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SBC Summit 2026 Day Two: Inside the Black-Market Battle, AI Investment Shift, and the Customer-First Future

By jili tutorial · October 1, 2026

SBC Summit 2026 Day Two: Inside the Black-Market Battle, AI Investment Shift, and the Customer-First Future

The SBC Summit 2026 rolled into its second day in Lisbon, with the SBC News team — Ted Orme-Claye, Patrick Killeen and Ted Menmuir, alongside colleagues from iGaming Expert — filing updates from the show floor. The day covered a wide range of topics, from the rapid rise of prediction markets to the growing influence of AI on investment decisions, plus a robust debate about advertising, licensing and Europe’s fight against the black market.

Day two wrapped at 5:40pm local time, with one more full day to go. Here is a deeper look at the conversations, quotes and themes that defined the day.

A Conference at a Crossroads

The SBC Summit has become one of the most important meeting points for the global iGaming industry. In Lisbon, operators, regulators, investors and suppliers are confronting a fast-changing environment: new products are emerging, new technologies are reshaping cost structures, and regulators are responding with both fresh frameworks and outright bans.

Day two showed how those forces are colliding. The most urgent battle is no longer just about market share — it is about the very legitimacy of the industry. From Swedish channelisation fears to Danish calls for Big Tech cooperation, the threat of unregulated black markets loomed over multiple panels.

Putting Customer Journeys Ahead of Products

One of the recurring themes of the day was that digital-era operators must stop thinking in terms of individual products and start designing complete customer experiences. This is especially true for lottery operators, who are trying to modernise their image while staying relevant in a competitive entertainment market.

Veikkaus: “If you are not already building customer journeys, you are already too late”

Kirsi Lagus, Chief Product Officer at Veikkaus, delivered one of the day’s most direct messages: lottery operators must prioritise the customer journey above all else if they want to survive in the modern digital ecosystem.

“If you are not already building the customer journeys, you are already too late.”

Lagus argued that a focus on products alone is outdated. Instead, operators should map the entire experience a customer has with the brand — from discovery and registration to payments, play, and responsible gaming interactions.

“My advice to anybody would be instead of focusing on products, focus on customer journeys. That will be the key to success, putting the customers first.”

Veikkaus is not just talking about theory. The Finnish state-owned operator has embraced digital transformation aggressively and has even expanded into the B2B side of iGaming through its subsidiary Fennica. That move shows how lottery organisations can evolve from traditional national operators into commercial technology and content providers.

Allwyn: Digitisation Yes, But Humans Remain in Charge

Allwyn is another organisation that has leaned heavily into digital transformation. Savvas Iliopoulos, Responsible Gaming & Player Protection Expert at Allwyn Hellas, said the next five years would bring even more digitisation across the industry. But he was quick to caution that technology is not a silver bullet.

“Of course, AI helps us make our job better but it is not the solution. A model is powerful, but it is not perfect. The final decision needs to be taken by an expert. You need to build up the relationship between the customer and the company.”

This is a crucial nuance. As AI becomes more embedded in player protection, there is a temptation to believe that algorithms can solve responsible gambling challenges automatically. Iliopoulos rejects that assumption. AI can flag risks, surface patterns and support decision-making, but human judgement is still needed to make the final call.

The wider point for the industry: digitisation and customer-centricity must work together, and neither replaces the need for genuine human relationships.

Prediction Markets: The Hottest Investment Theme With a Compliance Catch

Prediction markets were one of the clear talking points of day two, with a dedicated Prediction Markets Forum scheduled for the third and final day of the summit. These platforms, which allow users to trade on the outcome of future events, are attracting serious investor attention — but also serious regulatory risk.

Why Investors Are Piling In

Tom Waterhouse, Chief Investment Officer at Waterhouse VC, captured the mood when he described prediction markets as the current “hot industry.”

“Prediction markets are the hot industry right now. Before that it was sweepstakes, and before that fantasy and sports betting.”

Waterhouse noted that his firm has looked at several businesses and evaluated their ability to pivot into prediction markets in order to secure funding. In his view, the key test is not just whether these platforms can launch, but whether they can build durable customer relationships.

“The big test will be if they can retain customers better than their competitors.”

That question remains open. Waterhouse said it is hard to know whether prediction market operators can retain users over the long term, especially while the regulatory landscape is still uncertain.

“It’s hard to know long-term if they can retain those customers, and what the regulatory landscape will look like.”

The Retention Test

Prediction markets have a clear advantage: they are highly engaging, especially around major political or cultural events. But that engagement can be seasonal. A platform may attract huge traffic during a US election cycle, only to struggle to keep users engaged between events.

This is why Waterhouse’s focus on retention matters. If prediction market operators cannot build habit-forming products, they may face the same churn problems that have affected fantasy sports and other trend-driven products.

