Latest News
CEOs of Major European iGaming Companies Call for High-quality Regulation to Protect Players and Markets
In a joint letter, the CEOs from EGBA’s member operators—bet365, Betsson, Entain, Evoke, FDJ United, Flutter, LeoVegas and Superbet—showcased their ongoing investments in safer gambling and contributions to European society, while calling for smart, stable and evidence-based regulation that supports the long-term sustainability of regulated gambling in Europe.
The letter is featured in EGBA’s recently published Sustainability Report 2025.
“As CEOs of Europe’s leading gaming and betting companies serving 38 million customer accounts across 21 countries, our principle is simple: safe players are sustainable players. We see every day how effective regulation can deliver safe environments for our players. But the long-term sustainability of our sector depends on a balanced regulatory approach that supports player protection, compliance, and competitiveness. Today, that balance is at risk.
Our responsibility and contribution
We’re pleased to contribute to this year’s EGBA Sustainability Report, which reflects our shared commitment to continue to build a thriving and responsible sector in Europe. As this report shows, our companies are significantly raising industry standards to generate economic and social benefits through responsible operations and promoting safer play.
Encouraging our players to play positively isn’t just the right thing to do, it makes good business sense and reflects our commitment to contribute positively to European society. In 2024, our companies paid €3.8 billion in taxes to help fund public services, sustaining 62,000 jobs, and developing player support tools, now used voluntarily by 34% of players, and sent a record 100 million messages to our players to promote safer play.
Our efforts are backed by dedicated teams working to support our customers every day, with 89% of our employees completing dedicated safer gambling training. We also invested €735 million in the success of European sports last year, from grassroots to professional competitions.
The black market challenge
Yet while we continue to invest significantly in responsible play and compliance, unregulated, untaxed black market operators, based outside Europe, are thriving across the continent. These operators target vulnerable players with unlimited access and significant bonuses, offer no customer protections or support for struggling players, and don’t contribute to public finances or European sports. They operate entirely beyond regulatory oversight, avoiding all costs and obligations, and face few repercussions.
And their appeal only grows when well-intentioned regulation becomes too restrictive. In the Netherlands, new spending caps introduced in 2024 prompted a surge in black market activity. Within just months, unregulated sites were matching the revenue of the country’s regulated market. In the UK, an estimated £2.7 billion is staked annually on black market websites, costing taxpayers £335 million in lost taxes.
The path forward
The answer to this growing problem is not deregulation but smarter, more balanced regulation. We call for coordinated action:
Policymakers should prioritise regulation that is evidence-based and behaviourally informed to channel players toward the safer, regulated environment – not away from it.
Regulators should strengthen enforcement against black market operators based outside Europe who undermine the well-developed safety nets established in Europe.
Industry stakeholders should promote and work only with operators licensed and regulated in Europe.
Our commitment to sustainability
Despite these challenges, Europe is well positioned to lead the world in sustainable gambling. Our companies have shown that commercial success and social responsibility go hand in hand. We’ll continue to invest in messaging, training, research, and innovative tools that improve player protection and raise industry standards.
But we cannot do this alone. We need a stable, long-term vision for regulated markets – one built on evidence, consultation, and collaboration, rather than measures that end up putting players in harm’s way. Otherwise, Europe risks undermining its safe, regulated gambling environment that has been diligently built over many years. The black market isn’t just a business challenge for us – when regulation drives players away from the regulated market, everyone loses, especially vulnerable players.
Europe has a clear choice: either let regulated markets continue to lose ground to unregulated operators who undermine consumer protection and offer nothing positive to our society, or work together to protect players and support responsible operators who invest billions every year in Europe’s future.
We believe in the path of cooperation and are committed to building it further.”
The post CEOs of Major European iGaming Companies Call for High-quality Regulation to Protect Players and Markets appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

Latest News
Goldex Casino by N1 Partners: a new brand tailored for top GEOs
N1 Partners continues to strengthen its position in the iGaming market by expanding its portfolio with the launch of a new brand — Goldex Casino.
Goldex Casino is strategically focused on key Tier-1 GEOs, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Denmark, and Slovenia. The product supports eight languages with localised content, ensuring broad reach and engagement.
