Latest News

Psychology of Online Casinos vs Land Based, Analysis of 41 Studies Conducted by Leanbackplayer.com

Published

5 years ago

June 25, 2021

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Leanbackplayer has released a summary of new findings on the psychology of gambling and how it affects the brain: https://www.leanbackplayer.com/psychology-casino-games/

The research looked at 41 studies from 17 different journals over the past 5 years and compiled findings from each.

The research was performed by Will Titterington and Quincy Miller, veteran gaming industry professionals.

The Research Findings

Finding #1

Online casinos have built-in advantages that their brick-and-mortar counterparts struggle to match. Online casinos are more convenient, require less overhead to operate, and allow players to gamble in complete anonymity — important advantages that regular casinos will never be able to replicate.

“In online live casino gaming, the anonymity of the internet allows players to privately engage in gambling without the fear of stigma,” said Dr. Mark Griffiths, a Distinguished Professor of Behavioural Addiction at Nottingham Trent University.

Finding #2

The biggest advantage brick-and-mortar casinos have is consumer trust. Despite advances in cybersecurity, many gamblers simply don’t trust online casinos not to rig the games against them. As long as brick-and-mortar casinos have the edge in trust, they’ll likely enjoy a large slice of the gaming market.

Finding #3

Online casinos may be more dangerous for problem gamblers. The ability to gamble at any time, day or night, without any of the traditional societal safeguards that keep problem gamblers in check can be a recipe for disaster.

“Fundamentally, increased accessibility of gambling activities enables the individual to rationalize involvement in the risk-behavior by removing previously restrictive barriers such as time constraints emanating from occupational and social commitments,” Griffiths said.

Finding #4

Gambling utilizes the power of uncertainty to literally reprogram the brain. Gambling changes how the brain releases dopamine, the so-called “feel-good neurotransmitter.” Over time, the brain adjusts to higher and higher doses, reducing its effectiveness, so that gamblers have to play longer and bet more to get the same effect.

According to one study, the release of dopamine reinforces maladaptive gambling, creating a self-perpetuating destructive behavior.

Finding #5

Casinos — both online and brick-and-mortar — are using new technology to exploit players’ brains. Advances in gaming technology — most notably “losses disguised as wins” — are changing how long players gamble and how much they wager, often with catastrophic results.

Finding #6

The root of gambling addiction may lie in the supplementary eye field (SEF), a little-understood region of the brain designed to control the movement of the eyes. People with dopamine deficiencies also experience abnormalities in the SEF, making them more susceptible to addiction.

Researchers investigating monkeys found that increased neuron activity in this region corresponded to increased risk-taking behavior, and a lack of dopamine increased neuron activity, creating a vicious loop.

Finding #7

Problem gamblers fit a troubling profile. Addiction is more likely to affect men, minorities, and those with preexisting health conditions, and the rise of mobile gaming is making it easier for these people to fall into self-destructive patterns.

Prior to internet gambling, many of these vulnerable individuals weren’t affected so long as they didn’t live near a casino; however, the rise of mobile gaming has led to a corresponding rise in problem gambling among these demographics.

Finding #8

The solution to problem gambling may lie in setting limits. If casinos would enforce — and gamblers would adhere to — limits on how much can be wagered or how long sessions can last, problem gambling could be severely curbed.

About Leanbackplayer.com

Leanbackplayer covers global igaming trends, regulations, and news. The Leanbackplayer research team also conducts original surveys and reports that can be found on https://www.leanbackplayer.com/category/news/.

Best Payment Solution

Yaspa wins Best Payment Solution at SBC Awards Europe 2026

Published

3 minutes ago

May 6, 2026

Wladimir P.

yaspa-wins-best-payment-solution-at-sbc-awards-europe-2026

Fintech’s open-banking-based Intelligent Payments pitch focuses on Pay by Bank deposits plus real-time affordability and AML checks.

Yaspa has been named Best Payment Solution at the SBC Awards Europe 2026, held at Xara Lodge in Malta. The company said it won for its Intelligent Payments product, which combines real-time Pay by Bank transactions with AI-driven customer insights and verification.

