A new breed of challenger brands is emerging in regulated markets in Europe, striving to carve out market share while maintaining adherence to the strictest regulatory regimes in the industry.
In this roundtable, we talk to operators and providers to examine the approaches they are taking to keep customers engaged, as brands aim towards sustained profitability against the odds.
Micheál Deasy, Marketing Manager at boutique sportsbook 3et, Christos Zoulianitis, CCO at slots and live game shows provider ENJOY, and Bjørnar Heggernes, Chief Commercial Officer at platform provider The Mill Adventure, take a look at the current state of play.
How do you assess the landscape for challenger brands in the industry, within mature regulated markets where the biggest operators have a stranglehold on market share?
Micheál Deasy: The big brands clearly have a huge hold on mature markets. But I still think there is room for challenger brands, as long as they are not trying to be smaller versions of the market leaders.
For a brand like 3et, the plan is not to outspend the biggest operators on TV, sponsorships or the most competitive search terms. It is about finding the areas where bigger brands have left gaps for certain types of customers.
In markets like Ireland, many of the long-established operators have moved towards a very broad, one-size-fits-all product. There is a lot of focus on gamification, cross-sell and higher-margin products like request-a-bets or pre-canned multis.
We think there is a clear space for more focused brands that cut through that noise. For us, that means serving serious bettors who care most about strong odds, margins and meaningful betting limits.
Bjørnar Heggernes: In many regulated European markets, the dominance of well-established operators is often built on massive legacy databases and historical brand awareness that often translates across from the land-based industry. However, maintaining market leadership requires constant evolution and complex, multi-layered infrastructures can sometimes make rapid pivoting a challenge.
We see the landscape as a great opportunity for brands that prioritise operational efficiency to gain a competitive advantage. This can be achieved by automating manual processes and utilising real-time data to make quicker, smarter decisions that have a tangible impact on the bottom line.
Instead of competing solely by aiming to match the vast marketing budgets of leading operators, modern brands are claiming market share through hyper-relevance.
By utilising advanced tech stacks that prioritise data insights and local appetites, operators can identify and serve niche segments more efficiently than a broad reach strategy of trying to be everything to everyone.
Christos Zoulianitis: Mature regulated markets are highly competitive, but they are not closed. While leading operators benefit from scale, brand equity and substantial marketing power, that same scale often limits their ability to move quickly. Challenger brands are increasingly winning opportunities in that space.
Success is less about competing head-on and more about precision; focusing on defined player segments, localising content and offering a product that feels genuinely different.
Regulation, often seen as a barrier, can actually level the playing field by standardising certain aspects of the experience. This elevates the importance of product quality, UX and innovative content as the true differentiators.
Challenger brands that are disciplined in their positioning and clear about who they serve can still capture meaningful share, even in saturated markets.
What role can providers play in providing innovation to amplify engagement, particularly for under-served audience segments?
CZ: Providers sit at the intersection of product development and player experience, which gives them a crucial role in supporting challenger brands. Content remains one of the most effective levers for driving engagement and retention.
Innovation shouldn’t be limited to new mechanics or features; it should start with relevance. That means developing experiences tailored to specific player cohorts, whether through theme, volatility, pacing or hybrid formats that blend slots, live casino and event‑driven gameplay.
These formats can appeal to players who feel underserved by traditional products by offering something both familiar and distinct. For example, ENJOY’s Energy Roulette shows how reimagining a classic table experience with dynamic, event‑driven features can amplify engagement and attract players seeking something fresher and more interactive.
By collaborating closely with operators, providers can shape content strategies that align with player needs rather than relying on a one‑size‑fits‑all catalogue.
BH: Platforms and providers need to move away from being strictly utility vendors to becoming strategic growth partners, committing to fresh approaches and innovation. For instance, we believe that for under-served audiences, the one-size-fits-all lobby is no longer fit for purpose.
At The Mill Adventure, we provide the heavy lifting through AI-driven tools like SmartLobbies. The core of this approach is personalisation. Just as SmartLobbies ensures the gaming content is relevant to the individual, this same philosophy of relevance must extend into loyalty and CRM.
By automating relevance, a brand can offer a compelling experience without needing to lean on a massive internal CRM team. A perfect example is our recent partnership with Winz.nl in the Netherlands.
