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Exclusive Interview with George Shamugia, Singular’s CEO
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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

Latest News
Better Collective North American talent-led media brands surpass 1 billion views and downloads, providing new ways for partners to reach sports fans
An expanded focus on talent-led media and live events complements Better Collective’s broader strategy of diversifying revenue streams, engaging sports fans, and strengthening its position in key growth markets such as North America.
Talent-led media has become a core strategic focus for Better Collective, providing new ways to engage fans and create value for the company’s partners. Through shows hosted by world-class athletes and personalities such as Shaquille O’Neal, Jalen Brunson, Angel Reese, and Jeff Marek, Better Collective is able to reach highly engaged audiences across North America. These trusted voices not only help Better Collective stay relevant with younger sports fans but also offer partners authentic, direct access to these communities. Since the beginning of last year, content from Better Collective’s talent-led media brands have generated over one billion views and downloads and were significant contributors to the company’s global sponsorship revenue of more than 45 mEUR in 2024. Talent-led media has also further strengthened the commercial opportunities for partners and reinforces Better Collective’s position as a leading digital sports media group.
Karl Pugh, Group SVP of Revenue at Better Collective, said: “As a market leader operating at the intersection of sports media and sports betting, Better Collective provides partners with unparalleled global reach and commercial opportunities. Through our brands and their shows, we are not only reaching millions of engaged sports fans, but creating meaningful value for our partners by offering them direct access to these highly relevant audiences. With more than one billion views and downloads from fans across North America since the start of 2024, our brands have proven over time to be in high demand and an essential platform for partner activation. I look forward to continuing to grow these partnerships and unlocking new ways to drive revenue, audience engagement, and long-term business value together.”
All three of Better Collective’s leading North American brands, Playmaker HQ, Action Network and The Nation Network, have increased their audience with the help of talent-led media and live events.
- All five of Playmaker HQ’s shows have crossed 2 million total followers on social media, total over 15 million hours of consumed content on YouTube, and average 75 million monthly views across all accounts. The shows have gone viral several times, such as when Unapologetically Angel was named one of Spotify’s best new podcasts of 2024.
- Action Network’s content from leading betting experts has spurred growth as well, evident from its 600k+ hours of consumed content from fans this year. Additionally, the brand’s podcasts totalled 6 million downloads during the last NFL season, and will total 8 million total downloads in 2025.
- Within Canada, Better Collective has also experienced growth among its users thanks to The Nation Network (TNN), which has firmly entrenched itself as the leading destination for premier, digital sports coverage. Across its content this past year, TNN saw 71 million total streams, 5 million total watch hours, and 342 million total impressions on YouTube. These numbers reinforce Better Collective’s belief in Canada as a massive growth opportunity and market with immense potential.
North American brands are providing additional avenues for partner success
These three North American-based brands have each contributed to the company’s rise in the talent-led media space, growth in audience, and value generated for both endemic and non-endemic partners. Across the three brands, leading consumer and sportsbook partners include StockX, Dove Men’s+Care, Tommy John, DraftKings, bet365, Ford, Tim Hortons, Coca-Cola and Budweiser, exemplifying the value Better Collective offers its wide variety of partners in reaching new audiences in modern, engaging ways. These partners are not only getting value out of sponsoring podcast episodes, but also by helping create live activations that form deeper connections and more awareness among fans and potential consumers. Listeners and fans are also highly engaged with each brand’s content, leading to elevated brand exposure, increased content consumption, and higher turnouts at events. Examples of this can be seen with Action Network’s over 75% completion rate of its podcasts – above the average industry standard – as well as Playmaker HQ and TNN’s attendance at their live events, showing not only that fans have an appetite for the content, but that partners will get more exposure through their sponsorships and branded activations.
Live events have given our brands more ways to engage audiences
In addition to the popular podcast shows, Playmaker HQ, Action Network, and The Nation Network are all using their strong brand platforms to host live events. These include meet and greets, live shows, watch parties, and fan experiences that bring audiences closer to their favorite shows and stars. A standout example was last year’s live Roommates Show in Central Park, where thousands of fans gathered to meet Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, enjoyed the show, and took part in branded experiences and giveaways from partners.