Yolo’s Polymarket Rejection

Not every investor is convinced. Klen Kaljulaid, Partner at Yolo Investments, revealed that the firm had turned down investment opportunities in Polymarket — one of the largest prediction market platforms — during multiple valuation rounds.

Kaljulaid said Yolo was put off during one valuation because, at the time, Polymarket was effectively operating as a black market operator in what he called “the most dangerous market, the US.”

“Black market operator.”

This is a striking reminder that prediction markets, for all their growth, are not necessarily safe or compliant businesses. In the US particularly, the legal status of these platforms has been contested. For investors, the potential upside is real, but so is the risk of regulatory action that could wipe out the entire market.

Betting Exchanges and the US Model

William Chambers, COO of Smarkets, brought a longer-term perspective to the prediction markets debate. Smarkets has operated a betting exchange for more than 15 years, in a space that closely resembles prediction markets.

Chambers said prediction market operators must be prepared for “a lot of different outcomes due to uncertainties.” However, he argued that the underlying trend is bigger than any single regulatory decision.

“What is really interesting and what won’t go away, irrespective of what the Supreme Court decides or any regulators decide, is this convergence between financial trading and some of these products that we historically thought about as gambling.”

This convergence is reshaping the industry. Products that look like betting, trading or prediction platforms are increasingly overlapping. Regulators have not yet caught up, but Chambers sees potential in the direction the US is moving.

“From a regulatory perspective, it would be wonderful if a similar thing happened to what is happening in the US.”

Smarkets, he noted, has long been a market leader in political betting. If European regulators adopt a more permissive approach similar to the US, the betting exchange model could become even more relevant.

AI Is Now the Centre of Gravity for iGaming Investment

Artificial intelligence dominated the investment conversations on day two. Seasoned iGaming investors made it clear that AI is now central to how they value companies — and how they assess whether a business has any real long-term chance of survival.

Paris Smith: AI Agents End the Age of Spaghetti Tech

Paris Smith, former CEO of Pinnacle and a well-known investor in early-stage iGaming businesses, said AI has become an “unavoidable element” in determining all investments and valuations.

Smith focused on AI’s ability to improve competitiveness and solve legacy technology problems. She was blunt about the current state of many iGaming companies:

“So many in iGaming still have spaghetti tech stacks.”

That fragmented, messy infrastructure has historically forced operators to spend huge amounts of money on integration and delivery. AI changes that. According to Smith, AI agents can now handle complex, manual tasks.

“Now you can use AI agents for those hard deliveries and integrations.”

The result is greater capital efficiency. Founders can do more with less. Smith summed this up with a simple, powerful image:

“Imagine if you only had to raise $750,000 and you could keep more of your company.”

This is a major shift for an industry that has often been capital-heavy. If AI reduces the need for large funding rounds, founders can retain more ownership and build more sustainable businesses.

Tom Waterhouse: Proprietary Data and Distribution Are the Moat

Tom Waterhouse offered a complementary view. He acknowledged that cheaper development makes distribution more effective, but he also warned that investors must now look much more carefully at valuations — “especially those in the USA.”

For Waterhouse, the key question is:

“Product durability and whether businesses possess advantages that survive the AI’s paradigm shift.”

In other words, just because a product works today does not mean it will survive once AI becomes even more pervasive. The true moat is not technology alone.

“We really like looking at businesses that either have got something that can’t be replicated through AI, or businesses that are able to build large distribution channels.”

Waterhouse highlighted professional betting syndicates with proprietary datasets and models as an attractive investment opportunity. These are businesses built on unique, hard-to-replicate data assets. He described them as an area “that has not been killed by AI just yet.”

Yolo: A New Due Diligence Question

Mike Robinson, Head of Investor Relations at Yolo Investments, said AI has become a practical test for whether an investment offers lasting value. That test has changed Yolo’s investment strategy.

“Could AI do this, and could it be replaced like that?”

If the answer is yes, the proposed business is probably too fragile. Easily replicated products may struggle to mature into sustainable companies. Robinson said Yolo is therefore more interested in companies that are applying AI to improve operations — rather than investing in AI laboratories for their own sake.

Founders now need to be able to answer two critical questions:

“What is it actually doing? What is it solving in the business?”

There is also a risk in the speed of change. Robinson warned that rapid innovation can make any investment obsolete quickly:

“Six months later, something new is going to come, and then our investment just sinks.”

This creates a difficult balance for investors: back AI-driven businesses, but make sure they are solving a genuine problem and building something defensible.

Advertising, Licensing, and the Brazilian Reckoning

Day two also featured strong opinions on advertising and the industry’s relationship with regulators. Peter Marcus, CEO of Savvy Hill Marketing and former Entain executive behind the ARC responsible gaming programme, did not hold back.

Peter Marcus: Learn the Lesson Before the Bans Come

Marcus warned that the gambling industry is its own worst enemy when it comes to advertising. If operators do not show restraint, regulators will step in and ban advertising altogether.

