The three-day WLA and European Lotteries Sports Betting Seminar in Stockholm, Sweden, delved into trends in betting offers, how to revitalize sports betting with new technology, and the duty of care of the regulated sports betting industry.
Moderated by Luca Esposito, WLA Executive Director, and Alvise Angelini, European Lotteries, Senior Policy Officer and Sport Secretary, the Seminar was attended by over 100 participants from all five WLA global regions.
Global experts offered valuable insights into the regulated lottery and sports betting world, highlighted successful tools and strategies for enhancing player safety and experience, as well as ways to tackle illegal gaming and combat sports competition manipulation.
WLA Scholarship supports our members
The WLA Scholarship program was established in 2013 to provide a unique opportunity for lottery professionals to share their experiences, learn from peers, and broaden participation and perspectives, at our events. Providing financial support to member lotteries, it encourages lottery professionals from around the world to take part in our events as speakers, and for lottery staff to attend educational events.
With the support of the CIBELAE Regional Association, WLA welcomed Edgar Diaz Salas General Manager of the Social Protection Board (JPS), of Costa Rica, and Cristobal Maldonado Morgado, Head of Product for Sports and Digital Forecasts, Polla Chilena de Beneficencia, Chile, as participants during the event.
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Commenting on his attendance at the event, Salas noted that the WLA's active participation in awarding scholarships to its members was essential for strengthening and professionalizing the global lottery sector. Through these initiatives, the WLA not only promotes equitable access to high-quality training programs but also encourages the adoption of best practices, technological innovation, and compliance with ethical standards. He further highlighted that by investing in the development of human talent, the WLA helps its members be better prepared to face market challenges, foster social responsibility, and ensure the sustainability of the industry for the benefit of the communities they serve. Salas concluded by thanking WLA for the experience he gained from this opportunity.
Trends in betting offers
Sweden
Fredrik Wastenson, CEO of Svenska Spel, highlighted the positive effects in Sweden since reregulation in 2019. The result has been five percent average annual growth of the licensed market, greater diversity of games available, clearer responsible gaming (RG) rules, and strengthened consumer protection within the licensing system in a market driven by online casino and sports.
Global overview
Christian Kalb, Managing Director, CK Consulting, France, provided a deep dive into navigating the worldwide sports betting landscape in which sports betting is growing fast, comparing trends in diverse countries, regulatory updates, and illegal operations aided by cryptocurrencies. Kalb also ran through the 2025 WLA/EL survey and thanked participants with interesting key findings, including:
- Sports betting is still fastest growing gaming market thanks to mobile
- Key market drivers: mobile app, payout optimization, live betting
Italy
In a market with high mobile phone usage, the imperative social media channels and more sports available for betting, Cristiano Cinotti, Head of Risk & Trading, Sisal ran through the sports betting market in Italy and how to anticipate change and recognize early signals through the right strategies and tools, by:
- Continuously monitoring and analyzing all performance metrics and gameplay trends
- Doing regular customer surveys and encouraging customer feedback
- On Demand launched 8 years ago, was developed to capture customer needs in real time, and spot emerging trends in new sports, markets, and gaming experiences before they take off.
Monitoring sports betting
Jens Nielson, Business Development Director at Sportradar, Denmark, talked about a full circle approach: for lotteries to stay true to values of RG, stay cost effective with flexible solutions and remain relevant and follow customer trends. Online betting has transformed sports betting and forced regulation, being a service that knows no borders. Sports happens in the real world and brings passion and excitement from bettors. Live betting is the dominant factor in sports betting and drives a lot of innovation.
The Netherlands
Thomas Landheer, Managing Director I-Gaming, Nederlandse Loterij, examined how betting operators can connect with the next generation of sports fans by embracing emerging media formats and interactive experiences. He offered some tips for understanding and capturing Gen Z bettors.
The challenge â the need to rethink how to tap into new sports, and types of betting on offer. Gen Zers:
- follow individual athletes across teams and leagues on social media platforms. Possible solution: build player pages covering everything the athletes do wherever they play.
- prefer interactive, user-driven content.
- consume sports via social platforms (almost 90%) such as Instagram and tik tok.
New opportunities highlighted, covered influencer led football leagues and sports built for spectacle, such as, drone racing league, as well as direct betting for new formats or custom betting for new sports.
Other ways to attract Gen Z bettors includes creating opportunities to engage without wagering, for instance:
- free to play games - fantasy drafts or pick the MVP contests.
- gamified content - polls, and leaderboard participation within livestreams to foster interactive engagement.
- influencer activations - co-branded social media challenges with team predictions or score-based trivia.
Revitalizing sports betting with new technology
This part of the event provided plenty of food for thought on how to use AI technologies to enhance and scale up sports betting operations, make them more profitable, and deliver to the next generations.
Austria
David Selig, Head of Operational Excellence & Data, Head of Operational Excellence and Data, Tipp3, Austria, underscored that data lies at the heart of their strategy, and shared how his tenacious team's work to develop a solution called the Skill Estimator, to tackle bonus abuse, using player data, to see if customers are cheating the system.
The tool quickly identifies and removes business-damaging customers and:
- Maintains and expands profitable customer relationships.
- Evaluates customers in seconds instead of 15+ minutes.
- Scales operations without a linear increase in staffing.
- Provides employees with a clear, high-quality, decision-making progress.
- Data over gut feeling is fully automatable, easy to implement.
