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Exclusive Interview with George Shamugia, Singular’s CEO

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Exclusive Interview with George Shamugia, Singular's CEOReading Time: 7 minutes

 

Could you briefly narrate the story of Singular, from its beginning in 2009 in Tbilisi to its present state as a global gaming technology provider?

The story of Singular started back in December 2009 in Tbilisi, Georgia when it was officially formed as a company by two longtime friends (friends, since high school) George Shamugia and Akaki Meladze. Initially, Singular was involved in social gaming and during the course of 2010 – 2011 has produced several popular mass scale social games. During the second half of 2011, Singular did few social games (Dice Poker, Fantasy Football) for the local online gambling operator Adjarabet. During that time Adjarabet had just started their online operations. Soon they became the leading Georgian casino operator, and Singular played a huge role in this.

This was the first exposure to iGaming for Singular. We instantly saw a big opportunity for us in the iGaming field and in 2012 fully pivoted to iGaming. Singular’s experience in Social Gaming field empowered the company to swiftly enter the iGaming field and provide a truly outstanding solution, which was innovative and forward-looking. Since then Singular has developed bespoke iGaming platform, Sports-betting platform, Poker, and some casino and live casino content.

During the next few years (till the end of 2014) Adjarabet fully migrated to Singular’s solutions across all verticals: iGaming platform, SportsBetting, P2P games including poker, casino and live casino content.
In 2013 Singular opened its first office outside Georgia, in Skopje Macedonia. The decision was mostly dictated by the rapidly growing demand for Singular’s products. At the end of 2014 Darko Gacov, who was previously heading Adjarabet’s online operations, from day one, joined Singular as one of the partners. In 2015 Singular moved its HQ to Malta and exhibited for the first time on ICE London. 2015 is the year when Singular started the expansion of its client base and soon it had clients across every single continent covering the regulated markets for online gambling.
Throughout the years, innovation has always been our focus, and at the end of 2018, this was recognized by the Venture capital fund – Vereeni Investments. Singular joined Vereeni Investments’ newly unveiled €100 million tech fund ‘Level Up’ which focuses on innovative companies within the fintech, media, iGaming, business intelligence, software development, crypto and blockchain verticals. This has initiated a number of growth plans which have the potential to further expand Singular’s presence, not only geographically, but also in new industry directions.

Singular provides the full spectrum of iGaming and land-based technology solutions to gaming companies, ranging from the front-end website through the games to CRM and back-end features. Could you share a couple of success stories of gaming companies that use Singular’s platform and services?

There are few examples that can be mentioned here, but one solid example is Adjarabet, the Georgian operator which, having being fueled solely by Singular’s technology, became the fastest growing online gaming company on a global level and dominated the local market. We empowered their transition from retail to online by successful digitalization of their brick and mortar roulettes and streaming them online – a bridge for players trust.
This year, Adjarabet was acquired by Paddy Power Betfair who want to prolong the utilization of Singular’s platform for several coming years thanks to the continuous innovation of the
solutions and our tailored approach for each operator which only confirms our dedication to helping our partners grow.

There is a buzz in the industry about the new sportsbook that Singular is developing. It is tipped to be the most innovative of its kind. Could you tell us more about it? When is the launch scheduled?

In September this year, we are planning to release a completely new sports-book which was engineered from scratch and will set a new standard for sports-betting in the iGaming Industry. The product is the result of long and thorough research of the market with a high focus on changing players’ demands. Also, we believe that these shifts in demand provide lots of opportunities to change their experience as well. This release is our attempt to redefine what Sports-betting platform should look like and offer in terms of functionality.
Our new sports-book will take user experience to the next level with some bold moves, with in-play first approach, a platform that automatically adapts to each player’s needs and gives them personalized game experience, based on their activities and interaction patterns with the platform.

Your development centers are located at Skopje and Tbilisi – not, for instance, London, California or Malta. Was it a deliberate decision to stick with the supposedly offbeat locations? What are its pros and cons, if any?

When we started the Singular Story our goal was not only building a successful business but contributing towards building a more robust software community in our home country. Making a decision to start a company far from the innovation hubs bear its own risks, especially when your goal is to compete on a global scale. But, I think those are the decisions that make the journey worthwhile. You’d be surprised how skillful and ambitious talent pool these “offbeat” locations have. So, everything started in Tbilisi, Georgia where our first development base was opened and where today we have a strong and innovative team of engineers. Also, the development base in Skopje, Macedonia tackles all sports-book related development and innovation processes. Opening office in Macedonia for us was a straightforward decision. First, Macedonia offers a good pool of highly qualified backend java engineers. Second, the
fact that Darko Gacov, one of our partners, is from Macedonia gave Singular easy access to that market. The latest addition to our development bases is Tallinn, Estonia, which is one of the tech hubs of Europe. For this reason, finding top-notch software engineers there is easy.

