Latest News
Entain Opens New-Look Digital Shops across UK & Europe
Retail to have a more contemporary, digital feel
Entain, the global sports betting and gaming entertainment operator, has embarked on a digitization initiative across its retail business, converting a core of shops in key locations across both the UK and Europe into contemporary, digital, spaces to enhance the omni-channel experience for customers.
The retail makeover will initially apply to Entain shops in the UK and Italy across the Ladbrokes, Coral and Eurobet brands. In both countries, Entain has run successful trials of new, more contemporary store design and formats more closely aligned to customers’ online experience.
“Entain is a global online operator, but we are focused on delivering a great local experience for our customers. This investment allows us to give a more immersive and joined up online omni-channel experience to our customers” said Rob Wood, CFO and Deputy Chief Executive of Entain.
“Since high streets re-opened, our retail customers have returned in large numbers which reflects the continued demand from customers for an engaging in-shop experience,” he added. This digital makeover of shops, together with ongoing investments into our industry leading tech platform and £100m of innovation investment over the next 3 years, are important drivers of our future growth.”
Since the re-opening of retail, Entain has opened 18 new digital hubs across the UK and plans to have a total of 30 new-style Ladbrokes and Coral shops open by the end of the year in cities including Leeds, Birmingham, London, Portsmouth, Sunderland, Wolverhampton, Newcastle, Dumfries and Leicester. The aim is for 200 UK digital stores by the end of 2024.
The move will provide a welcome boost to many high streets and town centres in both Italy and the UK. In the UK alone The British Retail Consortium recently noted that more than one in seven shops are now vacant (*), rising to one in five in particularly hard-hit parts of the country.
“Our shops are at the heart of local communities and employ around 13,000 people across the country,” said Andy Hicks, Entain Retail MD for the UK and Ireland. “We want to bring the experiences customers have with us online into our shops, also making them more digital and contemporary environments. We want to offer local customers a place to socialize, enjoy sports, bet and play games in a relaxed and enjoyable way.”
Initially UK stores being converted into digital hubs contain the latest gaming machines, and interactive displays, giving customers a more engaging and dynamic experience as well as more choice of interactive sports and gaming content. In both Italy and the UK, the converted stores have digital window displays and additional interior screens which allow live events and new promotions to be shared with customers across retail locations.
In Italy, where Entain’s retail outlets operate under the Eurobet brand, the Group also plans to convert around 200 shops and plans to have the first 30 locations open by the end of this year. These include a number of “Eurobet Cafes”, which offer customers a new place to meet and socialize with friends.
“This is all about offering a different and more distinctive experience to new and existing customers, “said Andrea Faelli, Managing Director of Entain, Italy. “We want to move from simply offering betting shops to hosting spaces in town centres where people can come to have a good time, which may or may not include having a bet.”
All the initiatives are powered by Entain’s proprietary technology, which has the benefit of making the digital and retail experiences more similar for customers and being scalable internationally to other locations.
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Boomerang Partners
Overtime begins: Boomerang Partners launches the final stage of the Golden Boomerang Awards 2026
The Golden Boomerang Awards 2026 by Boomerang Partners is moving into its decisive phase. The third and final stage of the tournament – titled “Overtime” – will run from 20 July to 31 August. It marks the last opportunity for participants to reshape the leaderboard and compete for the season’s main prize – an exclusive private dinner with a football legend in September 2026.
Overtime mechanics: points allocation
To intensify competition during the final stretch, Boomerang Partners is introducing an updated scoring system. From now on, affiliate teams will earn 3 points for every FTD generated on any partner brand from the Agency’s clients’ portfolio. In the previous stage, participants received 3 points for each sports FTD and 1 point for each online casino FTD. Now, the value of all FTDs is identical.
Overtime mechanics: performance boosts
Within the Overtime stage of the Golden Boomerang Awards 2026, a set of performance boosts remains active. These mechanics give participating teams the opportunity not only to catch up but also to overtake the leaders.
- Welcome Boost – x2 points for the first 14 days after entering the stage
- Lucky Five – +5 points for achieving 10 Casino FTDs per week
- Last Minutes Winner – x3 points during the final 7 days of Overtime
Martin Černý, CEO at Boomerang Partners said: “Overtime brings the Golden Boomerang Awards 2026 to its most competitive stage. At this point in the tournament, every result can influence the leaderboard, and teams still have the opportunity to improve their positions. We expect the final weeks to bring strong competition and determine the final standings.”
A final stretch where every day counts
With fewer than 40 days left in the GBA 2026, the competition enters its most volatile phase. The leaderboard remains open, and even small performance shifts can significantly alter final standings. Participants are now entering a stage where strategy, timing, and consistent activity define the outcome – and where the final push may determine the season’s ultimate winner.
Overtime has begun. TIME TO WIN THE TITLE.
About Boomerang
Boomerang Partners is a rapidly growing global marketing agency offering a wide range of services. 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. Martin Černý – Boomerang Partners’ CEO since June 2025.