AI panel
Moderated by Olivier Haine, General Manager, Scoore, Belgium, Kris Saw, CTO, Kambi, Sweden, George Drihoutis, Trading Director, OPAP, Greece, Joe Plunkett, Head of Sports Personalization, VAIX, a Sportradar Company, UK, and Sam Depoortere, SVP Product, OpenBet, Greece, the panel discussed bet building, security and trends, including the next revolutionary way customers could place bets using agents.
Brazil
Daniel Romanowski, CEO of Lottopar, Brazil, shared some interesting insights into the Brazilian market, recent evolution in regulations, opportunities for lotteries and suppliers, and the status of sports betting in ParanĂĄ.
The responsible regulated market
This block was kicked off by Christian Kalb, with another in-depth analysis of how regulation is the key to unravelling the complex links between markets, illegal betting, and risks for society.
Innovation
Stefano Caneppele Phd, Professor of Criminology and Deputy Director at the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Lausanne (UNIL) explained the key project undertaken by WLA and UNIL to establish a scalable and transparent methodology for estimating the illegal gambling market. It aims to:
- Provide a transparent and scalable firstâlayer methodology for an accessible annual estimate of the illicit gambling market in a country.
- Allow a preliminary rough country estimate using readily available data to provide an initial sense of the size of the illicit gambling market.
The project pools global expertise from the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities, Interpol, Council of Europe, American Gaming Association, Federal Bureau of Investigation, H2 Gambling Capital, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Yield Sec, and Christian Kalb Consulting.
Norway
Per Einar Karlsen, RG Senior advisor Norsk Tipping, discussed some of the preventive RG and match fixing education for athletes done by Norsk Tipping. He noted that clubs must address gambling, put policies in place and talk about the different issues to raise awareness among the athletes and all employees. An effective communication was to have athletes speak to athletes about different aspects, including recognizing early signs of gambling problems, accessing and setting personal RG safeguards, taking care of players with the signs and seeking help.
Greece
Savvas Iliopoulos, RG expert, explained how OPAP is leveraging AI for Proactive excessive play identification with its Safety Net Algorithm, designed to estimate the probability of future self-exclusion for each customer. This is based on customersâ playing behavior criteria of playing frequency, spending, daily escalations, loss/win reactions and abnormal escalations.
It has also developed a Responsible Gaming Email Detection Robot, which handles RG-related emails 15 times faster than any other incoming emails, to increase protection of vulnerable players.
France
Antoine BĂ©ghin, Director of Sponsorship & Sports Integrity, FDJ United, explained how it is possible to effectively combine competitiveness with the protection of sports competitions.
France combines market openness with strict regulation for a controlled, secure and responsible sports betting environment. Online betting continues to grow. Key tips:
- Prevention is at the heart of the integrity strategy, FDJ plays a key role in coordinating efforts to inform, train and engage all stakeholders in the fight against manipulation.
- Prevention tool kit provides details of who to contact and if you know or suspect match fixing.
- Engaging athletes to promote integrity is very important â FDJ & French Basketball Federation.
- Monitoring competitions is essential in the fight against manipulation.
- FDJ has an internal monitoring system and realtime analysis of betting activity and reports qualified cases to national authorities (National Platform) and international partners such as ULIS.
- FDJ works with international partners â the CoE Group of Copenhagen - a network of Nationals Platforms and other stakeholders INTERPOL, IOC, FIFA, UEFA, and ULIS.
The result: a sports betting market far less exposed to the risk of match-fixing according to The Group of Copenhagen (GoC) and ULIS Annual Reports.
Morocco
Sara Jdily, Digital Marketing Manager, La Marocaine Des Jeux et Des Sports (MDJS), highlighted the journey at MDJS with Morocco Omnichannel in the sports betting market to enhance playersâ experience in an evolving digital environment. Player behavior was changing in a betting ecosystem under pressure with a fast and competitive digital landscape. With new illegal players entering the market, the line between legal and illegal offers has blurred. MDJS used its strong retail network and built new digital tools to provide a smooth, safe, trusted player journey between the app and shops.
Developing omnichannel with the app raised sports betting revenue by 31 percent between 2023 and 2024.
Integrity/Responsible gaming panel
Moderated by Gilles Maillet, President of ULIS, the panelists offered interesting insights:
Simon Pedersen, Chief adviser Illegal gambling, Match-fixing and Market statistics, Danish Gambling Authority, Denmark noted a focus on improving data use and handling many alerts to increase prevention and protect athletes.
Andreas Arver, Integrity Officer, Svenska Spel, Sweden described the main objective is to protect sports, through educational sessions, funding integrity officers in national sports associations, and building campaigns about match fixing. He said it was important to be an active voice and reach out to different stakeholders. As an operator putting integrity first is key even if that means saying no to certain offers.
Audrey Bourgeon, Legal Manager, French Basketball Federation, France talked about collaboration with diverse stakeholders, regulators, operators such as FDJ United, French national member of IOC, International Basketball Federation and the use of clearly coded alerts.
Samuel Wahlberg, Coordinator of National Platform, Swedish Gambling regulator, Sweden noted the regulatorâs role was about working together and cooperating with betting operators, sports federations and police investigators.
Gilles Maillet underscored the point that if a lotteryâs country does not yet have a National Platform, the lotteries must take the initiative to begin discussions with authorities to establish one.
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