Malta is the place where Singular is headquartered, and all the Singulars processes and activities are governed. The reason behind the opening HQ in Malta is simple – Malta is almost like the Silicon Valley for iGaming industry. It goes without saying that every single iGaming company must have some sort of presence in Malta.
San Francisco base, which is also a new addition to our team, works solely on a new iGaming product which will primarily target the US market only and initially will be launched as F2P (free to play).
On the cons side, having distributed teams across several locations with time zone differences requires a lot of effort to keep everyone in sync.

Could you tell us more about the regulated markets that have Singular’s footprint? What are your strategies to tackle vastly different and constantly changing legislations even across Europe?

Let me name a few markets: Europe, Nigeria from the African Continent and recently regulated LATAM market. We have quite frequent release cycles for almost every product, which makes it easy for us to adjust to new regulations almost instantly. The strategy we have in place to tackle vastly different and constantly changing legislation lays deep within the architecture of our platforms. Our solutions have modular architecture on the granular level, almost every aspect and functionality of them is fully configurable. In other words, every single module is a standalone service and fully configurable. This allows us to adjust and be compatible with almost every jurisdiction out there. It’s true that this kind of architecture requires more time and resources during the development time, but its flexibility fully pays off during operations. Almost no two deployments of our platform look the same thanks to the highly configurable nature. This does not only allow us to tackle different regulations required by different markets but also enables us to deliver a fully customizable and flexible platform to our clients. Ultimately, this helps our clients to stand out from the competition.

The USA and, to a lesser extent, Japan are the happening places at the moment for the sports betting service providers, especially the US Supreme Court’s verdict on PASPA Act. How do you see these developments and the role of Singular on these markets?

At this moment our primary focus is on the U.S market. It will be quite a challenging market because of its nature and will require a lot of innovation and leading-edge approaches. Good thing is that we, at Singular, love challenges while challenging markets and innovation is in our DNA.
At this moment, every single Sports-betting solution provider out there tries to directly launch their existing solutions in the U.S. In our opinion, this is a huge mistake because all the existing solutions are primarily focused on Europe. The U.S. is a totally different market and requires a tailored approach. The U.S. users’ demands and expectations in terms of the sports-betting experience totally varies from what we have in Europe or even in Africa or Asia. That is why we took a different approach for the U.S market and currently are in the process of developing new product tailored for the U.S. market. The launch is planned at the end of this year or beginning of next year.

Singular has been nominated for two categories in recently held Malta’s iGaming Excellence Awards 2019: Best iGaming Online Product of the Year and Best Gaming Online Betting Platform of the Year. What are awards and recognitions that have come by in your a decade-old journey?

We aim to continuously roll out new engaging features. We are simultaneously addressing our clients’ specific requirements, but we are also proactively innovating the solution. The nominations and awards are the cherry on the top. In addition to the nominations for Malta’s iGaming Excellence Awards 2019, our solutions have been nominated in four categories for the EGR B2B Awards 2019:

  • Sportsbook platform supplier
  • Innovation in sports betting software
  • Live casino supplier
  • Sports betting supplier

In the past 4 years, Singular’s Gaming Platform, Sports-book Solution and the Live Casino have been repeatedly nominated in number of categories by SBC Awards, EGR, G2E Asia and others. We feel extremely proud and grateful to receive recognition from the top authorities from the industry for all the hard work, year after year.

Finally, look at your crystal ball and tell us about the future! What is your take on the direction in which the industry grows, in the light of frequently emerging disruptive technologies? And what are the new products and services that Singular is going to launch?

Big data and Machine Learning is a science by itself and it is no wonder that more and more companies start referring to data as “the new oil”. It simply creates vast opportunities not only for player personalization and targeted marketing but also for discovering trends and patterns that were not visible before. If someone does it right, they will have a significant edge over their competition and it will not take long for this to have an operational effect. If you have a platform that can collect, process and package the data in relevant information and of course personnel that can interpret the data in a strategic and operational capacity for different departments, it has the potential to directly affect the success of the company.

As mentioned before, this September we plan to roll out our new Sports-betting solution. This release will be an inaugural step of an innovation process across the entire product portfolio. Through leveraging big-data and machine learning, we aim to create personalized player journey at a higher level. Also, at the end of this year, we plan to launch out U.S. centric F2P iGaming product.

We started designing the concept back in 2013 with the ultimate goal to empower operators with opportunities to offer each player a unique experience. We have a lot of modules and services that provide tools that enable this, starting with our segmentation engine, and continuing with our CRM. This approach also spreads across the rest of Singular’s products like sports-book and casino integrations, so that personalized experience is also applicable to the content delivery. However, segmentation and personalization are not “one-time – we did it” thing. It is perpetual work in the direction of improving the approach and experimenting with new and better technologies, constantly.


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 George Shamugia, Singular’s CEO

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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