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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
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Have got your passports at the ready? Business cards on queue? Have you left a bit of space in your suitcase for branded goodies? Well, good if so because iGaming is getting ready for the first conference of 2026 as we descend upon Barcelona for ICE. But before that, iGaming Daily is going on a European inter-ailing trip, bringing you a roundup of industry affairs from across the continent. A quick stop tour takes us through this week's developments in Portugal, Estonia and Romania. And then we'll conclude our tour in Italy as it completes its first month under a new regulatory regime with a very different outlook for stakeholders and competitors. So welcome back to iGaming Daily. This episode is brought to you by Optimoof, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement solution for iGaming and sports betting operators. And if you are heading to ice, make sure to stop by Optimoof stand in hall four. I'm Charlie Horner and today I'm joined by SBC Media's editor-at-large Ted Menmure and the editor of SBC News, Ted Omclay. Ted Em, how's things? Are you ready for ICE? Got your bags packed yet? No, but I've done my LinkedIn badge, so... Very good. Full of confidence, yeah. No one really knows if you are attending ICE unless you put it on LinkedIn after all. Ted OC, how's things? Yeah, pretty good mate. Yeah, getting stuff scheduled in for ICE. Still got a couple of empty slots here and there on my calendar. So if anyone listening needs to have a meeting about something, eh hit me up. You know where to find me. And yeah, tomorrow I'm picking up a new suit as well to break out of the conference. So you'll see me using the halls of ICE as my own personal catwalk, know, dazzling everyone here, there and everywhere. So yeah, keep an eye out for that as well. Well, if... If didn't want to meet Ted before, you'd definitely want to meet him now in his shiny new suit. It's going to be looking sharp. All right, let's get into things because we had this episode ready and scripted. And then, like earlier in the week, we got hit by some breaking news. uh Michael Duga has left the BGC, the Bettering Gaming Council, as the chair. Early thoughts on his departure and... some reflections on his, on his tenure at the BGC over his time as a CEO and chair. Ted M, do you want to go first on this one? Well, as you said, this is breaking. So Michael Duga has announced that he's ending his 60 year tenure. Four of those were served as CEO to them as chair. And I think, yes, he did parts in the year of transition for UK gambling, especially with the tax judgment, as we all know. How will he be viewed? um It's, I think it's been a really difficult job that he undertook. And in part of the, was successful in terms of kind of unifying the UK government's interests and the way that they were presented to parliament and the government. I don't think we got the end results we wanted. However, this is such a kind of political industry and you know, these things has to be kind of judged with nuance. We wish him luck. was certainly very approachable and always reached out for a quote. Will Ted O'See, em it's been a very difficult time to be the lead of the advocacy group for UK gambling. It's been a very tough period for the sector as we've chronicled extensively. How would you reflect on Duga's tenure? As you've both alluded to, he's been a very defining figure in the British betting industry in what have been some very significant years for it. Yeah, he's had a very at times unenviable task of spearheading the betting industry's political engagement during some really testing years. Obviously, his tenure oversaw the COVID-19 pandemic and all the pressures that lockdowns put on retail betting and land-based casinos and horse racing and so on. The gambling app review that started off during that and lasted what, two and a half years from 2020 to... em early 2023, really significant overhaul and examination of Britain's gambling regulation. So obviously he was tasked with representing the industry's responsibilities throughout all of that. And then, yeah, as chair, along with Granya Hurst, as CEO, he's obviously been representing the industry's case during this whole tax debate that Ted mentioned. we obviously we know where that's come up, how that's resulted. em for the industry with the tax rises coming this year. yeah, he's just a very defining and important figure during a pretty significant time for this industry. Yeah, we wish Michael well for his next move. Let's head over to Estonia now, Ted M. And listeners might remember that we spoke about Estonia before the holidays, where there was going to be some tax cuts. for online gaming and we sort of posited maybe this is a great sign for Estonia and it can really challenge the likes of Malta and Gibraltar as a hub of iGaming for Europe. I don't think they would have expected this kind of tax cut though. What's happened? It seems like there's been a little bit of an error. Okay, so on Tuesday, the finance committee of Estonia communicated out to media that it had essentially kind of bodged articles drafting the legislation of the Gammon tax plan in which it referenced online casinos as games and skills. Now under other articles in the Estonian statute, games and skills is separate to online casino. I think it reflects kind of poker and other types of games and not necessary