Jo Dennis, Chief Commercial Officer at Incline Gaming Marketing, on why service providers need to evolve their offerings in line with the ever-changing demands of the marketThe global online gambling industry is fast-moving, with revolution and evolution constantly driving things forward. The pace of change is reflected in the transitions operators and suppliers have gone through, not only since the inception of the industry, but just in the last few years.

This change can also be seen in the different service providers supporting operators and suppliers, and this includes marketing and creative agencies such as Incline Gaming Marketing.

Where once agencies would specialise in one or two areas, such as SEO or creative, in today’s highly competitive market, they have had to become full-service. And this is the approach we have taken at Incline Gaming Marketing.

We also ensured that we are more than just a service provider, and very much become an embedded partner in the business if that’s the level of support required.

Advertisement

Since being founded by industry veteran Peter Laverick back in 2020, we’ve added services organically and through acquisition (including the takeover of Random Colour Animal in 2024) to become a full-service digital marketing and creative partner focused exclusively on the regulated gambling industry.

We are not just a supplier of campaigns or assets; we run marketing operations end to end for our partners, functioning as part of their in-house team.

Our expertise covers everything from branding and web development to SEO, user acquisition and CRM, making us a one-stop shop for operators looking to launch brands or build even more equity in their current brand assets.

We break these services down into three connected disciplines that together form a complete managed marketing service. Let’s take a closer look at them.

Advertisement

User acquisition:

We plan, execute and optimise campaigns across Meta, Google, TikTok, Snapchat, Apple and programmatic networks, managing multi-million-dollar budgets. In fact, we’ve handled more than $75m in ad spend over the years.

As an approved Facebook Business Partner, we’ve been rated the most effective media buyer in North America’s online gaming sector, achieving a 99.9% efficiency score.

Our approach combines data-driven precision with creative excellence to acquire high-value players who fuel the entire customer ecosystem. It includes data-driven targeting, omni-channel execution, AI-enhanced optimisation, creative integration and real-time reporting.

Why does this approach work so well? Because more than 90% of sports betting handle in states like New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan comes from online and mobile channels, and this makes mobile-first UA execution absolutely essential.

Advertisement

This trend isn’t unique to North America. Regulated markets continue to grow at pace: in Q1 2025, Great Britain’s online GGY rose 7% year-over-year to £1.45bn, led by slots revenue of £689m and record player activity. In 2024 overall, the UK’s online market delivered £6.5bn in GGY, up 2.8% year-over-year, despite tighter controls.

As markets expand, the opportunity grows too, and in our experience, personalised advertising can deliver a 5–8x ROI on spend and lift sales by more than 10%. It also allows operators to test and optimise creatives weekly, allowing them to achieve up to 50% higher CTRs compared to static creative sets.

Customer relationship marketing:

Our CRM specialists handle the full player lifecycle from onboarding and first-time deposit conversion to long-term retention and reactivation. We combine data-led segmentation with targeted offers and creative to grow lifetime value while controlling bonus spend.

Advertisement

Our approach includes lifecycle engagement, with carefully crafted personalised journeys that increase retention, reduce churn and maximise LTV, segmentation and targeting, multi-channel communication, real-time triggers and performance analysis.

This is a powerful combination and approach driven by real-time CRM interactions that can outperform scheduled campaigns by up to 50% in terms of immediate revenue uplift.

What’s more, players acquired via referral programs can have a 25% higher retention and LTV compared to organic or paid channels. Finally, personalised retention campaigns can reduce churn by up to 15% and boost repeat purchase frequency by up to 20%.

Creative:

Advertisement

Incline Gaming Marketing is a creative machine, producing more than 1,000 assets per month from brand identities and websites to broadcast-quality TV sports, slot game creatives, supplier content packs and conference materials.

We combine seasoned industry expertise with AI-powered tools and processes to execute at scale, delivering hyper-personalised, dynamically optimised campaigns that drive measurable results. Our weekly “best performer” analysis ensures fresh, data-based creative iterations that keep campaigns competitive in any and every market.

Our approach also takes in performance-driven design, data-led insights, AI-enhanced production, access to a creative library with more than 5,000 casino ad creatives tested for performance marketing, plus multi-format capability.

This approach is proven to work because personalised creative delivers up to 5x higher conversion rates compared to static, non-targeted creatives, while A/B testing assets can improve CTR by up to 50% and significantly extend campaign longevity.

We also know that creative refreshes can reduce cost-per-acquisition by up to 30% in performance-driven campaigns.

Advertisement

These have been our core service offerings for some time now, but given the ever-changing landscape, we have recently expanded into SEO and affiliate program management so that we can continue to support our partners in all aspects of their digital marketing and creative work.

When our partners win, we win – a saying that applies to the global online gambling industry. And that’s why at Incline, we never stand still and are always moving with the fast-slow of the sector, specifically when it comes to how our partners acquire and retain high-value customers at scale.

