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Exclusive interview with Rahul Sood, CEO and co-founder of Unikrn

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Exclusive interview with Rahul Sood, CEO and co-founder of UnikrnReading Time: 6 minutes

 

Rahul Sood is the CEO and co-founder of Unikrn, the world’s leading esportsbook innovator. He started his first company, the world’s first boutique PC manufacturer, is his teens and later sold it to HP. After leaving HP, he joined Microsoft as the founder and CEO or the startup incubation branch then-called Microsoft Ventures. Rahul is a long-time avid gamer and esports fan who also enjoys windsurfing in his spare time.

 

You mentioned about two “game-changing” products from Unikrn in your email. Could you tell us more about the products?

Rahul Sood: We have 3 singular experiences launching at Unikrn: Unikrn UMode, Unikrn Virtual Game and Unikrn Esportsbook’s Streamer Betting.

Unikrn UMode is the first online skill betting extension for matchmaking games such as Fortnite, League of Legends, Dota 2, Halo and Counter-Strike. Unlike peer-to-peer betting, UMode lets players bet on their normal online matchmaking without betting opponents because Unikrn sets the odds, which lets you bet anytime in fair games without any worries about sharks ruining your fun.

The Unikrn Virtual Game is a curated collection of exciting professional esports matches from the past which are randomly selected and played fresh. There’s a new round every minute, and fans can go to bet on esports without ever facing delays or content gaps, which is an amazing quality-of-life improvement for esports fans used to waiting between rounds, games and tournaments.

Unikrn’s Streamer Betting uses in-house odds-determining trader bots and advanced screen-reading technology to interpret games happening on stream and set odds in real time, even updating odds as matches advance. We’re excited for how this will let fans play along with streamers and improve the community thrill of wins. After all, betting is better as a social experience, and very little in gaming is more social than streaming in its prime!

 

How do you think these products would change the way the betting industry operates?

Rahul Sood: The betting industry is still behind the curve on the way esports opens interactivity, data fidelity and sheer volume. There’s never been a challenge in sports akin to trying to place reliable odds on streamers. There’s YEARS of content hours consumed from Twitch every second across thousands of channels. Besides Unikrn, the world of betting operators hasn’t begun to scratch the surface of what gamers and esports fans are making possible, whether that’s creating 24/7 skill-based betting, new ways to package esports around the clock or ways to bring people together to cheer on their favorite players.

You are aiming to introduce innovative technologies to betting that would disrupt the dominance of traditional booking houses. In fact, quite a few new companies have aimed to do this, and almost all of them have failed. What is the x-factor for your company, if there is any?

Rahul Sood: Unikrn is x-factor from surface to core. I think the biggest difference is our culture, Unikrn sits at the intersection of esports & video games, blockchain & cryptocurrency, and regulated gambling. As such we employ talented people from all over the world. Our COO, CFO, and CPO along with lead product people are based in Sydney. Our CTO and development teams are in Berlin, Croatia, and Poland. Head of Marketing and Content are in New York, we have content people in Las Vegas, and I’m in Seattle with our Chief of Staff. There’s no way in hell we could build such a company in one city, we required the best talent in all 3 areas. Unikrn is also a technology first company, whereas typical wagering companies are simply licensing software from other platforms.

Maybe most importantly, this isn’t hypothetical: Unikrn is launching multiple singular experiences designed for customers. While others are building wagering experiences around old titles that no one cares about, Unikrn is building wagering experiences around games people love to play. Our products are live and regulator-approved well ahead of our runway, and they’re being followed by many other innovations.

 

It’s almost two years since you launched your cryptocurrency token UnikoinGold, based on the Ethereum blockchain. Could you tell us more about its performance so far?

Rahul Sood: UnikoinGold has been a fantastic success, achieving everything it was set out to do and hitting most of its projected benchmarks at or ahead of schedule. The whole point of developing UnikoinGold was to give users the ability to use our platform and partner platforms without the delays and fees associated with using traditional banks. At its launch, UnikoinGold closed the largest-ever token sale in esports and gaming, and our partners have included major players in the crypto space because they’re impressed with the unprecedented utility UnikoinGold has brought to the broader crypto ecosystem. I think our biggest challenge is making our crypto more accessible and easier to use. We’re working hard on this, it’s one of the key pillars for 2019.

 

Unikrn is into its fifth year. The company has received excellent funding and financial back-up. But has the company really captured the public imagination as an esports venture? How do you look back at the last five years of Unikrn?