They have introduced WinClub, a loyalty concept that mirrors the personalised nature of our lobbies by replacing aggressive push marketing with a player-initiated model. By providing the technical framework for players to flexibly choose their own rewards, we help the brand build trust through tailored experiences.
Micheál Deasy: For serious bettors, innovation is not always about adding more features. It is about making the core product better. That means fast and reliable pricing across the markets that matter most; winner, spreads, totals and other high-volume lines along with strong uptime, clear rules and the ability to get a proper bet on.
For our audience, engagement comes from trust. They want to know they are getting a strong price in a fair, professional betting environment. Providers that can deliver that level of reliability give operators a real chance to build long-term loyalty with valuable customers.
How can platforms help challenger brands to stay flexible enough to adapt to sudden changes in local regulations?
BH: Regulatory environments in Europe can be volatile, with sudden developments driven by changing political tides. For any brand, a change in deposit limits or advertising standards can impact operations if their platform provider is slow to react. To deal with these concerns, modern platforms need to be built on modular, compliance-centric architecture.
Our approach is to ensure the core of our platform is jurisdiction agnostic. This inherent flexibility ensures we allow partners to adapt and stay ahead of local requirements, such as the KSA standards in the Netherlands, without worrying about a potential licence breach. We update the platform centrally, allowing our partners to stay focused on their brand and marketing.
MD: Entering a market like Ireland, and looking ahead to further European expansion in 2027, means the platform has to treat compliance as part of the product, not something bolted on at the end.
The challenge is to meet local requirements around areas like KYC, AML, deposit limits and responsible gambling without making the customer journey feel clunky or slowing down the sportsbook.
That is where a modular platform becomes important. It allows an operator to update local requirements in one market without having to rebuild the whole product.
If the platform is compliant, flexible and localised enough for each market, it gives the operator more room to focus on what makes the brand different. In our case, that is sharp pricing, strong limits and a sportsbook built for serious bettors.
CZ: Platform flexibility is essential in regulated markets where requirements can shift with limited notice. Challenger brands need infrastructure that enables rapid adaptation without operational disruption.
Modern platforms should be modular, allowing operators to adjust compliance components, configurations and content availability on a market-specific basis; whether that involves responsible gaming tools, reporting requirements, certifications or localisation.
Equally important is the ability to integrate or remove content quickly, update promotional mechanics and refine user journeys as regulatory conditions evolve.
In this way, platforms act not only as technology providers but as strategic partners that underpin an operator’s agility and resilience.
Finally, how optimistic are you that operators approaching the market from a slightly different angle can truly succeed in these markets?
MD: We are very optimistic. I think the industry is moving towards more specialisation. The large, supermarket-style betting brands will always have a place, but not every customer wants the same experience. There is a growing audience of bettors who want something more focused and more straightforward.
Our move from an invite-only model to a regulated public sportsbook in Ireland reflects that belief. We think there is demand for a different type of operator.
In mature regulated markets, success now takes more than a licence and a marketing budget. A brand needs to give customers a clear reason to choose it.
For 3et, that reason is simple: we want to be a high-limit, value-led home for bettors who understand the markets. If a challenger brand knows exactly who it is for and uses the right technology to serve that audience well, it can succeed by owning a part of the market that the biggest operators are not really built to serve.
CZ: There is plenty of reason for optimism, as long as differentiation is meaningful and consistently executed. Simply offering a slightly altered version of the dominant model won’t deliver long-term success.
However, operators that rethink their engagement strategies, content mix or brand positioning can create genuine traction. We’re already seeing growth from brands focusing on community-led experiences, deeper gamification layers and alternative content models.
This shift is positive from a provider’s perspective, too; it encourages closer collaboration and innovation with a clear purpose. While achieving sustained profitability in mature markets is challenging, it is far from unattainable. Operators with a strong strategic vision and the right technology and content partnerships are well-positioned to succeed.
BH: We are very optimistic. There is plenty of evidence that the era of growth at any cost is being replaced by the era of sustainability, operational efficiency and player-centric growth, which can only be good for the industry as a whole.
Operators like Orange Gaming and its Winz.nl brand are proving that if you lead with transparency, responsible gambling, and a high-quality user experience, players can and will migrate.
Combine a strong, local brand vision with a high-performance tech partner and a compelling product offering and things start to become much more competitive for the agile operator.