casino and slots. So had that been processed by the end of the month, that would have mean that online casino was exempted. The treasury state that it is aware of the fault and it's correcting it now. It should be implemented by the end of the month. However, I think kind of the wider story is that Estonia will pursue its year on year tax reduction on gambling licenses at a B2B level, bringing it down from six to 4%. Again, This is one of the principal kind of economic policies of the liberal coalition, which seeks to bring in kind of new investment and has targeted the gambling sector in which it seeks to domicile businesses as new enterprises within Estonia's economy. And following kind of a razor thin vote in 2025, it will proceed with that mandate. It's certainly a market to look out for. in 2026. Yeah, we'll be keeping a close eye on Estonia and I'm sure Ted Osee and the rest of the team will be covering extensively on SBC News, but yeah, it would have been really interesting if they'd completely abolished online gambling tax. That would have gone really against the grain for Europe. That would have been some explaining. Yeah, certainly would have done the job of attracting companies to set up there though, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. If you want to create a big booming industry overnight with lots of people involved, I'm sure that's good way of getting them in. Might not work out too well sustainably in the long run, but you know, good way getting people in the door. Yeah, well, certainly an interesting news line and something worth mentioning on here because it was a little bit interesting. But let's head over to Portugal now, Tadossi, because a slightly concerning story which does sort of follow the mould of some of the other stories that we've seen across Europe over the last couple of years because Betway has announced that it's exiting Portugal. em What's the story here and are you somewhat surprised by this news or was it something that you were expecting? I wouldn't quite describe it as concerning maybe. I don't think this is particularly anything out of the ordinary for Supergroup seeing on what they've done previously. They're a company who seem to be very very good at monitoring markets, where they're getting a good return, where investment is paying off, and they're good at allocating resources and looking into the future, which market is gonna be highest value for us, where should we allocate resources and how should we cut costs to find those resources. uh I think what they've done here is they've probably just taken a look at Portugal, which I think in the grand scheme of things is won't be one of Betway's biggest markets, certainly not in comparison to the UK. Like I said, we've seen before Supergroup em counting its losses and assessing the situation in other markets, bigger ones in Portugal, like the US is obviously the biggest example, Like a lot of European companies, they went into US in the following repeal of PASPA and em in the long run decided it wasn't worth it and they wanted to focus elsewhere. The super group CEO uh Neil Menash has also told us before that the company sees a lot of prospects in Africa. So that's somewhere where they're to put a lot of investment as well. So there's a good chance that they might have taken a look at Portugal and then were gone. The money we're putting into running Betway Portugal might be paying off. Let's allocate it to African investment, for example. Obviously another element to this is, and I'm being speculative here, could be that with the UK being one of their core markets and the taxes going up here quite significantly later this year, they might be thinking of where can we um soften the blow by reducing our international costs um because they will want to keep the UK as a core market. Obviously, despite the taxes, it's still going to be quite a big one. So there is that element to consider as well, maybe. But yeah, I wouldn't say it's too surprising or particularly too out of the ordinary for Supergroup. know, with it being, as I said, a company that has always kept quite a close eye on market developments, future prospects and where things are paying off. M, how would you reflect on Betway's strategy for 2026 and this early bit of news? I'm not really surprised like Ted. I think that, you know, from the interviews we've had with Betway, they always make it clear that they won't kind of fast to start a wise. And they're not afraid to kind of take tough-to-fit decisions on existing markets as they did in the US and Germany being the other one. And I think this is exactly how the company's structured. It can spend in markets, but if it just doesn't see a positive outcome, it will retreat. Okay. Let's end this sort of whistle-stop tour of Europe with a quick note on Romania, because it's a market that we've already mentioned on the show. this year, Ted M. Plenty of disruption in Romania, we've chronicled that. But does it still seem like an attractive market for operators and suppliers alike to be licensed? It certainly seems so, both in the B2C and B2B. Yesterday, kind of tier one platform provider, IGD, said they'd gain a license for Romania and that kind of views kind of that transition as a point of where it can kind of gain new... operators. Look, however dysfunctional Romanian gambling is growing year on year, there is a potential to take market share and also the fact that the reorganisation will likely see a transition for B2B and software. think that