Rahul Sood: Unikrn is fortunate to have had several extremely successful acquisitions, partnerships and blockchain ventures — the truth is there’s a staggering and publicly invisible business-to-business problem solving portion of our operations. This is common in successful companies in the tech sector: Amazon, for example, makes more of its money on web services than any other division, but it’s a part of the company the public basically never sees.

Everybody at this company is proud of our success and our current place in the ecosystem, as well as optimistic about the future all the way to the horizon.

Being a legal and responsible operator requires diligence and time (working with regulators, governments, patent offices, partners and taking the time to develop proprietary technology can’t be rushed!). Our current user base has been completely won-over, and the next step is broader engagement with new fans.

So are we where we want to be? Of course not, we’ll never truly be satisfied, but believe me Unikrn of 2019 is far ahead of the Unikrn from 2014. We have plenty of work to do and lots of runway to get to where we’re going.

 

The USA is witnessing a revolution of sorts in the sports betting sector, following the US Supreme Court’s verdict on PASPA Act. What is your take on the future of sports betting in the USA and the role of Unikrn on it?

Rahul Sood: Unikrn is already live with Unikrn UMode in the majority of the United States, making us pretty much first in the door, and we are obviously supportive of states allowing responsible, regulated wagering to expand. Unikrn has well-established connections with land based casinos in Las Vegas, where our primary content team is based, and we expect the United States to be a growing market for us looking forward. I fully expect us to launch our sportsbook across the USA in partnership with some of the largest casino operators in the world.

 

You had held top positions at HP and Microsoft before founding Unikrn. How different are the mainstream software companies and the gaming and betting companies in terms of challenges, job profile and working environment?

Rahul Sood: Every job is different, but wagering companies bring with them an enormous responsibility to work in partnership with regulators and governments. This happens in any industry, but wagering rightfully brings it to another level. That said, there’s also a tremendous amount of crossover: software and gaming hardware companies are ultimately selling consumers an experience, and that’s exactly what Unikrn does.

We’re sitting at the intersection of three of the most blockbuster industries on earth, regulated gambling, esports & video games, and blockchain & cryptocurrency. It’s never easy, but nothing good comes without hard work.

You have been a serial entrepreneur, having started entrepreneurship from an unusually young age. You have also worked with a number of startups while you were a General Manager at Microsoft Ventures. What is the one thing that separates successful startups from the failures? And what is your advice to startup founders and wannabe founders?

Rahul Sood: Great startups understand that a brand is nothing without 4 key components. An incredible product that people love, a strong team culture made of the smartest and most talented people who eat breath and sleep your mission, a thriving community of fans and evangelists, and most of all strong leadership and patience. All of these components become the foundation of your brand, which if applied correctly becomes a living breathing entity. Most people miss the community part, can you imagine Telsa, OnePlus, or Apple without a community? They’d be like nowhere!

 

Finally, on a lighter note, it is written on your Wikipedia page that “Sood first took an interest in computers at the age of 11, having disassembled and painted his first computer—an Apple IIc—before even turning it on”. Did it really happen? And did you disassemble your first gaming device as well!? Do share an interesting anecdote to conclude the interview.

Rahul Sood: It absolutely happened, and I had successfully founded my boutique computer manufacturer, VoodooPC, just a few years later. I went on to sell that brand to HP. I guess everything that I’ve ever involved myself with is something I truly care about, for without that I don’t think I’d be anywhere near where I am today.


Source: Latest News on European Gaming Media Network
This is a Syndicated News piece. Photo credits or photo sources can be found on the source article: Exclusive interview with Rahul Sood, CEO and co-founder of Unikrn

George Miller (Gyorgy Molnar) started his career in content marketing and has started working as an Editor/Content Manager for our company in 2016. George has acquired many experiences when it comes to interviews and newsworthy content becoming Head of Content in 2017. He is responsible for the news being shared on multiple websites that are part of the European Gaming Media Network.

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Scaling With Purpose: RedCore’s Tech Vision Explained

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At SiGMA Central Europe in Rome, European Gaming Media sat down with Yevhenii Yankovyi, Vice President of Technology and Deputy CTO at RedCore, for a deep look into what truly powers RedCore’s large-scale engineering operations.

RedCore is known for innovating at enterprise level, yet moving with the agility of a fast-growing tech company. In this conversation, Yevhenii breaks down how the organization manages that balance: how engineering teams maintain both speed and reliability, how automation empowers creativity, and why culture must remain a daily practice rather than a one-time achievement.

