Casino Guru wraps up Casino Guru Awards 2024

The Casino Guru Awards 2024 Ceremony, organized by Casino Guru, the leading authority in online gambling, wrapped up Wednesday. The much anticipated and prestigious awards recognize the efforts of operators, content, software and solution developers catering to the iGaming industry toward responsible gambling and making the sector safe for consumers.

Šimon Vincze, Casino Guru's Head of Sustainable & Safer Gambling hosted the Casino Guru Awards Ceremony which was broadcast live online via Casino Guru's official YouTube channel. The prestigious awards helped bring together a list of proven industry professionals who participated in the assessment of the nominees for the awards. Moreover, during the ceremony, Vincze engaged in discussion with the panel of internal and external expert judges who helped determine the winners of the Casino Guru Awards, while also giving the word to representatives of the nominated gaming companies. Not without a surprise, the lucky winners of the Casino Guru Awards also had their say during the recent ceremony.

At the start of the awards, Casino Guru's Head of Sustainable & Safer Gambling thanked partners of the company, including AffPapa, Casino Guru News, Casino Life & Business Magazine, Digital Gaming, The Gamblest, HIPTHER Agency, iGamingFuture, GBC Time, iGaming NEXT and SBC.

The nominations for the Casino Guru Awards 2024 started a few months after the winners of the 2023 edition were announced last February. Nominations for the awards opened on May 15, 2023, and closed on October 31, 2023. In November, Casino Guru announced the list of shortlisted companies and helped gather a range of industry professionals. Those esteemed experts helped analyze the efforts of the nominees against strict criteria. At the same time, they engaged in insightful discussions with representatives of those companies.

Overall, the shortlisted companies within the iGaming sector have undergone evaluation by internal and external panel of judges with Casino Guru playing a central role in this complex process. At the latest awards, besides announcing the winners, Casino Guru shared valuable information about the nominees, the winners, as well as insights about the present state and the future of the gambling sector as a whole. Recognitions were handed out in seven different categories. The list of the Casino Guru Awards 2024 categories included:

• The Fairest Bonus Policy
• The Fairest General T&Cs
• The Most Impactful Social Responsibility Initiative
• The Best Implementation of RG Tools
• The Most Transparent Casino
• The Most Effective Handling of Complaints
• The Most Ethical Approach to Marketing

The start of the ceremony included a discussion between Vincze and a number of seasoned iGaming industry veterans who shared their opinion about the positive impact of the awards in making gambling safer and better for the industry as a whole. He discussed the topic with Jo Abergel, the founder of a Gibraltar-based learning and development consultancy called Rock Learning as well as Ewa Bakun, Clarion Gaming's Director of Industry Insight and Engagement and Jody Bechtold, The Better Institute's CEO.

When asked by Vincze about the Casino Guru Awards, Adrian Sladdin, the Managing Director at Seventh Wave Corporate Training, explained: "I think the Casino Guru Awards are a watershed moment for the industry in terms of the openness of the process but also of the commitment of those who actually applied to be part of those awards." As an expert who participated in the previous edition of the awards, he said that some companies did not stand up to be measured due to "lack of transparency in the process."

Sladdin spoke about the importance of the Casino Guru Awards, the discussions with the other judges and the input collected from the companies that involved not only a written statement but conversations as well. He added that those key factors separate the awards from other recognitions within the vertical.

Diving into the ceremony, the first award recognized a company with the Most Impactful Social Responsibility Initiative. Nominations in this category included Fortuna Entertainment Group, Atlantic Lottery, Mindway AI, Rdentify as well as the Betting and Gaming Council. Ultimately, Fortuna Entertainment Group scooped up the Most Impactful Social Responsibility Initiative award, recognizing its activities and efforts above and beyond the required standards set by gambling regulators across the globe.

When it comes to the Best Implementation of RG Tools award, the category included nominated Fortuna Entertainment Group, L&L Europe Ltd, Neccton, Mindway AI, Pavilion Payments, RocketPlay Casino, as well as Soft2Bet. In this category, Casino Guru Awards designated two winners. Mindway AI secured the award among the solution providers in this category, while L&L Europe Ltd was recognized with an award for its implementation and increase in the usage of RG tools.

Within the Most Ethical Approach to Marketing category, the list of nominees included globally recognizable brands and companies including Evoplay, Palms Bet, Clarion Gaming, RocketPlay Casino, SOFTSWISS Managed Services as well as Playfina. After an intensive assessment and review, Clarion Gaming emerged as the winner of this category as the company was recognized for its dedication to RG tools, as well as raising funds for different charities.

There were four categories that included assessment by Casino Guru's internal team of experts. Discussing the Most Effective Handling of Complaints award, Vincze was joined by Matej Novota, Casino Guru's Head of Data and Complaints team, who spoke about the company's success in helping users who have complaints related to online casinos. Novota explained that the improvement of the complaints system and its popularity helps it resolve more complaints year after year.

Nominations for the Most Effective Handling of Complaints category included nearly a dozen iGaming operators who have undergone analysis of their efforts in resolving customer complaints along with their attitude toward such issues. In the end Vulcan Vegas emerged as the winner within the Most Effective Handling of Complaints category. In the words of Vincze, the company was recognized for its "excellent complaint resolution process."

The nominations for the Fairest Bonus Policy award included Palms Bet, BitCasino, RoySpins as well as Snatch Casino. Representatives of each of the iGaming operators with the exception of Palms Bet participated in a discussion with Vincze. However, in the end, the category had a single winner, and this was RoySpins, an online gambling operator that was recognized for its one-of-a-kind bonus system.

BlueChip, MEGASLOT, King Billy, Godbunny Casino, as well as Royal Stars were among the nominees for the Fairest General T&Cs recognition within the latest Casino Guru Awards. At the recent ceremony, this prestigious award was secured by BlueChip Casino. The recognition highlighted the iGaming operator's transparency and fairness when it comes to T&Cs.

Focusing on transparency, Casino Guru Awards featured a category that specifically analyzed this aspect of iGaming operators. The nominations for the Most Transparent Casino award included BitCasino, BlueChip Casino, Cashwin Casino, Casino 999, Oshi.io, N1 Partners, RocketPlay Casino, as well as WinSpirit Casino. The award in this category was won by Casino 999.

The latest awards included a special category that underlined the opinion of the public. In this category, labeled Voice of the People, no judges intervened in the selection process for the winner. All shortlisted companies within the awards were automatically nominated for this category.

Still, the top five finalists on the list included BlueChip Casino, RocketPlay Casino, WinSpirit Casino, Oshi.io and Casino 999. Ultimately, the winner of this prestigious recognition was WinSpirit Casino, the company that received the highest number of people's votes, just above 4,000.

Vincze's closing remarks confirmed Casino Guru's plans for the future. Looking into 2025, the Head of Sustainable & Safer Gambling confirmed that the Casino Guru Awards are going to return next year with a goal of making the awards an inseparable part of the gambling industry. Finally, Vincze said that the nominations for the Casino Guru Awards 2025 are going to open in the next few weeks.

Image credit: Casino Guru