ChiefsClash | 2 Year Anniversary, NOV 2024

ChiefsClash is two years old! For this occasion we gathered the experts that we had in our very first episode: Nico Jansen, an entrepreneur, speaker and investor, Līga Tarasova, account director at a PR and marketing startup and Tal Zamstein, the CPO of KingsBet Holding.

What will be different in iGaming in the first months in 2025?

• Tal: I think we're looking at an industry that understood that in product perspective there is quite a lot of similarities between many brands in the same territory. So those who will make the difference with the customer treatment will be the people that will benefit or the operators that can take advantages. So I can see a much more emphasis on gamifications, on customer loyalties, systems on things that are that used to be in the past rather in the second row. Nowadays, we have different table tennis, slot machines, 10,000 in the industry in any kind of sort. We've made everything we could do with the sports betting. It becomes very modern, and the aggregation actually gave everyone the access to almost everything in this world but the fact that how you serve this meal to the customer will play a big role.

• Liga: I was thinking the same about platforms. It felt like there was an active time when some of the platforms came up with a cool offer that they're going to have a certain feature or a better bet. And now it starts to feel like, it's user experience that is taking over. It's so interesting that when I started in gambling 7 years ago, it was more Europe. I remember my circles would talk only about Europe, and now it's like Latin Africa, and it feels like it's just opening up. And the knowledge as well is starting to spread. And yeah, it's just a very exciting time to be actually part of this industry, I would say.

• Nico: 5 years in the past everybody was looking forward to this virtual things, and the virtual worlds, and etc. Nothing of these things actually took off. Our industry has always been a quite easy industry with respect to the fact that you could have earned a lot of money with very little knowledge. So there was no need to be super professional. If you just checked some boxes right, you could make a hell amount of money. What we now see is where regulation actually comes into play. I am earning a lot of money until now I need to step up my game. And there you actually see that it's product 1st to keep your customers engaged with your offerings to come up with new solutions. How can you actually onboard a customer. How can you retain a customer? How can you activate a customer?

• Shahar: I want to pick up on gamification and loyalty, since there is a misusage of the term loyalty. And so many technological solutions try to sell you a gamification engine telling this boosts loyalty. However, gamification aims to take advantage of the player attention when he's logged in right now in the current instant and that makes sense. Yes, because to win a player back is very complicated. Loyalty is a long term status and most likely needs to include brand recognition. Next year is definitely the year of gamification. Gamification had its time, maybe 7 years ago. Now it's back, but with a vengeance.