iGaming Daily

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The global economy has certainly seen better days, even before the current events in the middle east, but oil prices are surging and stock markets are down. But that hasn't stopped two prominent iGaming operators from putting their hands in the pockets, taking some pennies out of their wallet and making an acquisition. Both Kaizen Gaming and Betson have hit the headlines this week as they bolster their global operations through M &A movements. The former has acquired AI trading modelling firm Gameplay.ai. while the latter has purchased Rhino Entertainment Group's Canadian B2C operations. So why are these two operators acquiring companies in these turbulent times and what does it tell us about the state of global gaming in this transformational period? Welcome back to iGaming Daily, supported by Optimove, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement solution for sports betting and iGaming operators. I'm Charlie Horner and today I'm joined by Joe Streeter, editor of I Gaming Expert and Ted Orme Clay, editor of SPC News. Joe, thanks for coming on the podcast today. How's it going? well good, Charlie. Thank you ever so much for having me. A really interesting show we've got today. Yeah, interesting times. Your uh negative economic outlook at the start there was quite a bit, yeah, we're ready to go. Some interesting developments in the gaming industry for sure. don't mean to be a negative Nelly, just reflecting the harsh realities. Ted, how are you? Yeah, I'm all right. Thank you, Charlie. Come down to London to visit some of our London colleagues and their relatively new but still shiny new office. m yeah, checking out, went to an event with Alwyn last night. m Yeah, doing all right. Very good. Well, a big headline from the industry this week is that Kaizen Gaming has acquired Gameplay AI, a sports trading analytics firm. I guess this is part of their plans for, you know, planning ahead for the World Cup and their trading for the World Cup. But Joe, maybe you could kick things off by just outlining the terms of this deal, really. Yeah, I mean, the framing is interesting, right, that it could be a boost to the World Cup operation. But I'm sure we'll get into that. But uh generally, it's just an uplift of their technological capabilities. AI-driven sports trading and analytics provider. Very interesting. think it taps into the evolution of betting, the potential statistical growth of the way players make bets in 2026 and the modern era. uh How trading has evolved as well. And I think it does present a very interesting question for World Cup trading specifically. around how much is automated, how much still relies on the human touch. But yeah, an interesting deal and it just shows the focus on leaning into AI, collaboration between AI and sportsbook platforms. Ted, this reminds me a little bit of when uh Entain purchased Angstrom Sports a couple of years back and we know that that's been pivotal for Entain's trading strategy. over the last couple of years and really helped them in the US with the MGM. Just generally, what are your thoughts on this deal and how do you think it's going to help Kaizen going forward? Kaizen Gaming are a very ambitious company, think. They've been embarking on an international expansion lately. I say lately, for the past few years. They've obviously been targeting Latin America quite heavily. They've established Batano there as one of the leading brands, one of the biggest brands in Brazil, as well as a decent presence in some other pretty big Latin American markets. We've also seen them going towards Africa lately as well with a recent launch in Ghana. So I think they clearly have quite a big international scope and want to connect with a lot of different markets. And as you mentioned, the world Cup this year will be a pretty big opportunity for them to really maximize fan engagement and push their product out there during what is the world's most viewed sports event across all the different markets that they're involved in. I think this acquisition of an AI uh trading company, a tech trading company, will be quite significant to that because it's a good way for them to make sure their pricing and their odds stand out. from others, you know, perhaps responding quicker to, um, to, to on-pitch changes and things like that on-pitch dynamics, um, offering customers, um, uh quicker odds and things like that, quit Barrett, which would maybe in play experience better. Um, I'd imagine they've probably got that on their mind at the moment. You know, Kaizen are also a company, uh, say Kaizen specifically, Batano are a company that's quite well connected to the football space. They have quite a big visibility there. They were obviously, I believe they were the first ever official betting partner of a World Cup back in 2022. And they've also partnered with UA for tournaments. I think I partnered with the Cup of America as well in Latin America. So the, I think that the combination of that sort of focus on football across a lot of these international markets that they're focused on. underpinned with an AI trading platform they've just acquired, that's going to be quite a good boost to their strategy. look, we know how important trading is for any operator during any tournament really. It's essentially the fundamental of operating a sportsbook, right? But I think during this World Cup, we know how important it's going to be for operators. margins are going to be razor thin this year in regulated markets. We know that there's more stringent regulation. We know that taxes are much higher. I guess, Joe, do think this could be a really pivotal play for Kaizen? What is a crucial period and what is going to be a really important tournament for all sportsbooks? I think the thing you miss out on there, Charlie, when you're kind of emphasising the importance of this play or, yeah, the the importance of balance going into this World Cup is the expansion of teams, And I think my approach would be, and I could be wrong, know, but my approach would be that you definitely need that human touch when it comes to trading with the expansion of teams. uh Even if I'm not talking about the World Cup, and we know, you know, the World Cup is the big event, it's definitely bigger than the tonight's football. recording this on Thursday. The biggest event for bookmakers is the next big event, And the next big event is the Europa League and the Conference League. If I'm looking at that expanded European format, the amount of teams now from, you know, all over Europe, some really interesting places, clubs have to