 

Can you introduce yourself and RedCore’s approach to engineering at scale?

Sure. My name is Yevhenii, I’m the Vice President of Technology at RedCore and Deputy CTO. RedCore is a large company with many products and projects, so everything we do operates at a significant scale. And when people hear “enterprise-level engineering,” the usual assumption is that scale automatically means slowness: slow decision-making, slow implementation, slow testing, slow time to market.

That’s the mindset we challenge. We don’t believe speed and stability are opposites. In our experience, at this level of complexity, the two actually reinforce each other. When you build the right processes, the right technical foundations, and the right organizational structure, speed becomes a natural result of stability – not something that contradicts it.

We plan for scaling from day one. For us, that’s a fundamental requirement. We build products with the expectation that they will grow, and growth means scale. So we design with that in mind from the very first line of architecture.

But that doesn’t mean disappearing for six or ten months to design the “perfect” system. That’s the common mistake people make when they hear “design for scale.” Our approach is different: we keep the long-term vision in mind, but we move fast, iterate, and make sure the product can evolve without slowing the team down. Stability and speed working together – that’s the engineering culture we build at RedCore.

How does RedCore balance speed and stability in daily engineering?

I will explain this with a simple metaphor: think about a car. Everyone talks about acceleration and top speed, but none of that matters if you can’t take a corner. Speed alone is not the winning formula – you also need control.

That’s exactly how we look at engineering at RedCore. We want to accelerate, make decisions quickly, and develop fast. But we also need the ability to slow down at the right moment, change direction, and stay agile. Balancing speed with stability is the only way to move at scale.

There are many layers to this – it’s a topic I could talk about for days – but in a nutshell:

at a big scale, you must have strong standards, clear policies, and a high level of automation. We rely heavily on automation: infrastructure as code, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and all the tools that remove repetitive, routine work from engineers’ daily lives. When the routine disappears, people can focus on what humans actually do best: creativity, problem-solving, and innovation.

However, automation doesn’t build the software for you. It creates a safety net. It catches mistakes, guards quality, and supports engineers when their creativity pushes boundaries. In other words: tools give freedom, and also protect that freedom.

And of course, this includes AI and many other modern tools. We use whatever helps us keep the balance: give people space to think, create, and experiment, while ensuring the system stays stable, predictable, and high-quality.

How does RedCore’s management keep teams aligned yet fast?

First of all, we provide clear goals. As I mentioned earlier, we always design for scale from day zero – but you can only do that if you know exactly what you’re building, for whom, and why. We have a very strong business team that understands the market and what needs to be delivered. The technology team works side by side with them, reinforcing them.

Once the goals are clear, we begin small. If you try to build a huge system from the beginning and get it wrong, you create a nightmare: something no one can support, change, or grow. Complexity grows exponentially, and humans don’t think exponentially; we think linearly. That’s where companies often get lost.

So we avoid that by validating early and validating often. We start with small steps, keep a close eye on every direction we take, and confirm that what we’re building is truly needed by the market. When we see that the direction is right, then we scale – and by that point, the foundation is already in place. It’s like preparing a launchpad so that when the time comes, the team can accelerate immediately.

We build block by block and work in iterations. We take a small team – one, two, maybe three people – and let them experiment for a week. We test the idea fast, get quick feedback, and bring it to the business side: “Do you like it?” If the answer is yes, then we continue, still following all the proper engineering practices before anything goes into production.

This constant loop between business and technology keeps everyone aligned. We give feedback, we receive feedback, and we move together. That’s how we stay both fast and coordinated, always ready to scale when the direction is confirmed.

How does automation empower engineers without slowing them down?

When we talk about automation, we’re really talking about optimization at scale. It doesn’t make sense to over-engineer small things, but at the scale we operate, the cost efficiency and speed gains are enormous. And people often assume that big systems and automation automatically slow everything down. For us, it’s the opposite.

The tools we introduce are not meant to tie engineers’ hands with bureaucracy. We don’t force strict guidelines or heavy processes that kill creativity. Our tools exist to help: to prevent mistakes, to collect feedback quickly, and to give teams the shortest possible path from idea to validation.

