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UNLV’s PGA Golf Management University Program partners with Las Vegas-based AI technology company Evenplay to study the effects of rewards on skill level

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There’s a timeless adage from NBA great Allen Iverson: “Practice?!” But now, almost ironically, AI (that is, Artificial Intelligence) will be helping us replicate big-time pressure in that very scenario.

Evenplay, an AI technology company based out of Las Vegas, has created a patented golf simulator application that creates challenges for all skill levels, with the intention of improving play performance through the use of cash rewards.

“What we have is a machine-learning algorithm that takes all of your shot data and says, ‘What are you going to do next from 175 yards?,’ and creates targets personalized for your skill level with money on the line,” said Sameer Gupta, co-founder of Evenplay. “If you practice with pressure, you’re probably going to get better faster.”

UNLV has partnered with Evenplay, taking on the task of studying the impact of rewards on skill level, and how well this experience translates the gains from practice into practical use on the real course.

“It sounded like a good opportunity to build a relationship and a bridge with this company,” said Chris Cain, director of the PGA Golf Management University Program within UNLV’s Harrah College of Hospitality. “And to see if we can continue to advance off-course golf, improve diversity in the consumer base, and think a little bit differently and daring, which is what UNLV’s all about.” 

Upping the Ante on Research

The ability to create a feedback loop – one where you practice in the same conditions as when something’s on the line – is the goal: replicating the jitters that come from staring down a big putt, and then training yourself to handle the pressure before you step onto the course.

Evenplay does this by paying out money depending on the shot, using rewards as a way to create real stress in a controlled setting.

“What we have is a turn-key stress generator,” said Gupta. “Our model projects a thousand shots from every distance, with a target drawn where about half of your shots should be capable of landing. We’ve taken a skill-based activity and are able to predict what you will do next.”

The study at UNLV uses a more controlled version of the wagers. Randomly selected participants will receive various payouts such as lesson or UNLV Gift certificates based on their group assignments and the level of contributions to the study.

“This is a skill-based gaming application that allows someone to make a bet and have fun doing it,” said Cain. “What we’re doing at UNLV is seeing if the variable payouts influence program retention – do they play longer or more often? Does this also influence skill improvement? Wouldn’t it be cool to have some sort of technology in place that actually uses gaming as a way to positively influence skill improvement?”

The study is made possible through UNLV’s Sports Innovation Institute (SII), and the College of Hospitality’s Center for Golf Management, in collaboration with the university’s International Gaming Institute. The SII acts as a hub for all of the faculty who do research in sports, enabling them to work together to find solutions to problems and advance the commercialization of products fitting that criteria.

“With Evenplay’s expertise, as well as the Sports Innovation and the International Gaming institutes, that trifecta makes for a pretty special partnership here in Las Vegas,” Cain said. “There are thousands of data points in every swing that UNLV is looking forward to analyzing to see if this really changes the way we practice.”

Growing the Game

It’s no secret that the game of golf is expensive and often exclusive. The National Golf Foundation estimates the cost of a full round at a public course in the U.S. was $43 in 2023. That’s just getting on the course. When you add hundreds and thousands of dollars into equipment costs, training, and lessons, the financial barrier to entry becomes quite imposing.

“There are about 120 million people interested in the game and only 45 million participating,” said Cain. “Technology’s going to help close that gap, and being able to take lessons without being on the golf course will be part of the future, making it more inclusive, accessible, and affordable.”

Improving the accessibility of the game is one of the desired outcomes for the research, potentially showing a greater translation of the skills developed in a simulator using Evenplay to the course itself.

“It’s winter right now – nobody’s taking swings on green golf courses in Chicago,” said Gupta. “All of those players are using simulators indoors. We’re growing the amount of people who can engage with golf by changing how often people can meaningfully play the sport at all times of the year.”

Changing the game doesn’t end with golf. The patent for Evenplay features a baseball player swinging a bat, and the plan is to roll into bowling next. Its partnership and ongoing study with UNLV is only expediting the interest in this potential shakeup to the practice session.

“The ability of UNLV to effectively structure a relationship with the PGA is very impressive and unique in the market,” said Gupta. “And bringing that knowledge to a private company like ours is essential to our growth.”

The results of Evenplay’s efficacy in providing measurable improvement to player skill will be shared as the study concludes later this year.

The post UNLV’s PGA Golf Management University Program partners with Las Vegas-based AI technology company Evenplay to study the effects of rewards on skill level appeared first on Gaming and Gambling Industry in the Americas.