travel to some, yeah, all across Europe to play football. There were real unique conditions. real unique elements that um mean the human touch as well as AI is vital when it comes to trading. There are things that AI just couldn't detect in terms of trading. I think that's a really interesting factor that you can't be solely reliant on. Not saying that Kaizen are, of course, but um I do think it presents an interesting question around the balance between AI and the human touch when it comes to sports trading. That will, of course, be escalated at the World Cup because there are more teams in there that are unknown quantities. They're bringing various different elements to the tournament that you perhaps couldn't take into account. Where are they in their season? How preparation has been? The climate that they're playing in, different things like this. That comes into force tonight with the Conference League, where it's a full spectrum of interesting, weird, wonderful European teams. And I love to see it also at the World Cup when you've got Yeah, you've got some real interesting teams coming in, making their first appearances at big tournaments. Yeah, some real challenges. in terms of the margins as well, we know those margins are tight, but I think for the World Cup specifically, now I'm talking, you know, the margins during the early stages of the tournament, if you lose out in the early stages for an operator, I think when... um the games tighten a little bit in the latter stages and you get to the big matches, get to the quarterfinals, the semi-finals and it's the two big teams going up against each other. I think you end up recouping that anyway. I think it comes back um having lost on the games where the margins are tighter and the volatility is a bit higher in the earlier stages, if that makes sense. absolutely. Ted, how would you look at this one? Because it's obviously something we've spoken about a lot recently with taxes going up, know, that's going to be the next couple of weeks in the UK. We've seen it in Europe. The World Cup could be absolutely pivotal, couldn't it? So do you think that AI is potentially going to be the way out, the way to improve those margins? So I know that this is going to sound like maybe not a broken record, but I'm just really good at saying what a lot of people say and, you know, I'm going to use a uh that terminology that we're all too familiar with from the various conferences we've been to. The AI isn't a silver bullet to solving oh any issues you've got. Artificial intelligence is a tool at the end of the day, and like any tool that needs to be used correctly and leveraged properly and used intelligently in its own right by the people who are using it, it's... You can't just expect it, oh, we're just going to slap some AI into our sportsbook trading and that's going to sort everything out. That's going to make our pricing more dynamic or whatever. That's going to improve our flexibility. think Joe touched on this a bit earlier where he said, you you still need that human element to it. You really need to have a combination of both, I think, and for people to make sure that obviously the AI models are properly trained to be adaptable and so on, to be versatile. to make sure that any AI discoveries and so on, or analysis of odds of trading volume of on-pitch development and so on are implemented properly into the product and into pricing. em There's a lot of different factors to consider. think operators will obviously, I Kaizen are clearly em considering it quite significantly as part of their strategy for this acquisition. You you mentioned earlier as well, Charlie companies like Entain have done similar things. had their acquisition of Angstrom Sports back in the day. They also were doing a lot of investments, I think, in emerging tech. AI was one of them. were also looking at VR and NFTs when everyone was hyped about NFTs a few years ago. em think, know, Flutter, obviously very tech investment heavy. It is inevitable that AI is going to be playing a bigger role in sports books. I think people would be a bit naive to think that that's just going to be the thing that sets them apart. That's going to be the thing that saves the day during the World Cup, which is going to be as always an incredibly competitive tournament. one, like you said, Charlie, in certain markets, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and so on, companies are competing against each other in very difficult regulatory and financial circumstances, financial costs, referring to the taxation problems. Yeah, I think one prediction I would make ahead of the World Cup is we know the margins are tight, uh but I think the operators that can stand out are going to be the ones that can give a little, just give a little bit more when it comes to bet builders. I think bet builders are very much, know, weighed in the favour of operators largely. They're a great product for operators. But I think the operator can give a bit more when it comes to bet builders. I think the operators that can give just a little bit more can just edge bet builders a little bit further in favor of the customer. I think we'll have a real advantage because we know how attractive bet builders are to players, especially in games where they are kind of, you know, single player driven. You you're focusing on one star from each team um or the clubs. uh the countries in this case, right, are a little bit lesser known. I think the operators that can weigh it slightly a little bit more can just give a little bit more for bet builders, can give a little bit more in terms of bet builders, will have a real feasible advantage. And that's maybe where AI can come in. I think they can, you know, crunch data, can take a closer look at the analytics and can find where they can, yeah, allow a little bit more room on bet builders. Fantastic. Ted, Joe, we'll take a quick break and we'll come back and we'll talk about what Bettson's doing over in Canada. Welcome back to iGaming Daily. Today we're talking all about M &A and Kaizen isn't the only operator to make an acquisition this week as Bettson has announced it has acquired Rhino Entertainment's B2C entity in Canada. Ted, we'll come to you first on this one. Could you give us the terms of the deal sheet and just introduce to the audience what this story is all about? So Rhino Entertainment are a, they're an international company. I think they're headquartered in Malta. They've been active in a number of different markets. They've obviously been in Canada and specifically Ontario since the market launched in, was that 2023 it launched, it? Or was it 2022, 