Here’s a simple example: we start experimenting with a small feature. We build a tiny prototype to see if the idea works. If it’s promising, the next step is testing, pipelines, deployment – all the things that normally take time. In many companies, engineers would try to do all of this manually because “building the tools will take too long.” But with us, the tools are already there. The infrastructure, the CI/CD, the automation – everything is ready to use. Our engineers are essentially customers of this internal platform that supports fast, safe delivery.

We have many different teams that have different great ideas. If one team tries something new and it works better, great – we learn from it. If another team has a different approach because of product specifics or release schedules, that’s fine too. We give freedom to the teams to work, share their experiences, and then scale.

Of course, there are non-negotiables. When it comes to security and data privacy there is zero tolerance. These are areas where strict rules are absolutely necessary. I always tell the security people: everyone should be a little afraid of you, because these things must be perfect. But outside those critical areas, we don’t impose rules that slow teams down. We experiment, gather feedback, adjust, and keep improving.

We’re constantly researching, experimenting, and customizing our automation depending on the product and the market. But when it comes to system design, we don’t reinvent the wheel. We choose globally recognized tools and industry-validated technologies. So yes, we empower engineers with automation and the right tools, built on a solid, modern foundation.

How does culture work for you – is it an achievement, or part of your routine?

Culture is a critical element in balancing speed and stability. Tools and processes matter, but culture is what truly empowers a team and keeps everything together at scale.

For us, culture starts with giving people freedom: the freedom to experiment, the freedom to make mistakes, and the freedom to challenge ideas. We don’t want engineers to be afraid of trying something new. We build a culture where mistakes are acceptable and manageable. If we try something and it doesn’t work, great – now we know better. We learn, adjust, and move on.

We encourage ideas from every level. Some of our most interesting insights come from developers who notice something while working on a small task. They can come directly to me or to the CTO and say, “I see a problem here.” It’s completely okay. A small detail in one corner of the system can become a huge issue at scale, so we listen. That’s how we avoid blind spots.

We also give teams autonomy. Small teams can make their own decisions and experiment in their own ways. If different teams want to do things differently, that’s fine – as long as they validate everything and share their findings. We want people to help each other and to understand that even top engineers have ups and downs. Even senior management makes mistakes. I constantly ask my team: “If I make a wrong decision, tell me.” It’s not about transparency as a buzzword – it’s about behavior. People observe how you respond, and they learn from that.

The biggest mistake any leader can make is demotivating people. We work with intelligent, educated, passionate professionals. They want to contribute. You just need to give them the space to do it. That’s when you see people shine and bring forward brilliant ideas.

As for the question of whether culture is an achievement or a routine – for us, it’s definitely a routine. People often talk about “building a strong engineering culture” as if it’s a success. We treat it as a routine as a process. Culture is the daily interactions between people in an organization. Those interactions change: people come and go, someone has a bad day, someone disagrees with a decision. Culture is shaped every day by how we communicate, how we argue, how we respect each other, and how we resolve differences.

Going to a colleague in the kitchen and asking, “Hey, what do you think about this?” – that’s culture. Anyone can talk to anyone, openly. And when engineers realize they can make a real impact, that they are heard, that they can influence the product — that motivates them. That’s what keeps the culture alive.

How do you balance standards with creative freedom?

The first thing is that we don’t pressure people. We set strict standards only where they are truly critical for the business. Security, data privacy, stability at scale – those areas demand clear rules. But everywhere else, we try not to push people. And when we do introduce a standard or guideline, we listen carefully to feedback. If the team tells us we made the wrong call, that’s okay – we rethink it and look for better approaches.

The second thing is that as the projects grow, the teams scale as well. Even in the design phase, we don’t start with a huge team. I prefer a small group: one key person who leads the design initiative, plus two or three contributors who constantly review, test, question, and give feedback. If three or four people align in one direction, that’s a good signal we’re on the right track. Then we take that proposal to a larger group – people who might use it or need it.. We refine it again based on their input. The idea evolves, but we don’t need to start from the beginning.

Finally, when we have a strong direction, we present it to the entire tech team. And even then – even if top management already supports the decision – it’s completely acceptable for a mid-level developer to raise concerns. Maybe they’ve seen something before, maybe they read an article, maybe they faced a similar issue. We listen, because at scale, one overlooked detail can cost millions.

So once again, balancing standards with creative freedom is about scaling the processes step by step: we start with a small group, validate in small cycles, and then scale the decision up gradually. This approach protects creativity, ensures high quality, and keeps us aligned. And combined with our culture, it makes the process both fast and safe.