These events not only deepen fan engagement but also offer partners unique opportunities to connect with audiences beyond digital channels. Previous events have been held in major cities during some of the biggest sporting moments of the year, including the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Final Four, and the 4 Nations Face Off. Throughout the rest of the year, our brands will continue to host exciting events for fans and partners alike, including the upcoming NBA Summer League.
The post Better Collective North American talent-led media brands surpass 1 billion views and downloads, providing new ways for partners to reach sports fans appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
Latest News
iGB L!VE opens in London
The 2025 edition of iGB L!VE opened today (2nd July) at it’s new ExCeL London home. iGaming professionals made full use of ExCeL London’s transport infrastructure with Elizabeth Line and Docklands Light Railway trains full of visitors celebrating the show’s relocation to the Capital.
Organisers are seeking to grow the iGB L!VE attendance and, in the process set another record for the event. The 2024 edition, which was the last to be held in Amsterdam attracted 9,788 unique attendees, surpassing the 7,299 at iGB L!VE 2023 and was nearly double the 5,022 at iGB L!VE 2022. The 2025 edition of iGB L!VE will be the biggest on record, providing attendees with access to over 22,000 sqm of product innovation and inspiration.
Claire Williams OBE, the former leader of the Williams Formula 1 racing team and one of the most prominent and successful women in F1 history provided the iGB L!VE 2025 keynote.
Exploring the best practice parallels which can be drawn between the data-driven worlds of F1 and iGaming, Claire Williams noted: “There are a number of ways that Formula 1 can inspire businesses and provide tangible takeaways for iGaming operators of all sizes, from product innovation to navigating entry into new markets. As well as key requirements such as having a dynamic leadership, a culture of continuous improvement, hiring the very best problem solvers and being the first to embrace technology advances, F1 also demands the organisational agility that’s necessary to nuance strategy in what is an ultra-competitive space. “
Described as the TED of iGaming, iGB L!VE features a mix of highly practical case studies, data presentations and panel discussions on best practices across operators and affiliates. Topics include innovations in in-play betting, how to use IP and branding to protect competitive advantage, integrated marketing and SEO strategies, how to build links when no one wants to talk about gambling, as well as market dives into LatAm, UAE and Italy. The full programme can be viewed at:https://www.igblive.com/event-schedule
The post iGB L!VE opens in London appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
Latest News
THE BATTLE OF POLYTOPIA ANNOUNCES GLOBAL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS WITH $10,000 PRIZE POOL
Midjiwan, the award-winning independent studio behind The Battle of Polytopia has today announced The Polytopia World Championship with a prize pool of $10,000 USD and a live final broadcast from Stockholm.
The Polytopia World Championship is set to launch this fall, uniting players from across the globe in an epic showdown of fast-paced strategic mastery. The tournament will be themed to Battle of the Tribes. Players will choose to compete with one of Polytopia’s 12 in-game tribes; each with a unique regional theme and skillset.
The tournament will begin with open qualifiers, giving everyone a chance to prove themselves. From there, players will advance through tribe-specific playoffs and head-to-head elimination rounds, each match bringing them one step closer to glory.
The top six players will earn a spot in the live finals in Stockholm on December 6: an in-person event streamed online for fans worldwide. In addition to live commentary of the tournament, the fan event will also provide behind-the-scenes content from the Midjiwan team.
The winner will be awarded a prize pool of $10,000; making this tournament the biggest competitive event in The Battle of Polytopia’s nine year history.
Christian Lovstedt, CEO of Midjiwan AB, commented: “This marks a major new step for Polytopia’s competitive scene, featuring a fresh tournament format and enhanced broadcasting that makes it even more exciting for viewers to watch, learn, and get inspired by the world’s top players.“
The matches will be played on the Polytopia Official Space on the Challengermode esports Platform.
The planned dates are:
September:
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Sep 13–14
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Sep 20–21
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Sep 27–28
October:
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Oct 4–5
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Oct 11–12
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Oct 18–19
November:
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Oct 25–26
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Nov 1–2
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Nov 8–9
Nov 22–23
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Faceoff
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Final Qualifier
Dec 6
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World Championship Live Event
The post THE BATTLE OF POLYTOPIA ANNOUNCES GLOBAL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS WITH $10,000 PRIZE POOL appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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