2023. They're active in both B2C and B2B. By the looks of it, I think they appear to be winding down some of their B2C activity. They withdrew from the UK last year in a of one of quite a prominent move there. That was even ahead of the tax debates, I think, before we even really had a solid notion that we were gonna see some increases in gambling tax in the UK. So that was clearly something they've been considering for some time. So what they've done is they've sold their B2C portfolio to Betson, I'm about to B2C portfolio, sorry, their Canadian B2C portfolio. So that's assets, licences, all activities, the staff who are working for them in Ontario will now become Betson staff and so on. I think this is quite a significant move for Betson really. I didn't expect this from them just yet. Quite a big move in Canada. Although guess when you consider a lot of the factors at play over there, maybe it shouldn't be too surprising given, you know, what's the forthcoming expansion of the Canadian market. Yeah, just a couple of brands that Rhino has includes Casino Days and Lucky Spins. I Casino Days is their flagship brand. Joe, why do you think Bettson have decided to make this move in particular? They've got a bit of a history in North America, right? So why have they decided to... that Rhino Entertainment is the operation that they need to acquire. I would imagine it's, and you know, you're right to mention kind of the previous approach in North America has been kind of tentative. You know, they've always maintained the, know, wait for regulatory clarity, wait for regulation clarity. But the previous approach has been kind of tentative in North America. But yeah, it seems like they're ready. The timing's right. They're ready to kind of put their foot on the gas. And I would imagine, you know, this is part of a wider strategy to boost that Canadian footprint. We know they already had a presence in Canada, but this really feels like the right move to bolster that presence and, yeah, just take a kind of, it also underpins a wider sentiment around the North American market that this new avenue has approached now, this new dawn for North America through Canada, which is very interesting. I wonder if... this kind of approach will be replicated by other operators that have previously mainly been big em in Europe and Latin America. Ted, we know that Rhino has an Ontario license. We also know that they have a presence in other Canadian provinces in those grey markets. And we also know that Bettson has an Ontario license. And I think Bettson previously had a presence in Colorado, I think it was, to em I think that was more of a play for its B2B operations. So how do you view this through the lens of Bettson's presence on the North American continent? think it's interesting to clearly see some more prospects in Canada than the US. I think it's probably quite obvious as to why that would be the case. know, America, as we mentioned in this podcast many times before, the United States, I'll say just so we don't get confused, sorry, the United States has become an effective duopoly dominated by Fanjul and DraftKings. who have, I'd probably guess, way above two thirds of market share. em A lot of European companies have, for understandable reasons, tried to flock to the US since the repeal of PASPA back in 2018, but not many of them have successfully done that. Bet365 is probably one of the big outliers there. But you know, Betfred, they experimented in lots of different states and ultimately decided to withdraw Tipico to set up there. then ultimately their platform in America was sold to MGM Resorts. Bettson, like you say, have a bit more of a limited history, a of a tentative history, as Joe said. You mentioned the launch in Colorado. I think, like you said, Charlie, they were probably eyeing up America more as a market for their B2B assets rather than B2C ones. Whilst in Canada, it's very different. We've seen quite a few European companies establish themselves there. I think Bette Victor are there, Tony Bette are there, then obviously Bettson and RhinoBette have just acquired something. Obviously, they're using the acquisition of RhinoBette as a way to expand their presence and their visibility there via M &A. And we, as you mentioned, Charlie, Brown about, he has, has a presence in other Canadian provinces and the gray markets sort of areas there. And very soon we're going to get Canada's second regulators, multi-licensed betting market in the province of Alberta. That's obviously a big moment that a lot of the industry are, um, eagerly awaiting as of any, any big market launch, but given the success of Ontario. people are understanding, very eager to see some activity in Alberta. I think Betson are trying to set themselves up for uh a much stronger foothold across Canada via this takeover. Yeah, I think that's the crux of this story, isn't it? Alberta is on the way. We're expecting that market to launch this year by the nature of the fact that it's a grey market at the moment. don't exactly know. the data of who's leading in that market or who's some of the top players in that market, but perhaps Bettson feel like Rhino Entertainment's assets perhaps have a strong position and can give them some valuable customer data in Alberta. uh Joe, what do you make of this in terms of, we know that Alberta is on the way. We know that lots of operators are going to want to go in there and perhaps replicate that success in. in that we've seen in Ontario as well. Gives them a strong step in, right? And this is a casino acquisition in Alberta, right? This is not a sportsbook acquisition. Primarily, they run casino, online casino brands, yeah. Okay, interesting. I mean, it's a strong strategy, isn't it? And I think, um you know, any way you can kind of get ahead in Alberta, it's going to be such an opportunistic market for operators. I'm very interested to see how it plays out. think it's a strong acquisition, a strong move. Excited to see the next developments. Excited to see how that kind of race for market share looks like in Alberta. It's not going to be easy, is it? But I mean, the acquisition of Rhino certainly gives them a, or the acquisition of these assets from Rhino certainly gives them a head up and they've got good experience in the market already. uh Yeah, very interesting. Alright, well unfortunately we've run out time there Ted, Joe, but thanks a lot for joining me today and talking about these two acquisitions. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in to today's episode of iGaming Daily and join us again tomorrow to keep up to date with all the latest global gambling news.