“At what point are we going to learn the lesson that if we go completely bonkers … that we need to control ourselves and not get advertising banned? Brazil is the latest.”

His comments reflect a broader global trend. Governments have been tightening restrictions across multiple jurisdictions. In Europe, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain have all imposed significant ad restrictions. Brazil, meanwhile, has gone further — taking the ultimate step of banning advertising while broader market regulation is still pending congressional approval.

For Marcus, these bans are not simply external threats. They are consequences of industry behaviour. If operators cannot self-regulate, governments will do it for them.

The Fair Deal of a Licence

Despite his criticism, Marcus still defended advertising as one of the most important benefits of being a licensed operator. In fact, he framed it as the central deal between governments and legitimate businesses.

“The only benefit of having a licence as opposed to operating from Curaçao, Panama, Anjouan, or wherever is that you can advertise. You pay the tax, you pay everything else, and you can advertise – that’s a fair deal between governments and operators.”

This is a powerful framing. In a world with low-barrier licensing jurisdictions, the ability to advertise legally is one of the key arguments for staying regulated. If governments take that away, they remove the very incentive that keeps operators in the licensed market.

Marcus’s point is not that advertising is bad. It is that irresponsible advertising is dangerous — both to players and to the industry’s own position. The industry must prove that a licence is worth something.

Black Markets, Big Tech, and Europe’s Channelisation Struggle

The theme of the black market returned in a Scandinavia-focused panel, where regulators and operators discussed the growing problem of unlicensed gambling.

Denmark: New Tools Needed to Stop the Black Market

Anders Dorph, Director of Spillemyndigheden, Denmark’s gambling regulator, said regulators are running out of options. He described a coordinated effort to pressure Big Tech companies and called for new measures, especially around payments.

“We have meetings with Big Tech and with my fellow regulators from around Europe, with the gambling regulators of the European Forum, and we are trying to put pressure on Big Tech.”

Dorph made it clear that existing tools are not enough. Payment blocking, in particular, is an area where regulators need more help.

“We are also discussing getting some help on payment blocking because we need to do something new. We do need to do something different, otherwise, the black market in Denmark is here to stay.”

This is a significant admission from a national regulator. The black market has become so sophisticated that traditional enforcement alone cannot contain it. Cooperation with payment providers, internet platforms and international regulators is now essential.

Sweden’s Channelisation Slide

Fredrik Wastenson, Managing Director for LeoVegas’ Nordic operation, raised similar concerns for Sweden. He said he is worried about Sweden’s continuously-declining channelisation rates.

Channelisation refers to the proportion of gambling activity that takes place on licensed, regulated platforms compared with unlicensed operators. A declining channelisation rate means more players are turning to the black market.

This is a serious warning sign. If regulators and operators in Sweden cannot reverse the trend, the licensed market will continue to shrink. That means less tax revenue, less consumer protection, and a stronger black market.

Wastenson’s concern reflects a wider Nordic problem. Even in well-regulated markets, black market operators are finding ways to attract customers — often through aggressive advertising, crypto-friendly payments, or better odds that licensed operators cannot match.

Payments, Social Gaming, and the Digitisation Safety Debate

Day two also included a series of shorter updates that nonetheless pointed to broader industry shifts.

Gigadat’s Move Into Social Gaming

Payments provider Gigadat used the conference to reveal its move from payments into social gaming. The announcement is another sign of convergence in the iGaming ecosystem. Companies that once provided back-end infrastructure are now looking to create more direct consumer experiences, especially in the fast-growing social gaming space.

While few details were given in the live update, the strategic logic is clear: social gaming sits at the intersection of entertainment, gambling mechanics and digital payments, and it offers a way to build engagement without the same regulatory weight as real-money betting.

Immense Group: Digitisation as a Protective Layer

Jesper Kärrbrink, CEO of Nordics-focused online casino company Immense Group, made a point that challenged the usual narrative around online gambling and harm. He believes that increased digitisation has actually helped combat problem gambling and gambling addiction — not the other way around.

This is an important counterpoint. For all the talk about the dangers of digital expansion, digital tools also give operators more visibility into player behaviour. Online platforms can track spending, session length, loss limits, and more. That data can be used to spot problems earlier and intervene more effectively.

Kärrbrink’s argument was still being made as the live update shifted to the topic of advertising — another reminder that many of these issues are connected. How the industry uses digital channels, advertising and data will determine whether it is seen as a responsible partner or a target for regulation.

Key Takeaways From Day Two

What to Watch on Day Three

The third and final day of the SBC Summit 2026 is set to include the much-anticipated Prediction Markets Forum, which should bring more clarity on where this rapidly growing sector is heading. With investors, operators, regulators and technology providers all present, the conversation is likely to continue around the industry’s most pressing questions:

Day two made one thing clear: the industry is moving faster than ever, but it is also facing more complexity than ever. The decisions made now — around technology, advertising, customer relationships and regulation — will shape the next decade of iGaming.