International holding PIN-UP Global is scaling up to become the RedCore business group. This move will enable the holding, which specialises in developing technological solutions for the iGaming industry, to realise its ambitious plans for expansion into new markets.

RedCore is an international business group that creates technological solutions for digital markets. Over the years, the company has expanded beyond iGaming and transformed into a diversified business group that operates far outside the confines of a single industry. RedCore has a well-structured management model and a strategic focus on growth. Our products and services cover fintech, marketing, e-commerce, customer service, communications and regulatory technologies. The business group develops applied solutions that help businesses scale, optimize processes, reduce costs, and meet the demands of highly regulated markets.

“Throughout our growth, it became clear that our potential goes far beyond a single industry. Currently, we bring together expertise and technology in various areas of digital business. iGaming remains a part of our experience — but now it’s just one of the areas where we innovate and drive progress,”— Marina Ilina, CEO and founder of the business group commented.

RedCore will be presented for the first time at the SBC Summit to be held on 16 to 18 September 2025 in Lisbon, at stand D185, where the business group will present its portfolio of B2B products and solutions.

Advertisement

RedCore retains the core operating principles that made PIN-UP Global a market leader. The business group remains true to its philosophy of leadership and constant progress, deep expertise in every area of activity, synergy and teamwork. Its focus on results and principles of open, honest communication with partners and employees remain unchanged.

The restructuring to RedCore opens new horizons of cooperation for existing and potential partners. The business group is ready to offer comprehensive technological solutions that go beyond traditional industry boundaries.

Live casino’s rise has been meteoric, but the recent slowdown at the top end of the market suggests the next phase of growth won’t come from scale alone. As the sector matures, Ady Totah, CEO at LuckyStreak, explains why agility, hands-on management and a sharper product focus are fast becoming the new competitive edge.

There is a perception that the biggest live casino providers are the most capable. Is bigger always better?

It’s easy to assume that the biggest brands automatically deliver the best service, but with scale comes complexity. For larger organisations, adding new features or reacting to a regulatory update can take weeks or even months, especially when decisions span multiple time zones or teams have long approval chains.

Advertisement

At LuckyStreak, while we’re an established business with a large, dedicated workforce at our live dealer studio in Riga, our management team remains intentionally small and hands-on. In many ways, we operate more like a start-up, with fast, focused leadership at the core.

Myself and my co-founder Erez Cywier are closely involved in the day-to-day operations. This proximity shortens decision making processes, speeds up product assessments and empowers us to act quickly. We’re not tied down by long-winded protocols or bureaucracy.

A perfect example of this agility came when we saw an opportunity in the growing sweepstakes market. We already had the foundations but needed to adapt quickly. In just one quarter, we delivered compliant user interfaces, multi-coin virtual currency systems and configured both our own live games and third-party content to meet the unique needs of the sweepstakes audience. This is the kind of rapid pivot that is only possible when your decision-makers are hands-on.

How do boutique providers keep product planning sharp and strategic?

Advertisement

Knowing what matters and prioritising ruthlessly is what allows smaller providers to remain competitive in the market, when faced with more established, Tier 1 names. Speed, however, does not mean shortcuts.

We are sharpening our performance across the board and ensuring our roadmap gives us the flexibility to act when new opportunities arise. Effective product planning is all about focus. That means tuning out the industry noise, resisting trends for the sake of trends, and asking: what delivers real impact for our partners?

While some companies struggle under the weight of large and inflexible roadmaps, we have the luxury of being selective in what we build, and that makes our product roadmap  more actionable, more tailored and therefore more valuable to our partners.

How can providers keep up with rising regulatory pressures?

Advertisement

Operating across multiple jurisdictions means navigating a complicated patchwork of compliance frameworks, licensing rules and technical standards quickly.

Compliance is not a support function, but a core part of the business. For larger businesses, these regulatory changes may present disruptions, but our size and structure allow us to react quickly and stay ahead of the curve, without compromising on quality.

To maintain both speed and quality, we moved from traditional Agile sprints to a continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) model. Instead of bundling releases every two weeks, we push updates multiple times a week. This means we can react quickly to feedback, ship improvements faster, and keep our platform evolving without unnecessary delays.

Why is a more focused approach the future of live casino?

Advertisement

The criteria for what operators need from their live casino provider is changing. Reliability, flexibility, speed and compliance support are becoming just as, if not more, important than table count. We design everything with these qualities in mind, and we back that up with a strong culture of ownership and continuous delivery. This mindset allows us to innovate quickly, without sacrificing the robustness our partners expect.

In this new landscape, being lean, focused and responsive isn’t a limitation. In live casino, a genre requiring significant on-going operational investment, the providers that thrive are not always the biggest, but the smartest and the ones who can adapt fastest.