic volume. Covering niche events also helps build authority and positions affiliate platforms as more consistent sports sources outside the biggest football peaks.
A structured calendar always beats reaction
The main takeaway from the market is simple: sports marketing is no longer about quick reactions. 2026 requires good coordination, pre-made content, and smart scheduling across overlapping tournament cycles.
The strongest affiliate teams are already moving toward structured, calendar-based strategies where preparation starts weeks before kick-off and continues well beyond the final match.
About Boomerang
Boomerang Partners is a rapidly growing global marketing agency offering a wide range of services. Boomerang Partners is an Official Regional Partner of AC Milan. In 2024, it launched the inaugural Golden Boomerang Awards – a global tournament for affiliate teams. More than 400 affiliate teams participated in the second season of the tournament in 2025. Partners of the Agency launched six new products in 2024-2025, contributing to a nearly 1.5-fold increase in product users.
The Agency’s clients’ portfolio contains 10+ brands offering affiliate and entertainment services across multiple markets in compliance with local regulations. These products provide incentive programs and 24/7 multilingual support.
FIFA World Cup and other third companies are made for descriptive purposes only. Boomerang Partners is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially connected to these entities in any way.
The post Boomerang Partners’ case study: how affiliates prepare traffic campaigns around major sports events appeared first on Americas iGaming & Sports Betting News.
-
Australia5 days agoFormer Star Entertainment Executives Mathias Bekier and Paula Martin Disqualified and Ordered to Pay Penalties
-
CFTC6 days ago
Novig Secures CFTC Designation, Bringing the First Prediction Market Built for Sports Fans Nationwide
-
LatAm6 days ago
Innovative payment solutions provider teams up with leading LATAM fintech platform to expand digital wallet access for online betting customers in Mexico
-
Alberta7 days ago
Why Alberta Represents the Next Major Growth Opportunity for Gaming Operators
-
Alberta6 days ago
MediaTroopers lines up eight operator partners ahead of Alberta launch
-
Alina Mihaela Popa Chief Commercial Officer at ICONIC216 days ago
ICONIC21 launches live casino and RNG titles with Maxbet in Romania
-
Aviator Studio7 days ago
Aviator Studio Secures Significant Legal Victory in Brazil as Federal Court Suspends Spribe’s Aviator Trademark Rights
-
ATG6 days ago
ATG Casino player in Sweden wins €2m jackpot powered by EveryMatrix
