iGaming Daily

Andrew McCarron (00:00.206)
Hello and welcome to Dear CEO, a limited series from iGaming Daily. I'm Charlie Horner and I'm joined by IGP CEO Jovana Popovic-Cinaki, who will answer all of your questions related to the iGaming industry. Recently promoted from Deputy CEO to CEO, Jovana has a wealth of experience and will answer the biggest and most burgeoning questions that iGaming operators have. Hi Charlie, thank you for having me. It's an amazing first day of ICE.

New ice, not London, Barcelona ice. New venue. New venue, it's amazing and looking forward to this series. Fantastic. maybe just to start off, could you tell us a little bit about your background and your career so far that has sort of led you into the position that you're in today? Everything started with pure luck, really. You know how it is. When we grow up as kids, we don't...

dream of or even think of, I'm going to work in the iGaming industry, I'm going to run an online casino. We dream of things like I want to be a lawyer, want to be a doctor. So for me it was a really, really pure chance. My background is in finance and I actually got a job in the accounting department.

of one of the biggest producers of construction pipes. wow. Yes. Straight after NBA, I was supposed to move there. I had like four months or so. And while that move was kind of ongoing, I was a bit bored. So I got myself a student's job in customer support department in an iGaming. I was an operator at the time. And

And I just stayed. I loved it. It was the closest place that I got to players, really, to talk to them on a daily basis and understand. And from then on, was a series of different operational jobs. I worked as a cashier. I worked as a risk manager for quite a few years. I call it on the ground with the players.

Andrew McCarron (02:23.042)
And then at one point I joined Oryx Gaming, which is today known as BRAG Gaming Group. I spent quite a few years there. It was amazing. It was an amazing experience. We built really great B2B solutions at the time that are still here and catering for a lot of operators and their needs.

And then at one point it was time for me to take on a new challenge. I packed my bags, I moved to Malta. It's been four years now. I worked for Aspire Global, which is today part of Aristocrat Interactive. It was a VP partner success there, looking after the clients of Aspire Global. Also a very memorable experience. I love every day of it.

And then I guess all of this over the course of 17 years almost, and I know it sounds a lot. It does. All the stars aligned and it was time for me to, I think, join IGP. You know, I've been following the company for quite a while and I saw this massive potential which is out there and here I am. Fantastic.

And you've recently taken over as CEO after a few months in the deputy role. And it's a really exciting journey that you've been on and coming into this new role this year. What are your biggest goals for this year for IGP? What's your vision for the company? We had a bit of a restructure last year in 2024. We decommissioned the B2C. It was and it is part of the strategy where IGP is today.

a pure B2B provider. So 2025 is going to be a lot about establishing more and further. IGP in this sector is a pure B2B provider, but also lot of exciting stuff is coming. The roadmap is full, thanks to our CPO and CTO, of course. It's there and a lot of exciting stuff is coming. We're going to be

Andrew McCarron (04:43.864)
We're finishing the refactoring of the platform, a super important project that has been ongoing for over a year now. We're building on top of one of our youngest products, iGaming Deck. So we're further building the gamification layer on top of it, the spinning the wheel feature, the jackpots, tournaments, achievement system and a few.

others that I will keep as a secret for now. Crypto solution. So we are offering one of few B2B crypto solutions out there. And last but not least, and I'm very excited about this one, is the retail and Omni Channel. This is the brand brand new product. We are actually launching it today on ICE. Exciting. Super exciting.

And yeah, I mean, that's it. And then we're just going to bring all of those products into the markets to clients and then ultimately for players, of course. Great. Well, it sounds like a really exciting year on the cards. Just wanted to ask, what do you think the biggest industry trend of 2025 is going to be? I wish I had the crystal ball.

I don't really think it's going to be any new trends as such. It's probably going to be continuation of the trends we've seen in the last couple of years, know, building on top of it. And it's not as much as a iGaming industry trend. It's more a global trend that we need to adopt more into the iGaming, and that's AI and crypto world.

So when it comes to AI, I need to make some prediction, know, probably more exploration in the personalization using the AI to get to know the players and their habits and to be able to really create a personalized solution to the player, not to the...

Andrew McCarron (07:04.11)
segment or micro segment of players, but to exactly you and me, you know? And then in terms of AI, I would love to see better utilization in chatbots. Because this would massively help the customer support teams, which is as we learned where I come from. I think this would...

for sure be one of the areas. And then when it comes to crypto, I'd love to see NFTs more in the industry, put closer to players, maybe in their achievements so that they can use the NFTs in the full achievement system. But we'll see. We'll then explore it maybe at the end of the year.

They're the multi-million dollar questions, aren't they? So we'd love to know those answers. Just to conclude then, we're looking to start this podcast to help operators and other professionals solve issues and challenges that they're having. Why do you think it's important to offer this help and why did you want to get involved in a project like this? Funny enough, I don't see it as help. I see it as sharing opinions.

If you look, if we look at the iGaming industry, we have B2Bs, B2Cs, affiliates, PSPs, like there is a lot of different players within the industry. And we see the ultimate most important part of it, which is player, we see it from all different angles. asking questions, sharing opinions and maybe

bringing up debates, hot topics, or just topics will definitely help us understand certain things better and from different angles. And who knows, maybe we incentivize and a few ideas will be born. Absolutely. Well, Ivana, thank you very much for joining us for this first episode. And thank you very much to the listeners for listening and watching this episode. We will see you again in the next episode of Dear CEO.