many kind of view this as kind of fertile ground and one where they can get kind of quick traction in. certainly a big market in that Eastern Europe and Balkan region. Certainly want to keep an eye on with all the other movements that happen in there. Ted, Ted, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back and we'll talk about Italy where we've got a little bit of data which might tell us a little bit more about the new regime over there. Welcome back to iGaming Daily. We're going to take a look at Italy now because as we know, Italy reshaped its online gambling market at the end of 2025 and we've got a little bit of data from December. So let's... Let's break down the numbers and see what it tells us about Italy for the foreseeable future. Ted M, could you give us a little bit of an idea of the background of the new regime and then a little bit about the headline figures as well? OK, I just want to warn the audiences that this is, you know, we're kind of for December, which is the first full month of Italy's new online damning regime in which it is now welcoming 46 online licenses. across casino and sports betting. And the initial figures by the Customs and Monopolies Agency, ADM state that it has been a stable but as anticipated start. Online casino is still very much the growth child or the growth engine of Italian gambling and in which the period saw a SPEZA, which is the calculation it's GGR. plus one or two transactions and that accounted to 33.333 million euros in spend. And that reflects an 18 % year on year increase. Again, from the first month, we're starting to see the shape up of the Italian casino market. And that is led by Lottomatica followed by Flutter and its vast kind of armada of brands that it has acquired in. in Italy. But however, if you actually look at kind of the other brands coming in, there's a lot of kind of competition, a lot of movement there. You got kind of EuroBet, I've obtained 888, ePlay Group, which is led by by a group of Thurser, Ed Stark Casino, which is the challenger of Betson. And that's had kind of a quick momentum and quick market share getting in the market. So it kind of the indicator now is that they as the casinos kind of localize create more local content for Italian, I do view that because this casino segment is likely not only to pick up but to actually be vastly transformed in the coming months. it seems like a positive start for the new regime and I think the number of brands that you mention there and the type of names that we've got goes to show how big a market that Italy is. It is one of Europe's biggest uh markets alongside the UK. Good numbers on the... casino side of things, but Ted O.C., is there a need to be a little bit concerned over the sports betting side of the market? em Maybe. mean, the declining figure of 18 % is quite significant. I think as Ted said, we should be very mindful of the fact that this is only month one of this new market. Bug makers are going to be adjusting to the new requirements of it, to the new dynamics. So there is that factor in. So I wouldn't say we shouldn't be panicking just yet. I think people should give it a bit more time and wait and see. The adjustments could clear and we could start seeing this 18 % figure start to flip back around. But yeah, for the start it is a uh little bit off putting, I would say. Obviously Italy is a country as well. It quite strict marketing requirements. which obviously limit both casino and bookmakers. But when it comes to bookmakers, some of the traditional avenues of working with sports clubs and things like that are obviously off the table. So that could be a lingering factor that is impacting the sports betting side of things, perhaps. think just one thing that has to be said is that they expect a much higher adjustment period or transition for sports book because The number of licenses has declined from 200 active to 60 um to the 49 mentioned. So that's a huge adjustment for the customer. They're still kind of finding their ways through kind of the new regulations and rules applied to the market. Yeah, because that's because of the rule, what is it, that every company can only have one license per domain. Which is significantly, as you said Ted, the size of the market and the number of bookmaker websites that are out there for customers to use. Yeah, so just to clarify the numbers on the sports side, there was a 4 % decline in betting turnover, but a nearly 19 % decline in betting spend. you know, interesting numbers, early days, we'll keep an eye on that as the months go on and we reach the summer where the sporting action will really kick into gear with the World Cup. You know, in these early days, do we see the... Maybe there's a bit of a duopoly coming into play in Italy. Lottomatica and Flutter. Ted OC, how would you read this? mean, yeah, so Lottomatica has obviously retained his leading position. It's, as Ted mentioned in his article, is one of the traditional big boys in Italy. And then, yeah, Flutter came in with the acquisition of Cicel, obviously, a few more years ago, and have now really bolstered their position last year. I was about to say this year, I'm still adjusting to this 2026 Malarkey man. em Yeah, really solidified their position last year with the acquisition integration completed of Snite. em So set themselves up pretty dominantly as well in that market. It is something that has been observed by stakeholders for prior, even prior to this em market reorganisation that Italy. There is the