The post Scaling With Purpose: RedCore’s Tech Vision Explained appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

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Super Group Comments on United Kingdom Autumn Statement

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Super Group (SGHC) Limited, the parent company of Betway, a leading online sports betting and gaming business, and Spin, the multi-brand online casino, notes the United Kingdom Autumn announcement:

In this Autumn Statement, the UK government announced increases to gambling duties: Remote Gaming Duty (iGaming) will rise by +19 percentage points (from 21% to 40%), effective April 2026 and General Betting Duty (Online Sports Betting) will rise by +10 percentage points (from 15% to 25%), effective April 2027.

Neal Menashe, Chief Executive Officer, stated: “Super Group supports the reasonable taxation of online gaming in the UK. We rely on the government to ensure that today’s very substantial increase should be paired with robust and strict enforcement against non-paying offshore operators. This is essential to protect the regulated sector’s investment in jobs, technology, and responsible gaming in the UK.”

Alinda van Wyk, Chief Financial Officer, commented: “Going forward, we estimate that these new tax increases will have an impact of approximately 6% to our 2026 Group Adjusted EBITDA. However, Super Group already has several mitigation levers in motion, which are intended to offset the tax impact. Our strategy remains unchanged: sustainable growth and disciplined capital allocation. We don’t expect today’s news to alter our long-term trajectory nor our capital return priorities.”

The post Super Group Comments on United Kingdom Autumn Statement appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

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TVC Completes AV Installation at ScotBet

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TVC Technology Solutions has completed a comprehensive AV installation for leading Scottish bookmaker ScotBet. Reinforcing how cutting-edge audiovisual technology can dramatically elevate customer engagement, brand impact and operational flexibility in betting shops, ScotBet is another in a list of betting shop makeovers for TVC, including a significant number of independent bookmakers throughout the UK.

The project saw TVC partner with ScotBet to modernise digital infrastructure across a number of stores, delivering high-quality visuals, streamlined content distribution and a unified signage platform. The aim was to create a premium experience that draws in customers, enhances dwell time, unlocks in-shop promotional opportunities and underpins ScotBets’ competitive positioning.

TVC’s campaign started with a deep dive into ScotBet’s existing estate, identifying inconsistent screen sizes, dated display technologies and poor content manageability. Working alongside ScotBet’s retail operations and brand teams, TVC created a future-proof AV design plan encompassing ultra-slim large format displays in key customer zones, dynamic digital signage driven by branded content and a centralised control system for roll-out calability.

In each store, TVC installed industry-leading large-format commercial LCD and LED displays, including high-brightness 75″ panels in customer-facing zones, complemented by multiscreen TV gantries above key counters to deliver live odds, race streams and promotional content. These displays were mounted via low-visual-impact brackets to preserve the sleek interior design while maintaining full service access. The project also included a dedicated network of digital signage screens in foyer spaces, driven by the MySign digital signage platform. This enabled ScotBet to push up-to-the-minute messages and odds, event-based campaigns and third-party partnerships with minimal delay.

What sets the TVC-ScotBet collaboration apart from a typical AV and digital signage installation is the seamless integration of content and infrastructure from a single company.

Beyond hardware, TVC delivered a tailored content-creation service, to produce a range of dynamic content. This included templated campaign animations, in-store clock-in of live odds tickers, game-day social-feed overlays and fast-paced screen-fillers that mirror the fast-moving world of wagering.

Andy Greaves, sales director at TVC, said: “Our employee-owned structure means everyone at TVC is passionately behind every project. We instantly become partners to our betting shop customers, rather than just supply vendors, and the ability to supply and install an end-to-end video, signage and content integration seamlessly makes for a smooth project from start to finish.”

TVC brings nearly three decades of experience to the AV installation in hospitality, leisure, gambling, gaming and retail spaces. The portfolio spans F1 gaming arcades, bars and pubs, hotels, care homes, boardrooms and retail spaces, with specialist knowledge in the complexities of high-traffic public environments and the regulatory demands of leisure and betting retail. From bespoke mounting solutions in confined shop-floor footprints to full networked AV infrastructures across multiple sites with cloud-integrated content, TVC tailors its system design to each customer’s requirements and backs each project with ongoing service and maintenance support.

“With surveys showing increased dwell time, engagement and sales through digital signage advertising, and with many better retailers seeing over 10% of their revenue attributed to virtual and e-sports, now is the time to maximise your AV impact and ROI,” said Greaves.

The post TVC Completes AV Installation at ScotBet appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

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