According to Yaspa, Intelligent Payments is built on open banking infrastructure and uses consented access to real-time player financial data. The company said this enables operators to assess affordability, AML risk and financial vulnerability in under 10 seconds, before funds enter play, while keeping the process “document-free” for most users.

Yaspa CEO James Neville said: “We’re delighted to be recognised as Best Payment Solution at the SBC Awards Europe. This award is particularly meaningful because it reflects the shift we’re seeing across the industry – where payments are no longer just transactional, but a critical point for compliance, insight and player protection.

“By embedding real-time intelligence directly into the deposit flow, we’re helping operators meet evolving regulatory expectations while also delivering a faster, smoother experience for players.”

The company positioned its approach as an alternative to traditional verification, using a single consented bank connection to produce a financial profile that includes income patterns, cash flow volatility and indicators such as overdraft usage. Yaspa also cited structured user testing showing conversion rates of 74% versus around 15% for document-based KYC flows.

Yaspa said its risk intelligence is supported by research with the Behavioural Insights Team, analysing 733 consented open banking datasets to identify markers of gambling harm such as multi-operator activity and clustered deposits, which it said are embedded into its decisioning engine. The company said it is live with UKGC-licensed operators and expanding across Europe.

The post Yaspa wins Best Payment Solution at SBC Awards Europe 2026 appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.

AI

Tugi Tark whitepaper puts AI iGaming support at €0.15 per ticket

Published

1 hour ago

May 6, 2026

Wladimir P.

tugi-tark-whitepaper-puts-ai-igaming-support-at-e0.15-per-ticket

Tugi Tark has released a 2026 whitepaper, The economics of AI-powered iGaming customer support, arguing that AI changes the unit economics of player support and can reduce costs compared with human-led operations.

The report cites “verified pricing” of EUR 0.15 per AI-handled ticket. It compares that with fully loaded employer costs for human support in Romania and Bulgaria of EUR 1.73 to EUR 1.88 per ticket. At a “realistic” 70% AI containment rate, the whitepaper claims a blended cost of about EUR 0.67 per ticket, which it describes as roughly a 64% reduction versus a human-only baseline of EUR 1.88.

Tugi Tark says its analysis draws on Eurostat 2024 labour cost data, published research on AI chatbot benchmarks, independent iGaming player behaviour research, and operational data from its own deployments. The company estimates operators can achieve a 55% to 75% reduction in total support expenditure, and argues AI can absorb volume spikes—such as during major sporting events—without additional hiring or training lag.

Harpo Lilja, founder and CEO of TUgi Tark, said: “In 2026, the ‘wait-and-see’ approach to AI is costing operators millions in unnecessary overhead. We aren’t just talking about chatbots; we’re talking about a fundamental shift in the unit economics of player retention.”

The whitepaper also frames customer support as a retention lever, stating that payment issues account for 52% of ticket volume and that slower response times drive churn. It claims a 0.5 percentage point churn reduction could retain an additional 500 players per month for a mid-sized operator, translating to €200,000 in annual revenue based on an assumed €400 Player Lifetime Value. Tugi Tark also claims AI agents average ~7 seconds for first response versus ~60 seconds for human agents, and outlines use cases across Responsible Gambling escalation, KYC/AML workflows, and GDPR-aligned data sovereignty.

The post Tugi Tark whitepaper puts AI iGaming support at €0.15 per ticket appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.

Gambling

Who Actually Gambles Online in Poland

Published

1 hour ago

May 6, 2026

GamingAmericas.com

Talk to ten people in Warsaw about online gambling and you’ll get ten different reactions. Some shrug it off as a niche hobby. Others swear half their friends bet on football every weekend. The truth, as always, sits somewhere in between — and the data tells a more interesting story than either crowd assumes.

Poland’s online gambling market has grown into one of the most peculiar in Europe. It runs on a state monopoly for casino games, a private licensing system for sports betting, and a stubborn grey market that refuses to disappear. So who is actually placing the bets?

A Market of 20 Million Potential Players

Roughly 20 million Poles take part in some form of gaming entertainment, including both real-money gambling and free-to-play games. That’s a huge slice of a country with just over 38 million people.

The gender split across the broader gaming audience is more even than most assume — roughly 53% male and 47% female. But once you zoom in on real-money online casino and sportsbook play, the picture skews heavily male, particularly in the 25-to-44 age bracket.