risk that Italy is becoming a market for just sort of the big boys only and part of that is often, a reason is often cited for that is the marketing restrictions that I mentioned earlier where smaller companies and mid-sized companies will struggle to stand out em in the more traditional marketing spaces against some of the bigger giants like Flutter and Lottomatica. So there is that risk here. Ted, is that something, what's your opinion on You you raised good points. mean, I think, look, there are caveats to both Lottomatica and Flutter's lead. Lottomatica is a heritage brand and it has to now kind of go through that generational transfer of its own, you know, bringing its land-based custom, customership online. And then I think with Flutter, this really comes down to how good they are at integrating SNI and CISAL, these, you know, multi-billion acquisitions that they've done out in. the Italian market. Flutter, the leadership of Flutter has made it clear. It's going up for number one position in Italy. It's paid an immense amount of money to get there or to be in those ranks, but it won't settle for anything else. However, I think that from those kinds of disruptions, are kind of points in the market where smaller brands can come in, especially on the casino level. certainly something that we should come back to on the podcast as we get more and more data because not only is it just interesting from an Italian point of view to see how that market develops, but could also show us a little glimpse of what we might see in the UK in terms of if we see a hollowing out of that mid-tier or the smaller operators, we could see more consolidation for those top brands. perhaps something that UK operators can learn from as well. Before we wrap up, And the ADM has obviously changed this regime, changed the market, but that's not where they're stopping. There's several projects coming later down the tracks this year. What's on the agenda and why should we care? So the ADM is, you know, really kind of turned the page on its governance of Italian gambling. And now with the kind of blessing to the Maloney government, it's, think I'm to just point to one. one project when you get on with it, it's the protective shield of Italian licenses. And what it's doing, it's going to work with Soji, the police force and the ADM, you know, to coordinate efforts to launch a network protecting Italian gambling of software solutions and software, you know, very much on kind of customer verification, financial transactions, ensuring that black market cannot encroach in Italian gambling. Now the reason again, it is, you know, investing heavily on this project is to protect a gambling market that generates circuit kind of 8 billion a year for the state treasury. And I think that this is a project that should be followed by all kinds of regulatory stakeholders because it's very kind of progressive in how it views gaming in the positives of gaming and taxation and why it's such a good. needed vertical for any government. Well, there are plenty for us to dig into throughout the year. Something that SBC News, iGaming expert will report on extensively. We are running out of time, Ted and Ted, but considering we are heading to ICE next, it will be remiss of me not to ask you as two of the sectors, you know, more reputable journalists, what's the number one question? that you're going to head to Barcelona wanting the answer to. Oh man, that's difficult. A bit of a general one, but I'd just be interested in hearing about how uh operators in particular are looking at navigating what is going to be a pretty uh significant year of adjustments across a lot of core markets. There's going to be a lot of different factors to take on regarding taxation, regulation, political developments, macroeconomic factors that are going to lead to some quite big strategic decisions, I think, and considerations. So I'd be interested in hearing how people are planning to navigate that landscape. Ted M, what's your Jeremy Paxman-like question that you're going to be hitting operators and regulators with next week? Okay. So reflect the look. I I've just been on, going back to my fan court with regulators. And one thing that everyone's in accordance with is that this is a really critical H1 period for gambling. And especially in what directions and what strategies the operators are going to initiate and you're to trigger in this period. So it's kind of all kind of the guesswork of, know, what do these guys need? Where are they pointing to? And what's the leadership saying? It's so hard in the end, man. It's so hard to kind of call. And the other thing is that I also, know, I still, in terms of European game, I can't kind of thread the needle here and like find the kind of underlying narrative. I just don't want to say, hey, it's cost controls again. I think that there's a lot, there's something a lot deeper in there. think it points towards kind of more strategic leadership and independent thinking. Brilliant. Well, you know, get in touch with the team if you've got a story or you want to chat with the chat with the guys over anything that you've got going on. To our audiences, make sure you wear a raincoat. Yeah. The weather forecast doesn't look great. So yeah, stay safe everyone. But Ted, Ted, thanks very much for joining me today for this European tour and thank you again to the listeners for tuning into today's episode of iGaming Daily and join us tomorrow to keep up to date with all the latest global gambling news.