The success of running an online business depends largely on the technology behind it.
This rings especially true if you’re in the online entertainment sector, where regulations, tech innovation, and customer preferences intersect on a daily basis.
For Novibet and its Chief Technology Officer, Yiannis Stavroulas, having a forward-looking vision today of how your business will look like tomorrow is no longer a challenge, buts an opportunity to stand out.
As it turns out, it’s not about building the tech around your business anymore, but rather building your business around the tech. Prior to visiting SBC Summit Lisbon later in September, he gave us a detailed peek under Novibet’s hood and the engine of a tech-first gambling business.
Having joined Novibet as CTO earlier this year, Stavroulas says he found a company with high ambition, a clear growth trajectory, and a tech stack that is prime for creating competitive advantages.
“Coming from enterprise technology consulting, I have spent many years helping enterprise customers transform the way they build technology by scaling engineering and delivery organisations, designing operating models and enabling teams to perform at a higher level while growing professionally
“That is exactly the kind of challenge I found at Novibet,” Stavroulas adds.
“Another important factor was the opportunity to move from building technology for customers to building and evolving our own technology platform. In consulting, there are natural constraints that come with client environments and priorities.
“Here, we own the platform as well as the roadmap. We have the opportunity to innovate continuously and see the direct impact of our decisions on both the product and the business.”
Building competitive advantage through technology
Technology, as it turns out, is not considered purely a supporting capability, but rather as the business itself, Stavroulas argues. He often describes a digital operator’s platform as the left hemisphere of its brain, with content forming the right. Both need to work seamlessly together, but without a strong technological foundation, sustainable growth simply isn’t possible.
That level of technology ownership gives operators greater flexibility to adapt and evolve as business needs change. For Novibet, having your own proprietary platform opens up a myriad of commercial advantages to leverage when scaling globally.
“At Novibet, our greatest technological advantage is that we have built and continue to evolve our own proprietary platform,” Stavroulas added. “It is fully owned, cloud-agnostic and designed with security, observability and compliance embedded into its architecture from the outset.
“That gives us the flexibility to serve multiple regulated markets through a common technology backbone while adapting quickly to local regulatory, payment and business requirements.”
Strong technology, however, is not enough by itself. It goes hand-in-hand with competent engineering teams that ensure the four pillars of a competitive platform are being structurally added to the foundations of every commercial strategy.
Stavroulas said: “Strong engineering teams, supported by the right organisational model, are what enable us to translate market opportunities into reliable products quickly, while maintaining the resilience, security and quality standards expected from a global platform.
“A competitive platform is defined by four key characteristics: stability, performance, agility and scalability. The combination of proprietary technology and the people behind it allows us to manage all four of them without compromises.
“We can integrate new content providers quickly and efficiently, while at the same time building and managing key capabilities in-house, such as trading, odds, selected markets and the algorithms that power them. This level of ownership gives us far greater control over both innovation and execution.
“Ultimately, this combination of technology ownership, engineering excellence and organisational capability is what allows us to innovate continuously and scale sustainably.”
How Novibet found AI’s true potential
Today’s discussion around innovation in tech often revolves around artificial intelligence. And while the gambling sector is not an exception to this rule, Stavroulas argues that there are two distinct layers to the conversation.
“Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly the biggest force shaping the industry today, but I think it’s important to distinguish between two distinct dimensions,” he adds. “The first is AI in the product itself, and the second is AI in how we build the product.
“On the product side, AI is making richer personalised experiences possible. It allows operators to deliver more relevant, context-aware interactions for each player while also improving areas such as fraud detection, risk management and customer support.”
One product-related example Stavroulas points to where AI exceeds is the chat response times and efficiency. This is further elevated by the ability to create intelligent personal assistants that adapt to each individual player’s profile, history and preferences.
“On the engineering side, I believe the real opportunity lies beyond simply adding AI tools to existing development processes. We need to rethink how software is built altogether. This is not like replacing a horse with a motorbike; it’s closer to replacing that motorbike with a rocket.
“To unlock AI’s full potential, organisations need to redesign their operating models around AI-first ways of working, rather than simply augmenting traditional processes with new tools.”
Innovation meets regulation
AI as a concept has long moved from being just a buzzword, now that there is quantitative evidence to measure the effectiveness of AI-powered tech stacks.
For Novibet, this success is measured across a number of business-critical processes that have been strengthened with the embedding of AI capabilities.
“Today, our AI models support capabilities such as fraud-ring detection, risk profiling, early VIP identification and churn prevention, running continuously across multiple markets.
“Interestingly, some of the most valuable applications of AI are completely invisible to the player. They improve the quality and consistency of decisions, increase operational efficiency and enable teams to respond faster and more effectively behind the scenes.”
That is why Stavroulas is preparing Novibet for the future by building an AI-native organisation, where the question shifts from ‘Are we using AI’ to ‘Are we adapting our processes and organisational models to operate effectively in an AI-driven ecosystem’.
But alas, innovation can only be explored within the limits of regulation. This, of course, puts a temporary lid on what can be achieved in the meantime, however Stavroulas sees those limits as a “natural ally” when building a sustainable environment.
He adds: “Of course regulation constrains innovation, just like traffic rules limit our travelling
speed. But both exist for the same reason: to create a safer and more sustainable environment for everyone involved.
“A market without effective regulation is ultimately shaped by the most reckless participant, and that rarely benefits the industry in the long term. We’ve seen similar patterns across many sectors, from social media to consumer products.
“In gaming, regulation plays an equally important role because responsibility, transparency and player protection are fundamental to building trust and creating experiences that remain positive over the long term. For Novibet, this is what success looks like, and regulation is a natural ally.”
Facing the reality of regulatory limitations – something that the black market is not bound by – leaves licensed operators relying on one important differentiator, being trustworthy and respectful.
“Competing in a regulated market is about consistently delivering an experience that players can trust,” Stavroulas says. “That means operating with transparency, responsibility and respect in every interaction. Ultimately, trust is one of the strongest competitive advantages a licensed operator can have.”
Novibet at SBC Summit Lisbon
Stavroulas and Novibet will share all of their tech and market insights with attendees at the SBC Summit Lisbon later in September. For the CTO, the greatest value that comes from the event is the opportunity to exchange ideas with like-minded peers and explore the different perspectives of what is shaping the online entertainment industry today.
“Given the pace at which our industry is evolving, events like SBC Summit provide an opportunity to step back from day-to-day execution, consider the trends that will genuinely shape the next few years and have meaningful conversations with partners, suppliers and industry peers. Those discussions often become the starting point for the next wave of ideas and partnerships.”
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SBC Summit is one of the world’s largest gatherings of betting and gaming professionals. Taking place in Lisbon, Portugal, from 29 September-1 October, the event will bring together 40,000 attendees from across the international industry.
The event encompasses three days of learning, networking, and discussion, alongside a major exhibition featuring leading brands from around the globe.
For more information and tickets, visit sbcevents.com/sbc-summit