The Polish iGaming sector, including casino, sports betting, and lottery, was valued at around PLN 12 billion in 2025, with the casino games segment projected to grow at a compound annual rate of roughly 7% through 2029.

The Core Demographic

Polish researchers have studied online gambling habits for years, and the consistent finding is that e-gambling skews younger than offline gambling. A peer-reviewed study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health identified gender, age, city size, education, and income as significant predictors of online gambling involvement — with men, younger people, and lower-income groups overrepresented.

Mobile is the dominant device. Across Europe, mobile is projected to handle about 58% of online gambling revenue, climbing toward 67% by 2029, according to data from the European Gaming and Betting Association. Poland sits firmly inside that trend.

What Polish Players Actually Play

Lotteries top the list, followed closely by sports betting and, more recently, e-sports and virtual sports wagering. Sports betting is the heartbeat of the legal private market. Around nine private operators currently hold licenses to offer online sports betting, and football dominates the wagering volume.

Online casino is a different story. There is exactly one legal online casino in the country: Total Casino, operated by the state-owned Totalizator Sportowy. Everything else falls into either the offshore grey market or outright illegal territory.

Why Players Look Beyond the Domestic Market

Despite the state monopoly on casino games, Polish players have never stopped exploring alternatives — and many of those alternatives are perfectly legal casino operators licensed elsewhere in the European Union. Under EU principles of free movement of services, Polish-speaking players regularly research casinos licensed in Malta, Estonia, and other EU jurisdictions that hold valid European gambling licenses.

According to the Ministry of Finance, the share of online activity outside the Polish licensing system dropped from 79.7% in 2016 to 29.1% in 2023, with the decline continuing into 2024. Even so, demand for information about EU-licensed alternatives remains strong, and resources like Kasynoonline reflect that interest among Polish-speaking audiences researching their online casino options across the European market.

The reasons players look at EU-licensed platforms haven’t changed much over the years: a wider variety of games, better return-to-player rates, more competitive bonus offers, and the simple fact that Total Casino is one operator in a single-provider domestic market. Players licensed and regulated in Malta, for example, fall under the Malta Gaming Authority — one of the most established gambling regulators in Europe.

Why Poles Gamble Online

Motivations vary by vertical. For sports betting, around 52% of Polish bettors cite the desire to win money as their primary driver — a higher financial-motivation share than in many Western European markets. Online casino players cite different reasons: convenience, game variety, and privacy. With only around 50 land-based casinos in the entire country, online is the only realistic option for many Poles outside major cities.

Not all engagement is healthy. A representative survey of 2,000 Polish adults found that 26.8% of e-gamblers showed signs consistent with problem gambling under the BBGS scale — significantly higher than among gamblers generally.

Age Trends

Globally, the 18-to-24 age group is the fastest-growing online gambling demographic. Poland mirrors that trend. Younger players are more comfortable with offshore platforms, more likely to use crypto deposits, and far more likely to bet on e-sports.

That said, the most lucrative cohort remains the 25-to-44 segment. These players have disposable income, established habits, and tend to wager larger amounts. They’re also more likely to juggle multiple platforms — a legal sports betting account for football, perhaps, alongside an offshore site for slots.

Regulation and the Road Ahead

The market is governed by the Gambling Act of 19 November 2009. Sports betting operators face a 12% turnover tax— one of the highest in Europe — which critics argue is the single biggest factor pushing players offshore. There’s an active discussion about shifting to a gross gaming revenue (GGR) model that would align Poland with most of the EU.

For broader context, Gaming Americas has covered the patchwork of online gambling regulations across Europe and the very different approaches taken by Germany, France, and the UK.

What This Means

Poland presents a familiar paradox: enormous untapped demand sitting next to a regulatory framework that doesn’t quite let the market breathe. The country has the players, the digital infrastructure, and the disposable income. What it doesn’t yet have is a competitive licensing system for online casino games.

The core picture is clear: this is a market dominated by men aged 25 to 44, played mostly on smartphones, motivated heavily by money, and shaped at every turn by a regulatory system still catching up with its players.

The post Who Actually Gambles Online in Poland appeared first on Americas iGaming & Sports Betting News.