Goldex Casino features a portfolio of over 5,000 games, while its unique Journey Map system transforms gameplay into a personalised adventure with rewards of up to €/$5,000 and 1,000 free spins. VIP players benefit from an exclusive program offering tailored bonuses, higher limits, dedicated account management, and a final prize — a Rolex Sky-Dweller or its cash equivalent of €20,000.
Special attention has been paid to adaptive design across devices, an intuitive interface, and a suite of features that enhance the user experience and drive player retention. Fully licensed, the brand guarantees a high level of transaction security.
With Goldex Casino, partners gain a robust tool to scale traffic across top GEOs and secure long-term profitability. Join N1 Partners and achieve top-tier results together.
On a related note, N1 Partners is currently running its large-scale N1 Puzzle Promo. All registered teams earn puzzle pieces for driving traffic to N1 brands, including Goldex Casino, with the most active participants competing for luxury prizes. The ultimate reward – a private Robinson helicopter, awarded to the winning team at the end of the promo. The campaign runs until the end of the year.
The post Goldex Casino by N1 Partners: a new brand tailored for top GEOs appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
Latest News
Goldex Casino by N1 Partners: a new brand tailored for top GEOs
N1 Partners continues to strengthen its position in the iGaming market by expanding its portfolio with the launch of a new brand — Goldex Casino.
Goldex Casino is strategically focused on key Tier-1 GEOs, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Denmark, and Slovenia. The product supports eight languages with localised content, ensuring broad reach and engagement.
Goldex Casino features a portfolio of over 5,000 games, while its unique Journey Map system transforms gameplay into a personalised adventure with rewards of up to €/$5,000 and 1,000 free spins. VIP players benefit from an exclusive program offering tailored bonuses, higher limits, dedicated account management, and a final prize — a Rolex Sky-Dweller or its cash equivalent of €20,000.
Special attention has been paid to adaptive design across devices, an intuitive interface, and a suite of features that enhance the user experience and drive player retention. Fully licensed, the brand guarantees a high level of transaction security.
With Goldex Casino, partners gain a robust tool to scale traffic across top GEOs and secure long-term profitability. Join N1 Partners and achieve top-tier results together.
On a related note, N1 Partners is currently running its large-scale N1 Puzzle Promo. All registered teams earn puzzle pieces for driving traffic to N1 brands, including Goldex Casino, with the most active participants competing for luxury prizes. The ultimate reward – a private Robinson helicopter, awarded to the winning team at the end of the promo. The campaign runs until the end of the year.
Latest News
HIPTHER Community Voices: Interview with CEO of Media 24 Martins Lasmanis
From his early days in digital marketing to leading one of the most dynamic affiliate networks in iGaming, Martins Lasmanis brings nearly two decades of hands-on experience and strategic insight to the table. In this edition of Community Voices, Martins reflects on the evolution of the industry, the bold moves that shaped Media 24’s growth, and how the company is embracing AI and a product-first mindset to stay ahead. Dive into his story of resilience, speed, and smart risk-taking — and what it takes to build a future-ready affiliate powerhouse.
Can you tell us about your journey into the iGaming industry, how your role and experiences have grown over the years, and what key lessons you’ve learned along the way?
I started in digital marketing about 18 years ago, focusing on SEO. I remember spending my first two weeks just reading everything I could find online. A lot of it turned out to be useless, but it gave me the basics. From there, I worked at a few companies, launched and sold my own digital marketing agency, and later became a freelancer.
In 2016, an affiliate marketer reached out to me through a mutual connection who recommended me based on previous work. I joined his company in 2017 as an employee. That move felt like a risk, but I saw potential.
I spent about four and a half years there. Over time, I started to see big opportunities in markets the company wasn’t willing to explore. Eventually, I decided to leave, sold my shares, and took a break. In May 2022, I joined Media 24.
One key lesson I’ve learned is that long-term consistency often matters more than one brilliant idea. And when you’re scaling fast, being agile and willing to adapt quickly is sometimes more important than being perfect.
After 8+ years in iGaming, what are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the industry, and how has Media 24 kept up with them? What key things have helped Media 24 stay strong?