The Agency’s clients’ portfolio contains brands offering affiliate and entertainment services across multiple markets in compliance with local regulations. These products provide incentive programs and 24/7 multilingual support.
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GR8_TECH
The World Cup Is Over. GR8_TECH Opens “The Locker Room” to Count What It Was Worth
The trophy has been lifted. Now comes the most interesting part for operators: counting the revenue, assessing what worked, learning from what didn’t, and deciding what to change before the next betting event.
On Thursday, August 20, at 4:00 p.m. CEST, GR8_TECH will host “The Locker Room: World Cup Numbers”, a closed-door benchmarking session created to help operators make sense of their tournament results and see how their performance stacked up against the room and the wider market.
Led by Dinos Doxiadis, Head of Sportsbook Business at GR8_TECH, the session will combine anonymized benchmarks with in-depth post-World Cup platform data on margin, player behavior, retention, and peak-load performance. It isn’t a tournament recap, but a working session built around deeper analysis than GR8_TECH releases publicly.
A First Look at the World Cup Numbers
Initial aggregated data from the GR8_TECH platform shows an average tournament margin of over 12%, alongside a significant increase in staking during the knockout stages.
Average stakes during the play-offs were 53% higher than during the group stage, while the average stake on the final was 89% above the tournament average.
Player interest was highly concentrated. Matches featuring Spain, Argentina, England, or France generated 42% of the total World Cup turnover. Argentina was the tournament’s most-bet-on team, accounting for 12.5% of all bets, although Spain finished only 0.09 percentage points behind Argentina by turnover.
The final also created one of the tournament’s most demanding operational moments. Within one minute of the final whistle, GR8_TECH’s platform settled more than half a million bets, demonstrating the level of processing performance required when a global audience reaches the same outcome simultaneously.
Inside The Locker Room, participants will examine what happened across:
- Live betting and bet builders
- Margin and staking dynamics
- Peak-load and settlement moments
- Acquisition compared with player reactivation
- Retention beyond the final whistle
- Unexpected geographic performance
- Operational, product, and campaign failures
- Priorities for the next major event
“The World Cup generates a huge amount of data, but the value comes from understanding what sits behind it,” said Dinos Doxiadis, Head of Sportsbook Business at GR8_TECH. “This session is about identifying the patterns operators might miss in their own reporting, challenging assumptions, and turning one month of World Cup activity into better decisions for future events.”
See How Your World Cup Stacked Up
Leave the session with anonymized benchmarks, exclusive GR8_TECH platform insights, and a clear view of where your World Cup performance led—or lagged—the market.
Turn the lessons into your next strategy. Join The Locker Room: World Cup Numbers on Thursday, August 20, at 4:00 p.m. CEST.
Register here to secure your place.
GR8_TECH. Platform for Champions
GR8_TECH is an award-winning provider, delivering high-performance sportsbook and iGaming solutions that empower operators to lead and win in competitive markets. GR8_TECH’s comprehensive portfolio includes the GREAT_TURNKEY and GREAT_CRYPTO TURNKEY solutions, GREAT_SPORTSBOOK, and GREAT_CASINO AGGREGATION.
With a geo-specific approach to solutions, a focus on practical innovations, and an operator-first mindset, GR8_TECH helps its clients achieve measurable results in their target markets quickly and efficiently. Trusted by top operators worldwide, GR8_TECH has over 100 successful cases and earned multiple recognitions, including the title of Platform Provider of the Year by SBC Awards 2025.
The post The World Cup Is Over. GR8_TECH Opens “The Locker Room” to Count What It Was Worth appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
ELA Games
ELA Games launches Age of Cleopatra slot with Hold & Win bonus
ELA Games has released a new slot, Age of Cleopatra, adding another ancient-Egypt theme title to its portfolio. The studio positions the game as a medium-volatility release and says it is available to demo now.
Age of Cleopatra runs on a 5×3 reel set-up with 25 paylines. ELA Games lists RTP at 93.75% / 95.73%, with Buy Bonus RTP at 93.8% / 95.9%. The maximum win is x5000, according to the company.
In the base game, a Collect Symbol gathers coin prizes visible on the screen, while “colored coins” charge pyramids that can unlock additional value, ELA Games said. The slot’s Hold & Win Bonus Game awards three respins by default (or four in an “Extra Respin” version), with modifiers tied to collected coins.
Features named by the studio include Multipliers, Extra Respins, and an Expand Grid mechanic that increases the layout from 3×5 to 5×5. ELA Games also states that multiple features can trigger at the same time.
“You can’t do justice to a legendary theme with just background art. Building a world around Cleopatra meant it had to feel truly authentic, a standard we apply to all our releases. At ELA Games, we consistently look beyond the visuals to craft an original universe, keeping storytelling through the mechanics at the center of our titles.” Marharyta Yerina, Managing Director at ELA Games.
The post ELA Games launches Age of Cleopatra slot with Hold & Win bonus appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
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