Super Group leaves India, LeoVegas.nl launches, Entain completes Angstrom M&A

In the week following the SBC Summit Barcelona 2023, there were plenty of high-profile partnerships and moves that made the beginning of October exciting and eventful for the gambling industry.

LeoVegas Group has confirmed the return of its eponymous brand to the Dutch iGaming market with LeoVegas.nl launching officially in the orange kingdom. The move marks an important milestone for the group which has been building towards this moment ever since it obtained a license earlier this year, and pretty much since the Netherlands revealed its re-regulated gaming market.

Super Group, the company behind the prominent Spin and Betway gaming brands, has announced that it is exiting the Indian gaming market over changes in local laws that are making its further presence in the country untenable at the moment. The company may yet decide to revisit its decision as it's committed to growing and expanding in emerging markets, such as Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

Meanwhile, Jelly Entertainment, an up-and-coming iGaming content provider, has become the latest studio to join Livespins' super-charged social gaming experience, bringing a number of excellent titles to the fore. Speaking of innovation, the upcoming SBC Summit Rio will celebrate Brazil's burgeoning gaming and iGaming industries early next year, with SBC Events confirming that the gathering will be one of particular significance and help local stakeholders better understand the market.

Resorts Digital has sought help from Enteractive, a company that specializes in the reactivation of dormant and lapsed accounts. Enteractive is a prominent customer specialist in the iGaming industry and has been able to drive significant and continued value for some of the biggest names in the online casino vertical and beyond.

Meanwhile, Entain has finalized the acquisition of Angstrom Sports, a company that develops cutting-edge sports betting solutions for the North American market This partnership significantly improves Entain's position in the market and reinforces its own technological tech stack. Pragmatic Play and Napoleon Sports & Casino have expanded their partnership to now feature live casino games on top of the existing slot proposition.

This move follows in the same logic as earlier alliances that Pragmatic Play has at first set up tentatively and then reinforced by forwarding more content and support for partner brands.

The Industry Speaks

If there is one interview that you absolutely must not miss out on this week, this is the recent Casino Guru Insiders article with Daniela Sliva who is the Public & External Relations Lead at Casino Guru and has spearheaded groundbreaking industry projects such as Casino Guru News and Casino Guru Awards. Her interview takes a cloesr look at Casino Guru Awards and her close collaboration with Šimon Vincze, Casino Guru's Sustainable and Safer Gambling Lead, making this project happen.

It has been a great week for industry interviews and catch-up with some of the sector’s best and brightest. Casino Guru News interviewed a number of personalities over the past days, including Annie Osborne, Director of Business Development at Freemarket, who spoke at large about her new position within the company and the importance of cross-border payment capabilities. She also outlined Freemarket’s commitment to embrace working with underserviced gaming and gambling companies.

We similarly had a chat with Pallavi Deshmukh, the CEO at NetGaming, an up and coming studio of innovative game concepts that as leveraged NFT and AI technology and themes to ensure that it builds resilient products that are future proof and one step ahead of what consumers expect.

Among NetGaming’s prominent releases are Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Wild Buffalo Bonanza, and Dragon Fortress – Battle of the Castle Slot. As an experienced industry veteran, Deshmukh walks us through the challenges that studios face in general and NetGaming’s commitment to have as broad a jurisdictional reach as possible.

In a similar vein, Casino Guru News was very pleased to speak to more industry leaders at the recently concluded SBC Summit Barcelona 2023, where we found AffPapa’s Head of Commercial Yeva Avagyan.

She commented on the recent successes at AffPapa, and the company’s commitment to continue developing the affiliate vertical through a unique ecosystem and opportunities such as the iGaming Club event series. Avagyan, though, cautioned about the raising challenges of regulation, responsible gambling, and above all else – fraud in the affiliate sector.

Another conversation worth your while featured Slotegrator COO Dmytro Taran who addressed bonusing and how this unique and established system works in today’s gaming industry realities.

Taran advised that bonus is indeed changing and the companies that want to be competitive would need to adapt as they go along. Not least, Taran emphasized the importance of long-term bonuses that compels players to feel like their bonus is part of a bigger adventure above all else.

Our last interview for the week featured CoinPayments CEOSean Mackay who walked us through the world of crypto payments and how CoinPayments is making the journey so much for the entire gambling ecosystem. From operators who wish to onboard customers easily to the actual players who are looking for familiar ways to understand the cutting-edge nature of crypto, Mackay has insight to offer about this and so much more.