Ollie Castleman: "You never know what's going to hit it big next"

Ollie Castleman, Managing Director of Hub88, takes a deep dive into what games do well in the highly competitive world of iGaming, and how spotting the next big thing happens. Castleman addresses how the aggregator is expanding its content partnerships and evolving its full-service platform through solutions such as AI analytics, security tools, and major integrations such as Blask and Play.io. Read the full interview below to find out more.

Q: Hub88 has been busy onboarding new content partners over the past months, and you’ve maintained a busy schedule of integrations. What is the value of featuring such a diverse range of partners as part of your aggregation service?

Everyone likes a wide range of content to pick from, and as an aggregator, we need to service the needs of a broad spectrum of clients. Some operators prefer as many suppliers, products, games and studios as possible, while others like to be more specific about who they add to their lobbies. We try to accommodate both.

You never know what's going to hit it big next and different types of content deserve a chance to break through. There are well-established brands already crushing it, but there's always an emerging studio ready to make its mark.

On top of that, iGaming is a saturated market and it’s a tough game for content producers. A lot of people run out of ideas, so we like to take a punt on something fresh. For us, it's never really been about size - it's about the potential and quality of content.

Q: One of your more notable integrations this year has been with Blask, a company focused on analysing player behaviour. What has been the outcome of this collaboration so far, and what value has it brought to Hub88 and its partners?

We wanted to combine Blask's global market insights with our own platform intelligence to give both our suppliers and operators more awareness. We’re a data-first company and as an aggregator, we often see trends emerging across our suppliers and operators from a different lens.

Through Blask, we wanted to give people insights to assess their position in the industry or market, see how they fair against competitors and understand new markets they might wish to enter. Blask’s Brands dashboard and Customer Profile tool provide real-time data on market size, player demographics and acquisition potential.

There's always lots of data, so figuring out what's relevant is a bit of an art form. Through Blask and HubConnect combined, content suppliers can benefit from more focused operator outreach, while operators can easily track competitor brand trajectories and identify fast-growing rivals.

The integration fits into our broader strategy of clearing operational bottlenecks and making life easier for our partners on all sides.

Q: Hub88 has focused on building a strong and well-diversified offering. How have your core services evolved over the past few years alongside advances in artificial intelligence and technology, and have there been areas where this new technology has helped Hub88 develop even more rapidly?

One of our most valuable developments of the past few years has been HubAI. Hub AI is our built-in assistant and it is constantly evolving. We now have an agent that partners can talk to directly from within the Back Office, where they can get analytics, actionable insights or address queries.

We've also got Player Analytics which gives insight into a player's behaviour and how they've been performing. We've partnered with companies like Golden Whale to use our analytics to improve efficiency. It allows operators to get better leverage out of rewards and bonuses, see who’s a churn risk and what would re-engage them.

Security-wise, we are now using the data we process from operators to start detecting suspicious activity and alerting people. It's tough as we're trying to find subtle patterns among tens of thousands of transactions per minute, but if we can detect these signals before things progress, we can prevent issues for operators.

In general, all the developments to our platform look to simplify things for our partners. Our bread and butter is still aggregation, but we see ourselves as a full-service solutions platform, supporting both casinos and studios to make their lives easier. A recent example of this is our integration of marketplace client, Pay.io. Pay.io streamlines payment systems, on- and off-ramping, and cashier services and means partners do not need to leave our platform to make payments.

Q: What has changed most in the way operators and players interact with content in 2026, and has Hub88 been able to adapt to these changing behaviours and expectations?

We see different brands come and go, but the traditional market-leaders are still doing very well. In terms of engagement features, Lootboxes and Packet Rips are coming back in a big way, so we're bringing a couple of those providers on board. Plinko is still in demand, and of course, people will always be huge fans of classic slots. I also expect streamers and Player vs Player betting to continue to grow in popularity too.

Players are constantly looking for something a bit quirky and out there, and we want to have that on our platform. We also see that, following the success of social media as an engagement driver for sports betting, the online casino sector is trying to follow suit.

Q: Looking ahead, what are the next priorities for Hub88 in terms of services offered to partners and new features you plan to make available to them?

We've got our new Tournaments offering with jackpot-style gameplay features rolling out, plus more analytics, player engagement and rewards support. We are also looking into how we can integrate fraud detection as another layer of defence to supplement our partners’ own measures.

The rest is more subtle. We're automating how promotions and marketing campaigns are set up, as the calculations, deductions and invoicing required are often time-consuming and complex. We're building tools to automate that, resulting in better performance insights and reporting as well as automated billing. We're also improving how games are activated, optimising the database to reduce latency, and developing a system that allows operators to self-manage RTP and exposure configurations.

Our priority is making life easier by partnering with us. The idea is finding where teams struggle daily and making those things simpler and automatic, keeping that one-stop-shop approach where things feel more frictionless. Invoices will come with the report included, Pay.io allows direct payment with ease, our Back Office allows operators to register a promotion with ease.

We are known for our customer centricity, and this is at the core of everything we do at Hub88.

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