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EveryMatrix launches Bonus Guardian to stamp out bonus abuse with AI precision

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EveryMatrix has launched Bonus Guardian, a next-generation AI-powered tool designed to help iGaming operators identify and prevent bonus abuse – one of the industry’s most damaging and rapidly-evolving fraud types.

Developed as part of EveryMatrix’s BonusEngine and EngageSuite stack, Bonus Guardian allows operators to maximise ROI on marketing spend by detecting fraudulent player behaviour before it impacts margins.

The solution uses AI and machine learning to continuously analyse player activity, adapt to new abuse tactics, and apply role-based responses such as bonus exclusion and withdrawal holds.

This ensures legitimate players continue to enjoy a seamless experience without restrictions and limitations, while abusers are stopped in their tracks.

Bonus abuse accounts for more than 63% of all detected fraud according to recent industry data. Fraudsters are increasingly using AI, automation, and synthetic identities to exploit promotional offers, while traditional, rule-based systems have struggled to keep pace.

Operators must also maintain friction-free onboarding and engaging rewards to stay competitive.

Bonus Guardian addresses this directly, offering a context-aware solution that can be integrated with operators’ systems, such as payment processing and player account. Unlike generic anti-fraud platforms, it is designed specifically for bonus abuse scenarios.

It continuously learns from real-time player data, reducing manual workload and false positives, helping operators:

  • Prevent revenue loss by flagging and stopping bonus abuse early
  • Improve segmentation accuracy and player lifetime value
  • Reduce operational friction with intelligent, role-based fraud controls
  • Futureproof operations against evolving fraud mechanisms such as deepfakes, AI-generated accounts, and coordinated abuse rings

Stian Enger, Head of Casino, EveryMatrix, said: “Everyone in iGaming knows about the battle between fraudsters and anti-fraud prevention tools. Each side wants to get ahead of the other, but with Bonus Guardian, we strongly believe we have a definite edge.

“Bonus Guardian is not just another fraud filter. It is a living shield that adapts to everything that is thrown at it thanks to the power of AI.”

The post EveryMatrix launches Bonus Guardian to stamp out bonus abuse with AI precision appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

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Movers and Shakers – From Data to Decisions: What It Really Takes to Make AI Work in iGaming

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“Movers and Shakers” is a dynamic monthly column dedicated to exploring the latest trends, developments, and influential voices in the iGaming industry. Powered by GameOn and supported by HIPTHER, this op-ed series delves into the key players, emerging technologies, and regulatory changes shaping the future of online gaming. Each month, industry experts offer their insights and perspectives, providing readers with in-depth analysis and thought-provoking commentary on what’s driving the iGaming world forward. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or new to the scene, “Movers and Shakers” is your go-to source for staying ahead in the rapidly evolving iGaming landscape. 

 

By Claudia Heiling, Co-Founder & COO, Golden Whale

For years, iGaming has considered itself a data-driven industry. We’ve all spent time refining segmentation, optimising CRM journeys, mapping behavioural signals, and building increasingly complex player models. And with machine learning now widely available, whether bought, built, or borrowed, it would be reasonable to assume that the industry is already fully realising the benefits of AI.

But speak to most operators, product teams, or data leads and you’ll hear a different story.

There are models running somewhere – and usually several. There are predictions being generated. There are dashboards, reports, and insights circulating. Yet the business impact often feels inconsistent. Some initiatives deliver a clear uplift; others stall or never make it past a proof-of-concept stage. Projects that shine in testing environments don’t always translate into live, reliable operations.

The issue is rarely the model. And it’s rarely the data team. The gap is operational.

It’s one thing to build machine learning models. It’s another to make them function as part of the daily working rhythm of an iGaming business.

The operators and providers seeing the strongest and most reliable gains are the ones who treat AI not as an experiment, but as a capability: something that must be designed, deployed, monitored, re-trained, and continuously improved. This is closer to how we already treat core game operations, promotional systems, risk tooling, or CRM orchestration. It’s iterative, structured and ongoing.

In practice, that means building the frameworks around the models, not just the models themselves. Continuous data flows. Automated re-training. Real-time deployment pipelines. Feedback loops that allow systems to learn not just once, but constantly. When we work with iGaming clients who have embraced this operational mindset and leverage our ready-to-deploy MLOps system built for iGaming, the impact becomes both compounding and predictable.

The other shift happening is cultural. There has been a lingering expectation in some corners of the industry that AI will replace manual decision-making entirely and that it will “take over” processes like CRM optimisation, fraud detection, or product adjustment.