Even though the industry never stops evolving, the fundamentals of affiliate marketing haven’t changed much. What has changed is the pace of Google updates. They are a constant source of stress for many SEO-focused affiliates. They now come one after another and sometimes have a big impact.
And now when AI begins to reshape how people search, affiliates will need to rethink how they attract organic traffic. In some cases, we’ve already seen that AI-driven results take away up to 30% of traffic from organic searches. Its growing impact means we should prepare for fundamental changes coming ahead.
What’s helped us most is staying extremely focused. We ran at a loss for almost two years after starting the company. It is often the reality when you are starting a SEO based business. It was incredibly stressful, we nearly ran out of money for salaries at one point. But we kept going with one plan — to make it work.
Now we have grown to 60+ websites, 300 partners and a team of over 50 people. And we didn’t aim for perfection, we aimed for progress. That speed-first mindset helped us significantly.
In a competitive industry like iGaming, looking back, can you think of an idea or plan that felt very risky at first but ended up being a big success for Media 24? What did you learn from that?
One of the riskier moves was our “plant seeds everywhere” strategy. We decided early on to enter almost every market where sports betting was popular. Around 90 GEOs in total. In some cases, the numbers said we shouldn’t bother doing that. But we trusted our instinct.
In that way we were able to quickly identify promising markets, then double down where the data started to make sense. It taught us that data is crucial, but so is intuition. Especially in an industry where emerging markets can surprise you.
It also helped us distribute risk. With presence on so many markets, external factors like Google updates or website blocking had a much smaller impact on the overall business. That made Media 24 much stronger and agile in the long run.
Does Media 24 use new technologies like AI? If so, how does using these technologies help the company get stronger or better at what it does?
Definitely. AI-powered tools have already helped us a lot. For example, we noticed a content formatting task that took our managers hours every day. It was repetitive and added up to dozens of lost hours weekly. So, we built an AI-powered algorithm to automate it. Now it takes just minutes, saving our team days and weeks of work each year.
We’re watching AI closely and see a lot of potential. A few months ago, we started developing an AI-first mindset across the team, setting up bi-monthly meetings and workshops to explore how we use these tools and what’s possible. It’s already changing how we work, and we hope to build up on that. The goal is to figure out how we can optimize our work processes and eliminate as many routine, repetitive tasks as possible. We want to free our employees as much time as possible to think, to create, to be proactive, and to create value.
If you could give one piece of advice to someone wanting to build a successful company in iGaming today, what would it be?
Focus on building something future-proof. That means strong partnerships, transparency, and a long-term mindset. In affiliate marketing, a lot of your success depends on trust. Both with users and with operators.
Also, don’t wait for everything to be perfect before launching. Start fast, learn fast, and improve as you go. The ability to move quickly is still one of the biggest advantages you can have in this space.
What are the main future plans for Media 24, and what kind of impact do you hope the company will have on the iGaming world in the years to come?
Our focus is on becoming a product-driven company. We’re seeing a shift in the industry, many affiliates are building tools and user experiences that go far beyond what was considered enough a few years ago. That’s the direction we’re heading as well.
The new generation of players wants better experiences. We hope Media 24 can play a leading role in creating what the future of affiliate marketing looks like. Agile, technological, and always focused on the user.
The post HIPTHER Community Voices: Interview with CEO of Media 24 Martins Lasmanis appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
-
Latest News3 months ago
Week 17/2025 slot games releases
-
Latest News3 months ago
Fortuna Partners with 2025 UEFA Under-21 EURO
-
Latest News3 months ago
Esports World Cup Foundation Confirms Full Game Lineup, Schedule, and Club Championship Rules for EWC 2025
-
Latest News2 months ago
ELA Games Receives Key Nomination at EGR Marketing & Innovation Awards
-
Latest News3 months ago
ACR POKER’S NEXT HIGH STAKES ADVENTURE TAKES PLAYERS TO MONTENEGRO FOR PRESTIGIOUS SUPER HIGH ROLLER SERIES
-
Latest News3 months ago
Bojoko.com Surpasses €100 Million in All-Time Deposits Milestone
-
Latest News3 months ago
LeoVegas Group to Open a New Office in Leeds
-
Latest News2 months ago
LEGENDS by Fire & Ice: July 1st at The BOX Soho
You must be logged in to post a comment Login