Kaizen Gaming secured a total of three awards, including Innovation in Sports Betting and Best Native App for the second consecutive year.

 Kaizen Gaming, one of the world’s biggest GameTech companies and owner of the Betano online sports betting and gaming brand, has been honoured with three awards at the prestigious EGR Marketing and Innovation Awards 2025, held in London on June 19^th. Kaizen Gaming was awarded with “Brand of the Year – B2C” for its premium brand, Betano, “Innovation in Sports Betting” and “Best Native App”.

The past year has been especially significant for Betano which unveiled a new brand identity, brought to life globally through sponsorships of major international football tournaments, such as the UEFA EURO 2024™, the CONMEBOL Copa America™️ 2024, the UEFA Europa League and the UEFA Conference League, alongside prominent local competitions, like Brasileirão Betano (Campeonato Brasileiro Série A) and Torneo Betano (the Argentine Primera División).

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Furthermore, the award victories in the “Innovation in Sports Betting” and “Best Native App” categories highlight Kaizen Gaming’s ongoing commitment to customer-centric innovation, delivering highly engaging gameplay and mobile-first experiences that continue to set new industry standards. Notably, this is the second consecutive year that Kaizen Gaming has been distinguished for developing the “Best Native App”, a testament to the excellence of its in-house technology, product, and innovation teams.

Pablo Puertas, Marketing Director of Kaizen Gaming said: “The past year has been a defining one for Betano. We didn’t just refresh our visual identity; we reinforced Betano as a modern, premium and trusted brand, radiating confidence, playfulness, and artistic flair. Through bold 360° campaigns and landmark sponsorships we connected with millions of people in meaningful, localized ways.

But this is more than branding. It reflects our broader commitment to delivering the best, most innovative, and most responsible gaming experiences possible. Winning ‘Best Native App’ once again, as well as ‘Innovation in Sports Betting’ shows that we are pretty successful at it. We are now at a stage where we can confidently say that Betano is a truly premium global player, able to compete for leadership in any given market. A big thank you to the award organizers, but more importantly to the ‘Kaizeners’, who are the driving force behind our success”.

Building on last year’s momentum, the first half of 2025 has been a remarkable period for Kaizen Gaming and Betano, highlighted by multiple high-profile global sponsorships – including the most recent partnership with FIFA for the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™ for South America and the long-term principal and front-of-shirt partnership with Club Atlético River Plate.

The EGR Marketing & Innovation Awards reward the most innovative and creative companies in the online gaming industry, celebrating commercial success, game-changing innovation, leading customer service and marketing prowess over the past 12 months. This year’s ceremony took place at The Mermaid, London, on 19^th June 2025, and was hosted by Greek comedian George Zach.

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The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and International Tennis Federation (ITF) published the first-ever season-wide report outlining the scale of abuse directed at players on social media — and are calling on the gambling industry to more effectively tackle those responsible.

The report findings are taken from Signify Group’s Threat Matrix service, which went live in January 2024, protecting players and tennis family members from targeted online hate, as well as threatening and violent direct communication. Utilising AI and human analysts — including risk and fixated threat assessment experts — the service operates across all the major social media platforms in over 40 languages. All players competing in WTA Tour and ITF World Tennis Tour events (and WTA and ITF players competing in the four Grand Slams) — c8300 players — are automatically covered by the service.

Between January to December 2024,1.6 million posts and comments were analysed by Threat Matrix AI. Analysts then verified c8000 posts/comments sent from 4200 accounts as abusive, violent or threatening. Action has been taken against the most serious and prolific of these, including 15 accounts escalated to law enforcement. During the year, 458 players were targeted with direct abuse or threat, five players received 26% of the total abuse identified, while 97 prolific accounts were responsible for 23% of all detected abuse.

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Given the evidence highlighted by Threat Matrix, the tennis bodies now call for a constructive dialogue with the gambling industry to tackle the individuals that engage in prolific or highly threatening online abuse connected to sports betting.

Prolific Abuse and Angry Gamblers

• Angry gamblers sent 40% of all detected abuse across the year

• 10 prolific accounts [majority being angry gambler related] were responsible for 12% of all abuse — of these, nine have either been suspended, posts permanently deleted by the platform or the user has removed their post(s)

• Details of 39 account holders (majority angry gambler related) who sent prolific abuse have been shared with the tennis authorities and betting industry for further action

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• The most prolific abusive account sent 263 abusive messages.

Action

• 15 cases of egregious and highly threatening abuse have been investigated and evidence provided to law enforcement for assessment and action — four related to Grand Slams, one from the Paris Olympic Games and 10 were from across the tours

• Of the 15 cases, three have been submitted to the FBI and 12 to other national law enforcement bodies

• Relevant account details have been shared with event security teams (both Tours and Grand Slams) to ban these individuals from access to venues and rescind tickets. This has also included threats to men’s and women’s players detected by Threat Matrix during Grand Slam events.

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Direct Abuse Communication Support

The Threat Matrix service also includes support for players who receive direct abuse, threat and inappropriate communication via DMs, email and letter. Players use a designated email address to share relevant content, enabling Threat Matrix to conduct threat assessment, provide direct player advice and liaise with security bodies to manage risk.

During 2024, 56 reports of concerning communication were received from 28 players, the vast majority coming in the final quarter of the year due to heightened awareness of the service. Angry gamblers made up the vast majority of direct abuse (77%) — at a higher level compared to open-source social media (40%) — as abusers seek to cause direct emotional distress to players following lost bets. Player reported direct abuse has continued to rise in 2025 as players and agents become more aware of the support service.

Social Media Moderation

To further reduce hateful and abusive content targeting players, the WTA and ITF are also enhancing the existing Threat Matrix service to include social media moderation. Moderation allows online toxicity to be hidden or removed in real time across the majority of Social Media platforms. The service will automatically deploy across WTA and ITF official social media channels and be available to all tour players on request. The service will go live in the coming weeks.

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A spokesperson for the WTA and ITF said: “Protecting players and the wider tennis family from vile online threat and abuse is a key priority for us. Today’s report covering the first year of the Threat Matrix service shows the scale of the problem and, crucially, the actions being taken to protect our athletes. From law enforcement escalation and platform intervention to banning abusers from our events, perpetrators must understand that they will face consequences for their actions.

“Given the clear evidence highlighted by Threat Matrix on the link between angry gamblers and prolific online abuse and threat, we are calling for a constructive dialogue with the gambling industry to help tackle this issue. Everyone — betting operators, social media platforms, governing bodies, players and law enforcers — has a responsibility to make the online space a safer and more positive one. We hope the gambling industry responds constructively to our call for more action on their part.”

Jessica Pegula, Member of the WTA Players’ Council, said: “Online abuse is unacceptable, and something that no player should have to endure. I welcome the work that the WTA and ITF are doing with Threat Matrix to identify and take action against the abusers, whose behavior is so often linked to gambling. But it’s not enough on its own. It’s time for the gambling industry and social media companies to tackle the problem at its source and act to protect everyone facing these threats.”

Jonathan Hirshler, CEO of Signify Group, said: “This unique dataset, covering all players across international tennis tours and Grand Slams, illustrates that a relatively small number of accounts are responsible for a significant proportion of prolific abuse and trolling. While this is deeply distressing for the athletes targeted, it means that we are able to be even more focused working with the platforms to ensure successful take down, support the tennis bodies to drive law enforcement intervention for the most egregious accounts and work with event security teams to ensure prolific abusers are unable to attend tournaments. This action-orientated approach underpins the Threat Matrix service.”