That’s neither realistic nor particularly desirable.

iGaming is too contextual, too human, too dependent on craftmanship and intuition.
The real value of AI is in augmentation: giving teams better visibility, faster feedback, and stronger evidence on which to base decisions.

In organisations where this mindset has taken hold, you see a different dynamic.
CRM teams run more experiments, more often, because they aren’t spending time rebuilding segments from scratch. Analysts spend less time on manual spreadsheet simulation and more on strategic exploration. Live-ops managers can respond to player behaviour as it changes, not after the weekly report comes in.

AI becomes the layer that enhances judgement, rather than replaces it.

And when AI is integrated technically and culturally, the commercial outcomes are hard to ignore. In setups where continuous learning pipelines are properly established and aligned with live operations, we’ve seen engagement and retention metrics improve dramatically and sustainably, with activity and revenues rising by 100–200%, while bonus and incentive costs drop by 20%+, driving growth and both securing and expanding market share. Operational teams benefit too, with workflows becoming smoother and less manual because the system is handling the constant data processing and iteration.

The improvements don’t come from having more complex algorithms. They come from having a structure that allows those algorithms to perform reliably, adapt to change, and keep learning over time.

This is where the conversation about AI in iGaming is quietly changing.

It’s no longer dominated by model performance or dataset scale, rather it is focused on repeatability, reliability and learning speed.

The distinction matters because it separates having AI, from running AI.

And the operators and providers who get this right aren’t just improving performance in the short term. They are building organisational momentum, a capability that compounds over time and is very difficult to replicate quickly.

In a sector defined by tight margins, competition and rapidly shifting player expectations, that advantage is significant.

So, if there is a “next step” in the industry’s AI journey, it’s not a more complex algorithm. It’s not a bigger data pool. And it’s not a new suite of predictive dashboards.

It’s the ability to learn continuously, responsibly and at scale.

Because in iGaming, as in intelligence, data alone doesn’t win. What wins is the ability to turn learning into action again and again.

The post Movers and Shakers – From Data to Decisions: What It Really Takes to Make AI Work in iGaming appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

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Xtremepush’s CRM Services Integrated into EveryMatrix Platform

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EveryMatrix global customers now equipped with seamless access to award-winning loyalty and gamification offering

Xtremepush, the leading provider of CRM and loyalty marketing powered by AI, has announced its latest tier one partnership, having agreed a deal to provide acclaimed igaming provider EveryMatrix with its award-winning CRM and loyalty marketing services.

EveryMatrix, leveraging Xtremepush’s varied product suite, will now be able to offer its customers real-time, hyper-personalised CRM and gamification capabilities via its proprietary platform, helping them to drive engagement, increase loyalty, and maximise the lifetime value of all player types in a seamless manner.

Xtremepush leads the market in its unified, holistic approach to data collection, with its Single Customer View built to extract data from all sources in true real-time, providing an individual view of players to deliver a higher standard of omni-channel personalisation and messaging. Coupled with a gamification engine and AI-powered automation and data insights, operators will be able to leverage these revenue-driving tools via their existing integration with EveryMatrix.

Tommy Kearns, CEO and co-founder at Xtremepush, said of the partnership: “EveryMatrix has built a well-earned reputation for being a provider of best-in-class sports betting and gaming solutions for its operator partners, and we’re pleased to bolster their software and services with our first-rate CRM and loyalty solutions.

“Regulated markets are hugely competitive and Xtremepush has proven its worth in optimising and scaling customer’s loyalty engines and processes in these environments to realise greater engagement and ensure maximum lifetime value of players. We’re very confident that we’ll showcase this once again with EveryMatrix, via its clients, and to make them another customer for life.”

Kevin Furlong, Chief Product Officer, EveryMatrix, said: “Alongside our advanced turnkey platform technologies we have always partnered with best-in-class third-party suppliers such as Xtremepush providing added value to our customers.

“Combining our market-leading gaming infrastructure with Xtremepush’s powerful CRM technology will enable our customers to better understand their players, offer them even more personalised experiences and boost loyalty levels to name just a few benefits.”

Following a successful launch phase with EveryMatrix, Xtremepush will make additional services available to the supplier, including its Agentic AI, which will supercharge marketing processes with intent and iteration, allowing related teams to focus on broader strategy and value-driven projects.

The post Xtremepush’s CRM Services Integrated into EveryMatrix Platform appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

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